Page 76 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

She is also fiercely intelligent—I had a look at her school records. But measurable intelligence, academic thought, as interesting as it might be, is not necessarily the key to survival. It’s the creative thinking, the problem-solving that she has demonstrated throughout her life. I believe her when she says that she has survived all those things. She has the spirit of someone who is determined to survive anything. I feel a modicum of guilt over having to prove to her how helpless she is in the situation. But, I haven’t let guilt drive me in a very long time. The way that you get out of organized crime isn’t easy. It’s not clean, and there is no way to do it without getting blood on your hands. I have learned to live with guilt. And I learned to silence it a long time ago. It neither controls me, nor haunts me. It’s just an occasional reminder that while I might do a good impersonation of a sociopath, I’m not one.

It is the one thing, perhaps, that separates me from my father. “I think you will sit here quite comfortably until I’m ready to deal with you.”

“I will not—”

I ignore her. Instead, I walk out the door, close it firmly behind me and deadbolt it from the outside. Every door can lock on both sides. But once I turn the key in the lock, she will no longer be able to set herself free. I do, and if she screams and pitches a fit, I can no longer hear it. That mess sorted, I head back down the stairs, where Lucchino is waiting.

“She is…not what I expected,” he says.

“What did you expect?” I ask.

“A woman who was rather more pathetic, I have to say. One who would agree to rent her body out to carry your child… I thought she would have to be a deeply tragic sort of creature. This one is…fiery.”

“Mercenary,” I say as I walk away from the base of the stairs, through the elaborate entryway and into the study, where my four other most conditionally trusted men are waiting. “The mother of my child is safely here in residence. And you all know your responsibility. Lucchino is going to leave tonight. He is going to engage in some reconnaissance. Find out who exactly is attempting to take her. Who wants to use my child against me. What I want from you is to find out who feels like we do. That power needs to be decentralized. Returned to the people. That these empires need to be toppled, which we’re doing from the inside out by staging hostile takeovers from within. The baby is accelerating the timeline.

“The rest of you will stay here. And help make sure this place is guarded. It is better if some of us stay hidden.”

“So they can’t kill us all at once?” This came from Ronaldo, scarred and cynical, as all of us were.

“Yes.”

This was a difficult business in a difficult time. It was more than business; it was what we were all born to. Every single one of us had exited either my father’s criminal empire, or another one when we were young men. A dangerous fraternity of sorts.

The Lost Boys isn’t an entirely wrong descriptor for us. Fighting pirates, while not altogether being tame ourselves.

“And what do you wish us to do with the woman?” Paolo asks.

“If she can behave herself, then she can be given some privileges. Though at the moment, she has not proven herself trustworthy. I wouldn’t be surprised if she attempts to steal a boat and sail back to Europe. Until she is…controllable, she will have to be under close watch.”

“I was unaware that babysitting was part of the job description,” Ronaldo says.

“The job description is what I say it is. Or have you forgotten?”

“Of course, Ciro,” he says, using my first name very deliberately. “How could anyone have forgotten?”

Just because I’m not hardline like my father doesn’t mean I allow dissension in my ranks. As he well knows. When I find Renzo, he’s as good as dead. So while they might enjoy exercising their jaws being subordinate, they know that there’s a limit. I’m not a man to be trifled with. I am the one that led us out of the impenetrable darkness and into the twilight that may one day have a dawn. It’s a war. And there is a cost to war. One I’m well prepared to pay.

But one thing I vow: my child will not pay that price.

If Lindsay has to be a prisoner in this house for the next five months, then she will be. And if she thinks she can appeal to my softer side, then she will find herself sadly disappointed.

As I do not have one.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lindsay

I ONLY STAY on the bed for a moment. Because there’s no way I’m going to allow this asshole to keep me down. Even for a moment. I test the door, discovering quickly that it is not a regular door. Titanium steel, or something, utterly and completely impenetrable, and probably soundproof. I feel like I’ve been closed inside of a bubble. I feel, wholeheartedly, that I would cheerfully stab this man in the chest.

I’m fully hit then with the reality of the situation. He’s the father of the child that I’m carrying. Which is half mine. The father of my baby is a dangerous criminal. And while he might maintain that he’s no longer part of the Corretti crime family, I know that it doesn’t mean his hands are clean. What am I bringing a child into? It was supposed to be a real family. I was supposed to be giving life to a child who was going to have it better than I had.

But this is… This makes a meth house look like a vacation. My parents were, functionally, the crime lords of our rural Alaskan community. Selling broken dreams and a quick death to people who were so desperate to escape their poverty that they would do anything for a few hours of dulled senses. There was always a threat around that. Anytime drugs and money are involved, it’s dangerous. He’s that on a whole other scale. Larger, more polished, more money and more guns.

If I had thought, even for a second, that this was what I would be bringing a child into? I would never have done this. Not for any amount of money.

Despair pierces the armor that I wear around my heart. I’m not one to cry. I’m not one to sit around and bemoan my circumstances, but this feels genuinely helpless. Horrible. Impossible.

I’m trapped here. On this island out in the middle of nowhere. Trapped, pregnant with a baby that I have no idea what to do with.