On The Ropes (27 page)

Dante strode in front of the chair and tucked his gun in the back of his waistband. “What’d I tell you about not letting him know you were free,
fasso
?”

“I’m sorry, this is my first kidnapping,” I muttered, yanking my other wrist free of the ropes. “By the next time, I’ll be better.”

He bent over his father and checked his pulse. “Soft, huh?” He said a few words in Italian, words I really wish I understood. Then he touched his father’s torn up cheek. “You had a blade on you?”

I shook out my hands and held up Gio’s rosary with shaking fingers. “This. Apparently it’s a blade inside a blade.”

And I’d sucked on it, during sex. That could’ve been problematic.

“
Grazie a dio
. I haven’t seen this in almost ten years.” He pivoted, still crouched, and reached out for it, still around my neck. “He let you have this?” he asked, lifting his gaze to mine in a perceptive way that made me almost as shaky as what I’d just gone through.

I nodded, biting my lip.

“Then you must be truly special to him, for this was our mamma’s and she gave it to him when she was dying. He refused to ever take it off.” Still holding the rosary, he glanced back at his father. “Gio knew something was off with the way she passed. I refused to listen. He was right.”

Not knowing what else to do, I closed my hand around his and squeezed. He glanced back at me, his features etched in shock. “I’m sorry. I lost my mother too young too, and to know it didn’t have to happen…”

He blinked, then nodded. His expression made me think he didn’t encounter empathy often, and didn’t know what to make of it.

He turned his hand over and squeezed mine before shifting back to his father’s body.

God, those poor, lonely boys. Both of them. And it seemed that for years, they hadn’t even had each other to lean on. I would’ve died without Ame.

Oh God, Ame.

“I have to get back.” I wiggled forward on the chair to untie my ankles, and wondered if it was my imagination I couldn’t bend as easily as I once had. It must be, because I was barely pregnant. “Now.”

He rolled his father’s sightless eyes shut and made the sign of the cross. Then he rose. “Yes. There’s nothing left for us here.”

I swallowed hard. “Thank you. For saving me…for shooting him, when you don’t even know me and he’s your father.”

“Obviously I didn’t know him, either,” he said, and began walking away, his footsteps echoing on the concrete. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

Figuring he needed a moment, I gave it to him. Then I walked outside into the sunshine to reclaim my life.

“
D
amn it
.” I clicked off my phone and threw it in the stupid birdbath I’d broken. “I can’t get a hold of anyone. Dante’s phone is going straight to voice mail, and so is Marco’s.”

I’d informed Dante where we were camped out, just in case he happened to find Carly, but hope on that score was growing dimmer with every hour of no contact.

I couldn’t lose her. I just fucking couldn’t.

“Do you expect either of them to confess their misdeeds?” Fox asked.

His mild question made me stifle a snarl. After pulling my whole sordid life story out of me, he’d gone in to check on Mia a few times, and to suggest we call the police if calls to Carly’s cell phone weren’t answered by the end of the day. He’d told her about the dog—and then I had—and she’d stared us both down and shook her head.

“She’s eighteen and we have a note. She must want to start over someplace new with the baby.”

The baby Mia either refused to connect with me, or refused to think about the origin of, period.

I really didn’t want to think about the origin of it, either. Even hours later, I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around its existence. Someone upstairs must be having a grand laugh at my expense.

Or maybe downstairs.

“I expect that I can’t fucking sit around here all day and do nothing.” I shoved my fingers through my hair. “At least Jenna’s back home, safe.”

“Yeah. Maybe now Slater will stop leaving me messages that it’s all my fault for bringing a ‘wolf into our circle’.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Dude, you sure cause a fuckton of problems.”

I rose to pace the few feet around the patio. I couldn’t go back inside that stuffy, airless building and be closed inside with Mia’s pain and confusion any more than I could stand around out here and do nothing. It wasn’t the way I was wired.

“Maybe we should call the police,” I said, surprising both of us. “Someone with resources needs to be looking for her, and goddammit, that’s not me. I’ve been cut off from every network I ever had access to for years, and even if I could use the Andrettis’ contacts, this may be their work. The police are better than nothing.”

