Claimed Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle

Jane

Ikeep my face turned to the window the entire ride to my mom’s house. Trevor drives slowly, adhering to the speed limits and stopping at every single stop sign for longer than necessary and by the time we pull up to the house, I feel like I’m coming out of my skin.

I need to get into the house before Annie comes out to greet me. The thought of her running out and Trevor getting a good look at her and putting two and two together scares the shit out of me.

“See you tomorrow at work,” he calls, right as I’m about to slam the car door. Instead, I hesitate, leaning back down so that I can get a better look at him.

“I quit.”

He shakes his head. “You’re not allowed. I need you there and you need the money.”

Asshole. Chewing on my lower lip, I shake my head. “Not a chance, Trevor. There’s no way that I’m going to work for you.”

“The car will be here early to pick you up unless you’d rather me have the BMW dropped off for you to drive yourself. I can tell you that your driver won’t take no for an answer.”

“And let me guess,” I shoot back, “you’ll have a tracker installed on the BMW so that you can see where I’m going?”

He grins at me and I feel a pit grow in my stomach when I realize that I’m right. This man has more money than God and he’s going to use it to torment me, I just know it. Fucking dick.

With a growl that makes me feel like a pissed off lioness, I slam the door shut and race to the front porch. I shouldn’t have stood out there for so long talking to him, and now I need to get into the house before Annie comes out. Sure enough, as I hurry up the stairs, the front door swings open.

“Stay in the house”! I cry, going as fast as I can. It’s not my fault that my legs feel a little bit like jelly. That’s all on Trevor, although I definitely shouldn’t have fallen back into bed with him.

Come to think of it, I’m not sure how the hell that even happened. It shouldn’t have, and I shake my head, ready to give myself a mental lashing for that later. Fucking Trevor might feel good in the moment but all it’s going to do is ruin my life later, I just know it.

“But you’re home and I missed you!” Annie throws the door open and I jump in front of her, pulling her to me and pressing her face into my stomach for a hug. “Ow, mommy!”

“I missed you too,” I tell her, keeping her pressed up against me as I walk her backwards into the house. Trevor might have been able to see her body, but there’s no way that he saw her face. If he did, I’m sure that he’d be up on this porch in a moment. It would be like looking in a mirror for him.

“You’re home early,” my mom calls from the kitchen as I shut the front door. Before answering, I give Annie a kiss on the top of her head and drop down to my knees so that I can look her in the eyes.

“Go to your room and I’ll be there in a few minutes to play with you, okay, kiddo?” Right now I feel like I could throw up but I need to get her hidden from the front of the house in case Trevor comes up to the door for any reason. I have to make sure that she’s safe, and that means that I need to tell my mom what’s going on.

“I want to play with you,” she whines jutting her lower lip out at me. “Why do I have to go away?”

“Not away,” I say, tucking some hair back behind her ear. “Just go get everything out that you want to play with, okay? That way it will all be ready after I talk to grandma.” She doesn’t look convinced. “I’ll see if there are some cookies, okay?”

That brightens her up a little. “Okay! Don’t bring the raisin kind, they’re gross. Make sure you bring ones with chocolate chips.”

“Chocolate chips. Got it.” I give her a kiss on the forehead and watch as she scampers down the hall to the bedroom we’re sharing. Once the door is shut and I’m confident that she won’t be able to hear what my mom and I are saying, I stand up and walk into the kitchen.

My mom’s sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in her hands. I swear, the woman would mainline the stuff given the opportunity. She drinks it all damn day and even in the middle of the summer, which is something that makes no sense to me.

“What’s going on, Jane?” Concerns knits her brow as she waits for me to respond. Before I can even think about talking, though, I sink into the seat across from her and grab a cookie from the plate between us.

I knew that she’d have cookies. She always does—it’s just her thing. Even when I was a little girl there were always fresh cookies around to eat and Annie loves it as much as I did growing up.

“Everything’s terrible,” I tell her. “And no, I’m not just being overly dramatic. Seriously, Mom, things are bad.”

“They can’t be that bad.” Reaching out, she takes my hand and squeezes my fingers. “Nothing’s so bad that we can’t fix it. Remember when you thought your life was over because you were pregnant? And now look, you have Annie and she’s amazing.”

There’s a lump in my throat making it really difficult for me to speak, so I just nod and try to compose myself for a moment. “She is amazing,” I say, “and that’s part of the problem. I have to figure out how I’m going to keep her safe.”

