Page 59 of The Mafia’s Fiancee

“No,” I said, answering for him. “He hasn’t.” I crossed my arms, showing that I wouldn’t budge until I had answers.

“Before you were born, I was dating Jim.” She nodded at him. “We’d only just started seeing him when I came here.” She sighed, seeming to struggle with the admission as she scanned the large entrance that led to the double staircases. “Looked a lot different then,” she mused dryly.

“We’d just started dating, and I had her over for a party. Marlo saw her and raped her.” Jimmy supplied those details in a blunt, cold tone, like he hated to say it at all.

“Needless to say...” My mom gestured at me.

Jimmy scowled. “He told me to make sure she got rid of the baby. He wanted her to abort, but I couldn’t force her to do that. It was her choice, not his, so I lied and told him that I’d seen it taken care of. We didn’t continue to date, but we were still friends. I stayed nearby to help her as much as I could through the pregnancy and then when you were born.”

“He really did stay to help,” Sean said. “Since you were born, all through your trainings. Knowing who you really were, we had to make sure you stayed well.”

“And hidden,” my mom added.

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding in, not breathing fully as I waited for them to explain more. It didn’t sting. It didn’t hurt knowing that Marlo never wanted me. It did answer the question about if he’d known about me, and it seemed he did and didn’t. He knew that my mom was pregnant, but he’d been told that I was aborted.

“Why?” I shrugged, still feeling like I was missing something. “Why did he want you to abort?” I asked my mom, but then looked at Jimmy. It seemed my mom never knew Marlo. He’d taken advantage of her in the cruelest way possible. My hatred for him grew.

I wasn’t wallowing in a woe-is-me shame. I didn’t care that I was a product of rape. I knew who I was. I was confident in what kind of a man I was. But I despised that anyone had ever hurt my mother.

“He didn’t want a bastard child to have his power,” Jimmy replied. “He has never wanted me to have power after him.”

Emma scoffed. “What, he wants the Rossini reign to end with him?”

Jimmy nodded. “He has never liked the idea of passing on ‘his’ wealth to anyone in the family. By never remarrying after he had his first wife killed, by insisting that he have his bastard child aborted, he wanted to be a family of one.”

I arched a brow at him. “Except you?”

He shook his head.

Sean cleared his throat and spoke up. “Marlo arranged for orders of a hit on Jimmy. To be carried out after his death. So the power wouldn’t fall to his only brother.”

Jimmy snorted a dark laugh. “He never wanted to kill me sooner. I was too valuable, practically running the empire for him. But he would be damned if someone else got the position of being the boss after him.”

“This is...” I huffed. “This is some fucked up shit.”

“Can you blame me for wanting to hide it all along?” my mom asked, quietly and almost nervously.

“No.” I looked off to the side, unsure how to unpack all the reactions that came with this news. Pivoting, I saw Emma frowning and staring at the floor.

She had already been acting distant since her return, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to give her my attention, all of it. I didn’t want to focus on myself and if the finer details of my past could change me now.

“I’m going to...” I shrugged. “I need a moment.” I said it to the rest of them as an excuse to slip away. Tugging Emma’s hand so she’d come with me, I set out to distract myself with her.

What we were just told wasn’t rosy, good news. Yet, I knew that something else was up with Emma, and I was determined to figure out what it was. My past couldn’t be changed. What was done, was done. Moving forward, though, I had all the time and ability in the world to make sure my fiancée was handling this all the best that she could.