“Mia blames herself, thinks she drove Carly away somehow. So she won’t want the police, and right now, I have to side with her. Not because I don’t want to call them, but because she’s right. Carly’s an adult, and we have a note that’s in her handwriting. Until more time has passed, there’s no reason for the police to think she’s in danger.”

“If more time passes, she could be—” I stopped and swore. I wouldn’t say it. Ever. No matter what.

“This isn’t what happened to Emilia,” he said gently.

I balled my hands into fists and pressed them into my eyes. “No. You’re damn sure it’s not. She’s coming back here, and if she really is…if she really is…”

“Pregnant? She is, I saw the stick. I held her while she cried.”

The pain in my chest far exceeded the one in my jaw. “She cried?”

“She’s eighteen, and scared out of her mind. Of course she cried. But she didn’t stay crying. She got right back up and did what she needed to do.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Not have an abortion,” he said quickly, as if he’d read my thoughts. “She decided on her own to have it, fairly fast. But she went back to work and school, and she got back to her life. She wasn’t depressed the last time I saw her, or if she was, I didn’t realize it. She’s a strong girl.”

“Yes. She is.” So much stronger than I’d ever given her credit for. And I couldn’t even be angry at her for not telling me she’d discovered she was pregnant, because I’d brought her into a world that was so dark and dangerous her first thought was to protect her child.

My child.

“You haven’t done the usual panicky guy thing about making noises the kid might not be yours, so I’m guessing you were…active enough with her for you to have no doubt,” Fox said, looking away as if he wanted to be anywhere but there.

“It’s mine,” I said quietly. “I don’t believe she was with another, but even if she was, it would still be mine. As she’s mine.” Swallowing deeply, I sat beside him on the rock-cut wall bordered the patio. “The way we got together—it wasn’t good. We were forced into a situation by some of the men I was with, and…there’s a chance that was what led to this pregnancy.”

He stared at his hands. “Do you expect me to kick your ass or absolve you?”

“I just don’t want to lie to you anymore.”

“Whatever happened, she fell in love with you anyway.” When I stared at him, he nodded. “She told Slater she loved you, flat out. So I have to think that maybe the man you are with her isn’t the face you show the world. And maybe it needs to be.”

I shut my eyes, forcing back the sting behind them. “I treated her so badly. I hurt her, over and over again. I don’t deserve her love.”

“Then I guess you better start making sure you do.” He let out a long breath and reached over to pat my thigh. “I gotta go in, check on Mia. You all right?”

“No. I won’t be all right until I see her again.”

“I hear that.” He walked a few steps, then turned back. “The Anderson girls, they’re tough. So much tougher than anyone gives them credit for. Don’t count her out.”

“I’m not.” I never would.

Alone, I wandered to the edge of the lot. Someone had set a Virgin Mary statue there among the overgrown weeds, or maybe they’d tossed it out. But seeing it in the thicket of bushes, almost as an afterthought, made me stop and take a deep breath. It seemed like I ever did was pray when I needed something, when I’d made a mistake or couldn’t face myself any longer.

Now I was going to ask for one more chance.

I kneeled in front of it and shut my eyes. I started in Italian in my head as I always did, but somewhere along the line, I started speaking out loud. Once I realized I was, I didn’t stop.

If the whole world heard me, even better. I was through hiding how I felt about her.

“She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and not physically. She has a beautiful heart. She loves her sister so much, and she loves
me
. I’ve been broken for long that I didn’t think there was anything left in me worth love. But there is, for her. For her I want to try again. I want to be the man she deserves, even if I’ll never be worthy of her.” I shut my eyes and the dampness there sealed them closed. “All I want is to get her back. Please. I’ll do anything, be anything. Just bring her back to me.”

“Gio.”

At first I thought it was the wind scattering the leaves around me. But I stopped, and I waited, my heart pounding in my ears. I didn’t check to see if she was behind me because if I didn’t see her standing there, I didn’t think I’d survive it.

“Gio.”

The crunch of leaves behind me made me jerk to my feet. I turned around and then she was in my arms, and God, I didn’t know how she’d crossed the distance from there to here so fast but I just didn’t care.

