Page 69 of Daddies of the Underworld

“But I have school tomorrow. I don’t want to go.” Her bottom lip pooched out, and heaven help me I wanted to promise her the moon if it took the shimmer of tears from her eyes. And she knew it. Pulling on that innate charm of Luca’s she gave me big doe-eyes. “Can I stay home? Just this one time?”

Conditions. I had to set conditions or she’d be up all night. “If you go to sleep so you’re not cranky tomorrow.”

Her eyes shuttered, and she mock-snored until she giggled. “Night, Mama.”

“Night, baby. I love you.” I kissed her forehead one more time because everyone deserved I love you’s and forehead kisses.

By the time I stood, my knees had stiffened. I checked the window latch, the stick in the track, the closet door, and under the bed before I forced myself to leave the room and return to the living room.

They hadn’t moved. I hadn’t heard them talking either. Matteo stood near the kitchen counter with his hands in his pockets. Dante had taken the spot by the window, and Luca sat on the arm of the couch, elbows on his knees, staring down the hall. “Does she always ask questions like that?”

“Yes.” I did my best to channel some inner strength and managed not to fidget.

Luca smiled. “She gets that from you. You wanted to know everything about Villa Belladonna.”

The callback to our time together rocked through me. “She gets it from you too.”

All three of them looked at me, but it was Matteo who stepped forward. “We need to talk.”

“Yes, we do. You need to explain to me what you meant.” My stomach tightened hard enough to hurt. “I know what I heard.”

“Yes, but you did not understand what we meant.” Matteo closed the distance until mere inches separated us.

I lifted my chin. “Fine, tell me what I misunderstood.”

Dante’s jaw moved, but Matteo held up one finger without taking his eyes off me. Dante stopped, and the tiny motion took me back five years so fast my head spun. Matteo took a deep breath. “Marco was the problem. We were looking for him, and Dante and I discussed what would happen if we found him. I said I could not hesitate because of you.”

“But you had evidence against me. As much evidence as you had against Marco.” I couldn’t just drop the argument. They’d had the flash drive with all that evidence. No way in hell they’d have let that go.

“We always assumed you had been set up. It was too neat. It made sense why someone had broken into your employment record. All that evidence practically wrapped up in a bow.” Matteo’s fingers flexed, and I realized too late he’d taken his hands out of his pockets. “We knew you would protect Marco, and we hesitated, even with his guilt, to take the last of your family from you. That is hesitation I cannot afford.”

I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest. “I still couldn’t stay there. Guards were always watching me, treating me like I was guilty. I was pregnant, alone, and every time I tried to tell one of you, you left the room.” I took a shuddering breath. “You were always going off to fix things or look for evidence. You stopped letting me in. You iced me out. Your world mattered more to you than I did, and you left me alone with nothing but fear.”

I hadn’t meant to say all of that, but now that I had, I didn’t regret it.

“You doubted us. Doubted our loyalty to you.” Matteo’s knuckles skimmed my arm, the almost touch as electric as if he’d pulled me into a crushing embrace. “There were moments when I doubted everything, but we never doubted you, Nina. You were the one truth in our life, the one and only brightness that kept us sane.”

Words failed me in the lingering silence.

Luca rubbed both hands down his face. “God, Nina. Losing you ruined us.”

“We looked for you.” Dante ran his finger along the scar in his eyebrow, his gaze intense. “I never stopped looking for you. You have no idea what it cost to come back every night without you. You do not know what it did to us. To me. We’re grateful you’re alive. We prayed you were. But you left us with nothing.”

“I wrote you a letter.”

Luca snorted. “You mean the letter where you claimed to love us? Do you realize that it read exactly like you’d been kidnapped and forced to write that letter?”

I…no. I hadn’t thought about that.

Matteo dragged his knuckles up my arm again. “We should have given you more reason to trust us.”

That did me in. My shoulders dropped, and the crying I’d been trying to hold back turned into an ugly, quiet sound. Luca moved to my side and put an arm across my shoulders. My life had been torn apart. There were still answers I needed and apologies none of us had earned yet. Letting him touch me was a terrible idea. “I should have made you talk to me. I used your distractions as an excuse to keep my pregnancy hidden.”

There were no easy answers. We’d all made mistakes.

Luca leaned closer, resting his forehead against mine. “I dreamed about this.”

“What, me crying?”