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I look at her for a long moment while she stands in the garage with her palms on the hood, and then I back out, screeching out onto the road.
I don’t even know where I’m going until I end up at Nico’s apartment in the city. I ring the doorbell over and over for what seems like fifteen minutes before he answers in nothing but his boxers, a sour look on his face.
“Capo?” His eyes widen. “What’s wrong? Who’s hurt?” When I don’t answer, his face shifts, goes blank. “Who’s dead?”
I shake my head. “It’s not that,” I mumble, pushing past him into the apartment.
A blonde is perched on the couch arm, looking offended in a bra with panties that don’t match, and when I walk in, she glares at me.
Nico takes her by the arm, pulls her up. “Time to go,” he says in a low voice.
“What? You’re not kicking me out of here!” she screeches.
Nico doesn’t answer, just pushes her out the door and closes it, ignoring her when she bangs on it.
“Tell me what happened,” Nico says, hitching up his boxer briefs and sitting down on the couch, rummaging around for a beer on the counter littered with what is probably mostly empty bottles.
“It’s kind of the opposite of dead,” I say, barking out a laugh. “Mia’s pregnant.”
It sounds surreal the second I say it, like I’m talking about somebody else. This can’t be happening.
Nico’s face goes blank again and he nods slowly. “She asked me to get her a test yesterday, when you went to her dad’s.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” I sit down hard on his old recliner and it squeaks and groans.
Nico doesn’t live like I do. His sister lives well enough with their mother, and he helps them out a lot and stays over sometimes, but he says he needs his own space to decompress and breathe sometimes. I can totally relate. Especially right now.
“Not my story to tell,” Nico says quietly, and I rub a hand across my mouth.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I married her to get close to Luca, and all that happened was that I ended up working with the bastard instead of against him and ended up....”
I pause, not knowing what I was going to say. Was I going to say that I’m in love with her?
Am I?
Nico doesn’t pry, and for that, I’m grateful.
“So, it’s done? Gallo?” Nico asks.
“It’s done.” I sigh, resting my back against the recliner.
“His whole crew or just the man himself?”
“Just him,” I answer, knowing what Nico means. Usually, when you take out a Caputo, you have to take out the whole famiglia to keep backlash from happening. “But I can’t leave Mia alone that long. Especially not now.”
“Leo, Alberto, and I could take care of it,” Nico suggests, but I shake my head.
“Absolutely not. I won’t send my men into danger when I can’t be there. Give me a little credit. Besides, Leo just called this morning, giving me shit about Lorenzo.”
Nico rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, he’s been a pain in the ass about it,” he admits.
“He wasmyfather,” I mumble, more than a little irritated at Leo’s call, his disrespect.
“Leo feels like Enzo was his father, too. You know that,capo,”Nico reminds me.
“I know. I also know you did too,” I sigh. “I get it. I feel stuck, like I’m just at a standstill. I hate it, too. He doesn’t seem to understand that.”
“I do,” Nico assures me. He leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “Do you think that we could take out Lorenzo in secret? Pin it on someone else?”