If I was dreaming this, I’d never wake up again.

“You’re okay,” I said, and then my mouth was on hers, and I was okay again too. The air that had been jammed in my lungs for the last twelve hours finally loosened up enough for me to breathe again. “You’re okay.”

She gripped my face and pulled back, gasping, and this time, I didn’t want to chastise her for making that sound. Now it was like heaven. “You were praying for me.”

I grabbed her hands and brought them to my mouth, kissing them while my gaze roamed her face. Her eyes were damp, and bright flags of color were high in her cheeks, but otherwise she looked untouched. “And they were answered.”

Her throat moved. “Because of Dante,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. My brother stood a few feet away, and behind him was Mia and Fox, arms locked around each other’s waists. Mia’s face was blotchy with tears, but she was smiling wider than I’d ever seen her.

“She did a damn good job defending herself too, with Mamma’s dagger.” Dante stepped forward, his eyes grave. “I know the timing is bad, but we need to talk.”

I shifted Carly against my side. “Whatever needs to be said, she can hear too.”

She glanced up at me and smiled faintly. “Whoa, did I get a concussion or something? Because it damn sure feels like I knocked my noggin and woke up in a fairytale.”

“This is how it’s going to be from now on,” I said, tilting up her chin. “You and me, no secrets.”

“Easier said than done, buddy,” Fox said from a few feet away, holding up his hands when Mia elbowed him in the side.

“Father’s dead.” Dante didn’t so much as flinch. “And I killed him.”

I
eased away
from Gio’s side. “I’m going to leave you two alone.”

“No, I want you to stay.”

“You need to discuss this,” I said gently, looking between the brothers. “And I already know how this story ends.”

Gio frowned. “How can you, when I don’t?”

“I don’t mean our story, silly.” I forced back the lump in my throat. “I mean the one with your dad.”

Truth was, I didn’t know what the elder Costas’s death would mean for Dante, or the organization. Or what Gio would do now. Dante would tell him the culprit of Emilia and his mother’s murders, but I had no idea if Gio would just walk away from the Andrettis. Or if he even could. Men like that weren’t real cool with making the choice to split.

But whatever he decided, I would be by his side. I’d been prepared to fight for the place that was rightfully mine, but from what had I’d just witnessed, I didn’t think I’d have to fight all that hard.

Maybe, just maybe, he loved me too. My hand crept toward my pancake-belly. Maybe he’d even learn to love
us
.

But before we figured that all out, he needed to talk to his brother—and I needed to talk to my sister.

“I’ll be right inside,” I murmured, leaning up on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

He gripped my elbows and held me to him for another moment, searching my eyes. Then his thumbs brushed the sides of my belly, and I swear, my heart tried to explode through my chest.

“I love you.” He lowered his head and spoke the words right against my mouth. “I love both of you.”

“You know?” I asked, voice shaking. I guess it wasn’t too surprising someone had spilled it, what with all that had gone on. “Who told you?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You did.”

Before I could puzzle that one out, he nudged me gently toward my sister. “Go on. I know you need time alone with her. And we’ll have all the time in the world.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, still shaken from the fact my big reveal had already been handled. “I love you too,” I said finally, sneaking a peek at the sky in case the heavens opened up and sent a torrential downpour or a plague of locusts or buckets of hail down upon our heads for daring to be so cheeky.

But the sun continued to shine, and he continued to look at me so steadily, taking his time to drink in every one of my features.

“I’ll never get tired of hearing those words,” he said softly.

“Good, because I’ll never get tired of saying them. Come find me when you’re done, okay?”

“I will.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, before glancing at his brother. “Thank you. Whatever you did to bring her back to me, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

On the way past Dante, I impulsively popped up on my tiptoes to give him a quick hug. And shocker of all shockers, he hugged me back. “
Both
, huh?” he whispered in my ear, proving he must have super human hearing. “Congratulations.”

I blinked at him and eased back. This was the first time someone had seen my pregnancy as something worthy of celebration. I hadn’t, either. To hear the word
congratulations
associated with it was like a bucket of water to the face.

