Page 63 of The Mafia’s Girlfriend

My hackles rose. Anxiety crept in. He never used that tone with me. “What? What is it?”

“You’re mafia.”

I blinked once, then narrowed my eyes. “What?”

“You’re the son of Marlo Rossini.” He didn’t flinch. Didn’t cringe or stutter. He stated it plainly, blurting it almost, like he’d been struggling not to tell me.

“I’m—” I scoffed. “I’m what?” Of all bombs he could’ve dropped on me, that was the last thing I expected him to say.

“You are mafia,” he repeated slowly. “You are the only son of Marlo Rossini.”

My heart raced. My pulse quickened until the drone of it rushed in my ears.

Mafia? What the fuck?

“Rossini?” I knew that name. Everyone did. I’d heard of the Rossinis just the same as I’d heard all about the Marchese family. Of the top players in the syndicated crime units was Marlo Rossini.

“Marlo Rossini, the boss of the Rossini family, is your father.”

I staggered back a step, knowing he wasn’t lying. I would see the deception in his eyes. I’d never known who my father was, but when I was younger, so stupid and innocent, I’d asked. Of course, I asked. Every kid wondered about his past. My mother could’ve have told me this back then?

Anger lanced through me. The idea that he—and my mother—hid this from me my whole life burned a new layer of wounds on the still scabbing-over scar of never having a father figure.

“What the fuck?” I replied, choking on the words. “You... you think to tell me this now?”

“I have to.” He shook his head, glaring at me like I was the one in the wrong. There was no sign of remorse or sorrow on his hard face. I wasn’t getting an apology from him for hiding this fact from me. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at me like I was the one who’d need to say I was sorry.

“I have to tell you now. Engaging in a fight with an upper Marchese-sponsored fighter—”

“For fuck’s sake!” I fisted my hands. “Is this about Orsen? What the hell? Still?”

He held his hand up to stop my outburst.

“Fighting Orsen was bad enough, but now rumors are getting out about you.”

I crossed my arms, still bowled over with the news about my father. “What rumors?”

“That you are hanging around Emmalina.”

How he was aware of her, I didn’t want to know. Nothing about this conversation could end with happy news. Thunder boomed, and with the increasing humidity of the approaching storm, I wiped my hand over my brow and cleared the sweat building there.

“Word’s spreading that you’ve been seen together at a party recently.” He furrowed his brow, digging the lines even deeper. “That you fought Orsen because she was there.”

But you haven’t spied enough on me to realize I’ve been sleeping with her the last three nights?

I rubbed my hand over my mouth and stepped away. I was tempted to punch him, to tell him to fuck off. I wasn’t going to answer to him. Emma was none of his business. I didn’t give a shit who saw her with me. They could all fuck off.

I stared absently at a crack in the sidewalk, too stunned to focus on why he thought now was the time to tell me about my father. It was the fact that he’d hidden it from me that I couldn’t get over.

And that Marlo fucking Rossini was the father who’d abandoned me and my mother.

The mafia.

It was such a ludicrous thought that my instinct was to deny it, but I had a sick, twisted hunch that it was somehow true.

“How the fuck could you keep this from me?” I whirled around to glower at him as thunder stuck down and rattled the earth again. The weather matched my mood, volatile and stormy.

“We had our reasons.”