Page 317 of Mario
“You were talking about the baby, yes?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I don't know how. I haven't told anyone.”
“I may,” he says cryptically but doesn't explain.
“I thought they were going to—” I can't finish my sentence. My fingers tense under his.
Then he says, very quietly, “They threatened the baby.”
The fear comes back so fast I taste metal.
“Yes.”
His hand tightens over mine.
I force myself to look into his eyes.
His face has changed.
Still calm, but the softness is gone now. Not from his hand over mine, but inside him.
“What did they say?”
My breath hitches. “Mario—”
“Tell me,” he orders, and even though his anger is not directed at me, I feel it in my bones.
“They said I should go with them quietly or the first bullet would go right into my baby.”
My voice cracks on the last two words.
His eyes practically go black, and I nearly gasp.
For the first time ever, I let myself acknowledge exactly who’s sitting next to me.
Mafia.
The violence being held in by expensive clothes and eloquence is now plain as day.
For one second, I am afraid.
Not of him but of what he will do.
Of how much blood those words have just spilled.
Then his hand lifts from my stomach to my face, and he turns me gently toward him.
“You are safe,” he says.
I want to believe that.
God, I want to believe that.
“I don’t know if I am.”
His thumb moves once against my cheek.
“You are in my house. With me. With my people. With my family around you.”