In a very good way.

I glanced back at Gio and smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

On the way inside, I grabbed my sister’s hand and tugged her with me. “Sorry, girls only,” I said when Fox tried to follow.

He made a puppy dog face so I laughed and ran back to give him a smacking kiss. “We’ll just be a few minutes, promise.” I patted his chest. “You know, we’ll probably want to talk about our periods and stuff.”

“Never mind then. I’m just fine out here.” From the twinkle in his eyes, he knew I was bullshitting him. He ruffled my hair. “So happy to have you back, squirt.”

“Me too. Love you.”

I smiled and followed my sister down the hall into the former dance studio she’d already begun to renovate. She’d started painting since the last time I was here, though I seriously doubted she was supposed to begin doing that kind of thing yet.

That was Mia, always forging her own way.

And now that would be me too.

“I believed the note,” she said after a moment of silence. She picked up a paintbrush laden with aqua blue paint and just stared at it. “I thought I’d driven you away with my nagging and my unreasonableness.”

“Ha. If that was going to happen, it would’ve happened years ago.”

She didn’t look up.

Sighing, I leaned against the wall beside her stepladder. “You couldn’t drive me away, okay? I’m telling you here and now. There is absolutely nothing you could do that would make me leave you.”

Her throat rippled as she lifted her gaze to mine. Her eyes were still red-rimmed and the sight tugged at my belly. “But you’re going to, anyway, aren’t you?” When I didn’t respond, she let out a dry laugh. “It was always supposed to be me and you, freewheeling in the big city. Or freewheeling somewhere. Single girls, living it up.” She smiled. “Okay, so you’d be living it up. I’d be hiding in my trash can, barking at passersby.”

I didn’t mean to laugh. “You’re not quite that bad.”

“Close.” She studied her paintbrush, blotting gobs of blue on a newspaper. “How long have you been with him?” she asked quietly.

“Physically, just a little over a month. But in here?” I rubbed my chest. “I think since the moment I saw him. I know that sounds corny.”

“No, it sounds like what happened to me.” She sighed. “Stupid boys. Come along and wreck all our plans.”

“They aren’t wrecked. They’re just different now. Look at Fox moving in with us,” I said, dipping my finger into the paint. “That was a little weird at first, now it’s like he belongs there.”

She made a face. “Are you saying someday I’ll look at Giovanni Costas and think he belongs at my table?”

I had to laugh. “Maybe. I hope so.”

“We could get a doublewide sleeping bag,” she said hopefully. “We could make room.”

I cast a dubious eye at my stomach. “Yeah, for how long? We were already going to be using the bedroom for a nursery once Mrs. Knox moves out.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“It’s not like I even know what’s going to happen,” I said quickly, trying to reassure her. To reassure
me
. “We haven’t really even talked. I may be staying right where I am. Maybe nothing has to change.”

Her eyes filled. “It already has, Car. Everything is different now.”

Shutting my eyes, I hooked my arm around her neck and brought our foreheads together. And we stood there, sniffling, for who knows how long until she finally drew back.

“I’m going to be an amazing aunt.” She rubbed her thumbs under her eyes. “I know I started off a little rocky, but I’m going to get it together in the second round and pull off a win.”

“MMA refs? Really?” I teased.

“It’s what I know.” She took a long breath. “And I promise, I won’t threaten Gio’s life until he does something to really piss me off. Like not taking good care of you or the blob.”

I blinked. “Blob?”

“Well, yeah, isn’t that what it is right now?” She frowned. “Okay, yeah, we’ll just chalk that verbal screwup to the fuckups of the past. Tear off a new page on the book, starting here and now.”

“That sounds good to me. Really good.” I smiled and reached out to take her hand. “There is one more thing. I’m guessing Dante filled you guys in on what happened while I was talking to Gio?”

She nodded. “The shortened, sanitized version.”

“Yeah. Well, in the interest of that new book we’re starting and full disclosure…for a while, I worked as a stripper. Not full nude,” I hastened to add as my sister’s mouth dropped open. “Just topless. I made really good money, but I quit. I’m not doing it anymore. From here on out, it’s just the Salad Hut and school for me.”