A dark expression crosses my mom’s face. It’s one that I know all too well from when I was younger and would do something—anything—that she deemed too dangerous or stupid for her daughter to do. “Safe from what, Jane?”

“From her father.” Saying those three words is one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done and my mom sucks in a breath, reaching up to touch her chest. When she lets go of my fingers I suddenly feel like I’m falling, like I can’t quite hang on to anything that will keep me safe, and I want to grab her hand and pull it back towards me.

I need something that will make me feel safe again, and right now that’s not going to be my mom. She’s separating herself from me and panic grips my throat.

“Her father? Is he here?”

I nod, my tongue so full and thick that I can’t seem to form any words. “He’s my new boss,” I admit, “but he doesn’t know that Annie is his. And he’s...” Here I let my voice trail off because it’s the one thing that I don’t want to tell my mom. It’s the one part of me being knocked up by a strange man that she doesn’t know yet and I’m not really keen on telling her the truth.

“What is he? Did he hurt you?” Her hand twitches to her cell phone. “I’ll call the cops.”

“Shit! No, Mom!” Moving faster than her, I snatch the phone out from under her hand. “You can’t do that. Seriously. Don’t do that. He didn’t hurt me, he’s just...fuck.”

She eyeballs me. “Your language has gotten horrible, Jane. Just spit it out.”

“He’s a Bonanno.” My voice is so quiet that, at first, I’m not sure that she hears me, but her eyes widen and she sits back in the chair a little bit like I struck her.

“Annie’s dad is a member of the mafia?” The disbelief in her voice is almost palpable and I feel horrible when I nod. “And you slept with him anyway? Did you know that at the time?”

“I...it was a blur,” I tell her, not wanting to admit that I knew he was dangerous from the moment I saw him. I knew that I’d end up getting hurt and that something horrible would happen to me if I went through with being with him. At the same time, though, I’d honestly felt like something terrible was going to happen if I didn’t sleep with him.

I didn’t have a choice, but try telling that to my conservative mom. I’m honestly surprised that she’s not having a heart attack right here in the kitchen. She’s probably going to have one later, when she can really blame it on me after she finds out the other horrible thing I need to tell her.

“A blur. Okay, Jane. What do we need to do? Do you need to leave again?” Even as she asks that, I can tell that it’s not what she wants, and it’s honestly not what I want, either. Having Annie here with her grandmother has been amazing.

It’s not just knowing that my daughter will be safe when I’m working out of the house, but also that the two of them get along so perfectly. They never fight and, I swear, I’ve never seen Annie as happy as she’s been since we moved in with my mom.

I can’t take her away from here. Besides, if Trevor is right about me being a target, then I’d be in danger no matter where I am. No, being here with my mom so I can keep her safe and she can spend time with Annie is the best option for me.

“I don’t need to leave, but he said that I’m in danger. That the Wicked Bastards are moving back in and that they want revenge for everything that happened to them.”

She sucks in a breath. “That’s not possible. The Bonanno family burned them to the ground. There isn’t anything left of that motorcycle club. You must be mistaken.”

“I’m not. They’re coming back and they want blood for what happened to them. Mom, I have to keep Annie safe.”

“And what did he suggest? Her father?” Somehow, even though she looks like she’s about to come apart at the seams, she’s doing a great job keeping her voice low. That’s good, because I can’t have Annie hearing us talking about her dad.

She’d want to meet him. I know that she would, and that thought makes my stomach twist. There’s just no way that a man like him could ever be a good father. She’d always be in danger, always be looking over her shoulder wondering when someone was going to try to hurt her.

No, I have to leave him out of this and I’m glad that my mom seems to understand how important that is.

“He suggested that Annie and I move in with him so that he can keep us safe. But that’s not going to happen, Mom. There’s no way that we can be under his roof with him. Not a chance.”

She looks worried and lets out a small hiss of air from between her teeth. “Why not, Jane? If he’s promising that he can keep you two safe, then I think that you should do it. Who cares if you want to or not? You have to keep Annie safe.”

“I know.” Dropping my head down, I run my hands through my hair, but quickly stop that when I think about what it was like to have him doing that to me. “But once he sees her, mom, he’ll know for sure that she’s his daughter. She looks just like him.”

“Who do I look like?” Annie’s sweet little voice from the doorway makes me whip around in my chair.

Fuck.