Page 81 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

The idea of that is intoxicating. More thrilling than perhaps it should be. But it’s an offer I don’t make. Because I am loath to admit that she interests me at all. Because I’m the kind of man that can set aside his needs when the situation requires it, and I will not be led around by them now.

I already know that it is my weakness that has gotten me into this situation in the first place. Because I saw the payment that went out from my father to a woman that I had a one-night stand with eight months prior. It was the last time I indulged myself, and the consequences were disastrous. I’m not the kind of man to be led around by appetites, but I am a man, and given to them when the situation presents itself.

I can only assume she stole the used condom after we were together. That she had been sent to collect it, in fact.

My indulgence had consequences.

I can only imagine that the consequences of tangling myself up in the woman carrying my child will be even further reaching.

“Money is not going to make this better,” she says, and even she looks surprised by that. “Just so you know, I’ve never been one to cut corners or take the easy way. I suppose I did that here, though very few people would call pregnancy taking the easy way. I suppose anything that feels too good to be true is.”

“Yes,” I say. “Though I don’t have personal experience with it.”

Very few things in my life have ever seemed too good. And anything convenient was definitely suspicious. As I should’ve been about that one-night stand eight months ago. But I have no trouble attracting women, and therefore had no reason to be suspicious of the woman who approached me in that bar.

Foolish to think there was ever a moment I shouldn’t be suspicious.

“With what exactly?”

“Anything seeming too good to be true. In my life, things usually seem dark, and then when you look deeply, you discover that they are actually even worse than you originally thought.”

“I guess that’s sort of the pessimist version of that.”

“Isn’t the entire concept of it pessimistic?”

She shrugs. “Maybe.”

“So. When did you first discover that your father was a horrible crime lord?”

It’s a strange question. And one I’ve actually never thought of. I was born into it. And I can’t recall ever having a revelation about what the family business was. What I can recall was the moment I decided that I wanted nothing to do with it.

“Violence was normal in my childhood. There was no talk of right and wrong. There was only family honor. There was nothing deeper than that. Anything that you did for the family, that was correct. Anything you did that was actionable against the family was punishable by death. From the time I was young, my father would bring me to meetings that he had to attend. Meetings where he would have to hurt someone, or dispatch them for not obeying him. It was as normal to me as finger-painting. Having tea with my mother in the garden.”

“What made you…what made you realize that it wasn’t right?”

“When he killed my mother.” Her eyes went wide, her mouth dropping open in shock. “Yes. When I say that my father was an evil man, I mean it. And when I tell you that Vittoria was probably acting in her own interests, by which I don’t mean getting a new bracelet, or a pony, I mean it. He’s a dangerous man.”

“And he knew who I was,” she says in a hushed tone, as terrified as she should be.

“Yes,” I say. “He did.”

All these years later, saying that about my mother still hits me with the impact of the bullet that ended her life. It is something that I will never get over. It is something that I never want to feel the pain of ease. I want to live in that hurt forever. Because it is my lifeline to humanity. Because it is my link to that first time I began to understand that the world that had been presented to me was dark and skewed. But it was not life as it was meant to be.

“And what about you?”

It’s difficult to understand why I ask this.

I’ve never been particularly interested in someone else’s life story. And yet, I’m curious about her. About this woman who’s carrying my baby. She is going to be half of that child, after all. It is something I comfort myself with every day, that my blood does not only belong to my father, but it also belongs to my mother. Mothers are of inestimable importance. That my father chose a woman at random to become the mother of my child is unthinkable to me, and yet I cannot say that I would’ve wanted someone different. Likely, I would’ve chosen someone more sophisticated, and certainly not American. But she has the spirit.

“I had a friend. Second grade, I think. So that’s seven years old. And she came over to my house. I didn’t ask my parents. I just invited her. It didn’t even occur to me to ask permission, because half the time my parents were away, or they were on a bender. But that was just life to me. I brought her over, and she was horrified. She looked around the house, at the mess, the empty cupboards, my mom staggered out of her bedroom at one point, high, and she begged me to never have her over again. She didn’t talk to me at school after that either. But I never realized it was wrong until I saw how much it scared someone else. How much a decent, normal day in my parents’ house scared another child. Well, then I started to understand. And later, I realized more and more. Watching TV, talking to other people about their families.”

“The documents that I read about you said that you ran away around fifteen.”

She nods. “Yes. I was tired of living in that house. Tired of having to dodge men who came for drugs but decided they wanted something from the teenage girl that lived there.”

“You were assaulted?”

“There were attempts. I was both lucky and brutal. The last guy that tried, I was in the kitchen. And while he was talking I put some water on the burner. I managed to keep him talking until it started boiling. Then I threw it at him, and I ran away. I didn’t go back home after that. I just went and applied for a job.”