Page 133 of Chris

Chris was willing to find out though.

“Can I get it for Daddy now, Mamá?”

Hearing Maria call him daddy never failed to make Chris smile. It didn’t matter if she was saying it because it annoyed her that he refused to let her wear her pink, sparkly running shoes on a rainy day, or because she was asking for five more minutes of storytelling at bedtime. He wasn’t sure when she thought of him as her father, but he vividly remembered when she asked if she could call him that.

You’re kind of like my daddy, right?

Kind of?

It’s all he wanted to be.

She all out refused to call him papa or father, and Chris understood why. She related those titles to a man whose name they didn’t speak because it upset her, and of a time in her life which was still all too recent, and traumatic.

So, instead, he got to be her daddy.

That was better.

Because her daddy didn’t let her down.

Ever.

Her daddy loved her unconditionally.

No exceptions.

“Okay,” Valeria said, “you can go get it, but hurry before Uncle Les gets up there to take his bat.”

Chris shot her a look across the backyard of the mansion where she sat beside Cara and Ginevra. There, they could watch the rest of the Guzzi men—well, most, as the younger Guzzi twins had been sent off to Chicago after their twenty-first birthday—and the other guests who wanted to join from their birthday dinner play their game of baseball from a safe distance. Valeria pretended like she didn’t see Chris glancing her way with his questioning stare about just what she was hiding from him, but he knew she did.

Alessio came up to bat after Maria darted for the back of the mansion, and from the spot they’d chosen as the pitcher’s mound, Corrado grinned. “You want that curve ball, Les?”

The man tapped the metal bat against the heel of his shoe before pointing it at Chris’s twin, saying, “I’m up for whatever—you know that.”

“Right.”

Sitting on third base, Chris just wanted to hit home so he could sneak over to Valeria and find out why Maria disappeared into the mansion. She had already given him a birthday present earlier after they cut the cake. A damn nice Rolex, custom-made with the Guzzi G designed in diamonds on the face.

What else was there?

“I mean, we’ve already won,” Corrado added. “There’s no way you will get those two runs, and this is your last bat.”

“Stop gloating,” Alessio returned. “That’s your one warning.”

“That’s what makes it fun.”

“Throw the goddamn ball.”

“Language,” Cara called out.

“Sorry.”

Corrado threw the pitch when he thought he distracted Alessio with his apology, but he should have known better. He got his two runs when the metal bat connected with the ball and sent it flying past the tree line on the back property—their designated space for a home run. Because no one wanted to go searching for balls in the small patch of forest.

Alessio only stepped off the home plate as Chris came jogging across it, tossing his bat so it flipped around in the air before landing back in his waiting palm. He pointed the bat at Corrado, smirking wickedly.

“I think I’m gonna walk it,” he said. “Remind you who you’re trying to better, yeah?”

Corrado shook his head, grinning. “Who’s gloating now?”