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My apartment was out of the question since I’d foiled Gianni's plan to grab Samantha and had taken out two of their men in the process. I was pretty certain we were up if a score was being tallied, and they were going to want to even that score as quickly as possible. I briefly considered Kristina’s place in Brooklyn but discarded that idea. She wasn’t part of this, and Evelina would skin me if I put her best friend, and now stepdaughter, in danger.
Gripping the steering wheel, I let the adrenaline drain out of me as I turned to face Samantha. She stared at me with wide eyes as she took deep breaths to calm herself down. It didn’t work.
“What in the hell is happening?” she demanded.
I looked her over more thoroughly to make sure she wasn’t hurt. The sack that had been covering her head lay in her lap, and when she followed my gaze to it, she made a gagging noise and chucked it out the window.
“Leo, what’s going on?” Samantha’s voice was no longer tinged with hysteria. It was like deep exhaustion had washed over her like a wave.
“I’m sorry,” I started.
“Did you kidnap me or rescue me?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Both?” I tried to get her to laugh, but it wasn’t happening. She glared at me until I continued. “I’m sorry this is happening to you, but you’re in very real danger.”
She blinked, shaking her head. “From you?”
I should have been grateful she sounded so incredulous because, of course, I’d never hurt her. Instead, I gripped her shoulders. “From my enemies. People who will go out of their way to make me suffer. By stealing every last thing I care about and destroying it, slowly and meticulously.”
This got her to laugh, but it was a hollow sound. “What are you talking about? What do your enemies have to do with me?”
“They hacked into my computer,” I explained. “They know you’re carrying my child.”
She stared at me. I stared right back.
“I apologize to my grandma,” she said. “But what the actual fuck did you just say?”
Instead of explaining further, I pulled up the surrogate contract on my phone and handed it to her. She scrolled through it, her face losing what little color it still had when she saw her name. She swore some more under her breath, my phone forgotten on her lap.
I plucked it back and called my sister. There was nothing more I could do for Samantha until she was ready to accept the truth, but I could find us a safe place to hide. As soon as Evelina answered, I let everything out in a rush, starting from hiring a surrogate to the fact that I had a bun in the oven as we spoke and that she was now a target of the Giannis.
Samantha groaned, letting me know she was fully aware of everything I said even though she looked completely checked out. As soon as I was done explaining, Evelina let me have it.
“I can’t believe you actually went through with it,” she said. I could hear her bare feet slapping against the tiles as she paced while she hollered at me. “Did you even give it ten minutes of thought?”
“I gave it a good solid twenty-four hours,” I told her. She didn’t find it funny and would have given me more grief, but I cut her off. “Listen, it’s done, and Sam’s in danger. Are you going to help out or not?”
She huffed. “Of course I am. I just wish you didn’t keep such a big secret from me.”
“Ev, I’ll make it up to you when I’m not sitting around in some abandoned parking lot waiting for the Italian mafia to find us.”
Samantha sucked in a breath, and I wished I’d taken the call outside the car. But it was too late now.
“I’ll arrange for a safe house down here for you,” she said. “And send Mikhail’s plane up to get you if you can lay low for a few hours until it arrives.”
“Sounds perfect, thanks, Ev.”
She grumbled as a goodbye, and I turned to smile at Samantha. “Have you ever been to Miami? It’s great.”
“I’ve never been further south than Philadelphia.”
“You’re going to love it.”
“And if I refuse to go?”
I sighed. “Please don’t.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the door, her face gaining back its color as it slowly turned red. “Is this normal for the software business? To have the Italian mafia after you?”
