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“Don’t, Kat,” I snarl at her.
“Don’t what? We both know why you keep Nicci’s secret, Dante.”
“And why is that?” My heart is hammering against my rib cage as though it’s trying to break free from my chest. It wants to make a run for it before this woman tears it wide open.
“Because her family has so many enemies it makes her a target. You keep her secret to protect her.”
“No. I am not that man, Kat.”
“Yes, you are,” she insists, pushing my buttons the way only she can.
“Don’t,” I growl.
“Or what? You couldn’t hurt a woman that you didn’t even love,” she says softly, and I snap. My hand is on her throat again and she’s pressed against the wall before she can take another breath. I don’t squeeze; I just hold her there.
“Do not mistake my love for my family for weakness, Katerina. I would protect you all until my dying breath, but that doesn’t make me anyone other than who I am.”
“But she’s not your family,” she says, tears running down her face.
I shouldn’t have taken her to see Nicci and given her only half the truth. I should have known it would only bring more questions.
I press my forehead against hers and sigh.
“Please tell me what’s going on? I feel like I’m drowning here,” she pleads with me, and my heart aches with the weight of it all. My love for her and our baby. My fear that I’m not good enough for her. My need to protect my family from harm. I never wanted to be the one in control.
“I’ll tell you the truth, but you have to stop trying to believe I’m anything other than what I am, Kat. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“I took you to meet Nicci because I knew there was a chance you might not believe me if I just told you what happened. I don’t care what other people think of me, kitten, but I do care when it comes to you. It’s not that I’m not capable of what people believe I did. I am. But you are my family now, and the next time I have a surprise for you, I don’t want you to worry that I’m going to have you buried in some ditch.”
“Oh.”
“That’s why I took you to meet her.”
“And why do you keep her secret? You said, you protect your family. Is it because you think of Nicci as family?”
“No.She’snot my family,” I admit with a heavy sigh.
“Then who?” She blinks at me and then the penny drops. Deacon is five. Nicci left six years ago — pregnant with a tiny Moretti. “No… you said…” She starts to cry again. “God, I can’t believe I’m so stupid. He even looks like you. But you said…”
“He’s not my son, Kat,” I assure her.
She sucks in a breath that makes her perfect tits shudder in her dress. “Then whose? Not Lorenzo?”
“God, no. Deacon is our little brother.”
“Your brother?” she gasps, shocked.
“Yes. My father raped my fiancée four weeks before our wedding.” The weight of that statement hits me in the chest with full-force. “He told her he’d kill her if she ever told anyone. She probably never would have if he hadn’t knocked her up. He assumed she and I were fucking. So if she did get pregnant, then it wouldn’t matter if the kid looked like him.”
“But you’re his son. How could he…? How would he have lived with that?”
“Oh, he would have got a kick out of it. Trust me. Maximo had to stop Lorenzo and me from murdering him when we found out. It wouldn’t have been easy to cover up Salvatore Moretti’s disappearance. We would have had to declare war to find his killer. Besides, Nicci begged me not to do anything. I think she didn’t want any attention thrown her way.”
“So you’re telling me Maximo was the voice of reason in this scenario?”
“Yeah.”
