Page 64 of The Mafia’s Girlfriend

I narrowed my eyes. “Who? We who?” I demanded.

“Me and your mother.”

I growled, pacing a few steps. She knew. She had to have known who my father was. She was involved in my damn conception. It hurt that she’d partnered with Jimmy to keep this news from me.

Was she ever going to tell me?

I never understood how Jimmy and my mother knew of each other. In the end, it never mattered. I grew up resenting my father, hating that he’d never been there for her, and I vowed from a young age that I would never leave her. I’d make sure she was taken care of. It was twisted, a son being the head of the family and caring for his mother when he was still a child himself, but that was simply how it happened.

Marlo fucking Rossini, the loaded and powerful mafia boss, hadn’t ever been there for her—or me—and I struggled with his absence.

Jimmy knew though. Somehow. And it solidified my suspicions about him. I’d always held a reservation about him, never fully wanting to trust him, and now I understood why.

“This is bullshit.”

“You don’t believe me?”

I scowled. “Why should I?”

He lifted papers from his shirt pocket. “I have proof.”

My jaw dropped for a second before I could clamp my mouth shut and grind my teeth. “A fucking paternity test?”

He nodded as though my rage was to be expected. “I had them done at your birth.”

There was another answer. Jimmy hadn’t stumbled about the truth about my father’s identity recently. He really had known all along. He’d hidden it from me for decades.

“I knew I would need the proof should anyone question it.”

I growled, so furious I couldn’t think straight. I was reeling, ungrounded with this news exploding the idea that I had no clue who I was anymore.

“Did you sleep with her?”

I grabbed the front of his shirt, ready to hit him. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t cower. I didn’t know where he found the skill to stay this chill, this unbothered, but I didn’t follow through. Hitting him wouldn’t change a thing.

“You have no right to ask me that. None whatsoever.”

“Lucas. Did you fuck Emma?”

I huffed, shaking my head as my frustration escalated. “How— How do you even know who she is?”

“It’s clear you don’t.”

I narrowed my eyes, ready to challenge him on that point. I did know who she was. She was the woman for me. The one. Emma was the woman I would grow old with. I knew it with a clarity that couldn’t be questioned. It’d happened fast, but when you knew, you knew.

“Because if you did, you never would’ve been so fucking stupid to start anything with her.”

I went still, staring at him with such rage I felt like I’d combust. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“You have to stop. Whatever you think you’re doing with her. It’s over.”

“The fuck it is,” I growled.

He was insane to suggest it.

Since I slept with her, since we caved to this desire and building love that we couldn’t deny, I couldn’t imagine giving her up. Ever.

“You are starting a war, Lucas.” He pointed at me to emphasize his statement.