And mothering.

And girlfriending, whatever that consisted of besides hot sex. That part we already had down pretty well.

Mia cocked her head. “I just have one question.”

Uh-oh
. Here it came. The big one that would send our newfound peace and good feelings swirling down the toilet.

Even so, she was allowed to express her opinion, no matter what. We loved each other, and we’d figure it out.

I licked my lips nervously. “Shoot.”

“I’m pretty athletic and all, but how in the hell do you slide down a stripper pole?”

I laughed so hard that I started to choke. Then I grabbed her and kissed her dead on the mouth. “Don’t ever change. Not even a little.”

“Too late. It’s already happened,” she said with a crooked smile.

A few minutes later, the guys came back in, and Dante said his goodbyes. Fox and Mia soon took off too, leaving Gio and I alone.

For the first time since I’d met him, I absolutely had no idea what to say.

“This is my fault,” he said, when it became clear I’d lost my will to speak. “All of it. I led you to the club that night in the spring, and I tried to push you away, even though I never wanted to.”

“You had your reasons.”

“Yeah, I did, and I let my love for Emilia and my need for vengeance cloud my judgment to the point that I didn’t have any anymore.” He grasped my hands and brought them to my mouth. “For two and a half years, killing Emilia’s father because I believed he’d killed her was all I cared about. Then there was you, and suddenly I didn’t want to die anymore.”

I blinked back the heat in my eyes. “You wanted to die?”

“I never thought of it that way, but I guess you could say I had a death wish. I’d lost so much. The woman I was going to marry, the baby she’d just found she was carrying—” He broke off and stared hard at my stomach. “But she’s gone, and nothing I can do will bring her back. And God, I don’t want to check out anymore. I want this life.” He linked his arms around my waist. “I want what we can be, you and me. I’m not entirely sure what that is yet, but I want to find out.”

“I do too,” I whispered.

“I’m not going to go near The Pyramid Club or the Andrettis anymore. I’m not sure if they’ll let me walk away clean, but because I never harmed anyone in their organization, maybe. I’m damn sure going to try.”

My tears spilled over as I lifted my face to his. “Trying is plenty.” I sniffled. “I still have my throwing stars and pepper spray too.”

I’d found my purse, contents mostly intact, on the way out of the warehouse. The only thing that had been missing was my condom stash. Since I wouldn’t be needing those for the foreseeable future, the thugs were welcome to them. No glove, no love, right?

Well, except in my case.

Gio laughed. “You’re a badass. My brother told me what you did to my father.”

“I’m sorry you lost him. Even though he was a bastard.”

“He killed Emilia, and my mother. God, part of me wondered, but I never let myself think it for long. I wanted to believe he had a limit, and he just…didn’t.” He bowed his head. “Christ, all this time, my vendetta was aimed at the wrong person.”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think the Andrettis are saints either,” I said drily.

He didn’t smile, but close. Considering everything he’d endured recently, I’d take it.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” I murmured. “There aren’t words.”

“You aren’t the only one who is sorry.” His expression darkened. “I’m so sorry that you had to grow through all of that.”

“They didn’t hurt me, much.” I pressed my hand to his scruffy, bruised jaw. “You, on the other hand, don’t look so good. What happened last night?”

“He kicked my ass. Lucky break,” he added, looping an arm around my waist as we started to toward the door. “I told him two out of three, but the pussy won’t take me up on it.” He cast me a sideways look. “Sorry. I mean pansy.”

I laughed harder than I’d laughed in days. “You can say
pussy
around me.” I leaned up on my tiptoes to bite his earlobe. “In fact, I kind of love it when you say pussy to me.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“It’s so. In fact, it turns out I have the afternoon free, and I’d like to learn some Italian, since you and your brother are constantly saying things I don’t understand. Maybe you can teach me that particular word too.”

“I’ll teach you everything I know,
tesoro
.”

I smiled at his back as he opened the door for me. He’d already taught me a hell of a lot, including how to fall in love, even when the timing was wrong, or it was ugly and imperfect.

I couldn’t wait to find out the rest.