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“Fuck you,” I yell, seething as the fucking moron tries to butt in again.
I shake my head as if I can clear this fucking brain fog, but it only makes my head hurt even more. A pain shoots through my temple, and I cradle my head in my hands.
“Nothing. My brain is fucking blank. New York, I guess,” I tell her, and her eyes widen. “What? New York. What happened? I get fucking run over by a truck? Because that’s what it feels like.” My chest aches and squeezes as pressure builds inside of me but this feeling swarming in my veins is unlike anything I’ve ever known.
“Your dad kidnapped us,” she says, point blank, and I swear it feels like a fucking punch to the gut. “He took us to an underground compound, and we got out. Now rest, and I will explain more later. We are safe.”
I stand up and immediately fall back onto the reclined chair when my legs cramp and my stomach spins again.
“Where is Gabriel?” I ask her as I rack my brain for answers it doesn’t want to give.
She pulls a blanket up and over me and tucks the edges under my sides. A smile spreads across her face as she takes a long, deep breath in, looking relieved.
“He’s dead.”
48
EVELINA
Time is an illusion.
I’ve heard people say it. I’ve read it in my favorite books and highlighted the passages, always feeling some type of pull to the words.
My childhood was equal parts good and bad and then completely and utterly fucked. I thought I was escaping the pain from all of those years, my parents’ inability to protect me because of their blindness to the cult that was their religion.
I thought I was marrying the love of my life when I found Enzo, and then everything changed and I was thrust into this new normal of being part of the mafia’s cruel game.
And while it’s been nothing short of really and truly insane, I think this is exactly how it’s all meant to play out.
I’m supposed to find this man walking toward me.
I’m meant to find Niccolò Amato.
A smile spreads on my face as he sits down on the couch across from me. There’s an oblong wooden table separating us, and I physically ache to split it into a thousand pieces and close the distance between us, but I don’t. Because I don’t exactly know how he’s feeling.
I haven’t been able to talk to him since he was brought to the recovery center to detox and start over.
“Hey, you,” I say, unable to wipe the smile off of my face. Seeing him again and knowing it’s him—the hazy look in his eyes finally gone—helps piece me back together, too. “How are you?”
He runs his fingers through his slightly grown-out hair, and his mouth tips up on one side as he looks right at me. Those brown eyes of his light up, and I know he’s better.
“It’s so fucking good to see you, Ev,” he says. “I’ve been going crazy in this place, wondering where you are and how you are and what you’re doing and how the baby—”
“This isn’t about me,” I tell him, and he rolls his eyes. “How areyoudoing? I am fine. I’m safe. I’ve been staying with Dante and Giana, so stop worrying about me. Tell me what’s going on. It’s been a long thirty days without you around to piss me off.”
I smile so he knows I’m kidding, and the baby viciously kicks at my belly, causing me to double over for a second as I smooth my palm over where they’ve declared battle.
“The baby…” he says, looking down to where I’ve been tenderly rubbing at my stomach.
“He or she is perfect,” I tell him, still unable to believe it myself.
We were in Gabriel’s compound for a week, and although most of the guards didn’t harm me physically, the entire thing was traumatic emotionally. This baby is a miracle, no matter what anyone else says.
And no matter who the father is.
I’ve been thinking, wondering, a lot about who the father is. I didn’t even consider Niccolò in the beginning because he and I would’ve had only that one chance to create this little human growing inside of me.
But now I can’t help but fixate on the fact that I hope it’s his.
