Claimed Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Jane
“Oh, baby, did you hear that?” My stomach feels like it’s dropped not only down to my feet, but straight through the floor and taken the escalator all the way to hell. Seriously. I honestly want to throw up right now and the urge is so strong that I swallow hard before I can look at Annie.
Fuck.She’s a dead ringer for her father. Her gorgeous eyes, the thick dark hair, the way her mouth curves up a little bit on the corners when she’s happy. Even her laugh. I’m sure that anyone in a crowd could pick it out as his. Granted, I only heard him laugh once, at the pub the night he knocked me up, but I remember it.
“I heard that I look like someone.” She walks into the kitchen, staring at me. Even though she’s just three, she’s more observant than other kids that I’ve met. I don’t think that she’s special or crazy smart or anything, but she keeps me on my toes and once she hears something that interests her, she doesn’t let it go.
“Grandpa,” I tell her, looking my little girl in the eyes and lying to her. Across the table from me I hear my mom suck in a breath but I ignore her. “You look like my dad.”
“Nuh-uh. You said that he’d know I was his daughter. That means you’re talking about my dad.” Stopping right in front of me, she stares at me like she can’t believe that I’d lie to her. “Don’t lie to me, Mommy.”
Closing my eyes, I exhale hard, praying that the floor will open and suck me down to hell. I don’t care if I have to give the Devil himself a lap dance every night as long as I don’t have to try to figure out what I’m going to say to Annie.
But when I open my eyes there aren’t any flames surrounding me. Rather, it’s just my daughter, who’s stepped closer, and is still staring at me like she can make me crack by force of will alone.
“Okay, Annie, I was talking about your dad,” I finally say, because I’m so tired of lying. I’ve been lying to her for her entire life, lying to myself when I said that I don’t want Trevor, and then lied to him. Everyone who’s ever met us has been a recipient of my lies when I told them that her dad died and not to mention him to her.
It’s exhausting. No matter how well I think that I’ve kept up the facade, it’s getting to be too much and I honestly don’t think that I can handle doing it any longer. I need to come clean with everyone in my life, even the precious three year old standing in front of me and looking at me like she can’t believe that I wouldn’t always tell her the truth.
“My dad?” There’s hope in her eyes and splashed across her face and I immediately feel guilty. “Where is he?”
My mom stands up, the sound of her chair legs scraping loudly across the kitchen floor and I know that she just doesn’t want to be here while I tell Annie the truth. She’s probably going to pour us each a glass of wine to stop the sick feeling that’s growing in my stomach.
“He’s not here,” I tell her, and then immediately kick myself. I had the perfect opportunity to finally stop lying to her about what’s been going on in my life and in hers and what do I do? Lie again.
“Oh.” Her shoulders slump a little big and I immediately reach for her, pulling her to me, but she squirms to the right—a trick that I’m pretty sure she learned watching other kids on the playground—and slips from my grasp before I can really hold onto her and give her a hug. “I’m going back to my room.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes with cookies,” I tell her, but she pauses in the doorway and shakes her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not hungry.”
I can’t help that my jaw drops open as I watch her leave the room and I turn to my mom before saying anything. “When did she get so damn grown and moody?”
“Probably right around the time that she realized you’re lying to her about her dad. You can’t keep it up forever, Jane, especially not if you think that he’s telling you the truth.”
Chewing on my lower lip, I stand, then walk to the front of the house, pulling back the curtain so that I can see outside. It’s still light out there but I like that my mom tends to keep the curtains closed. I don’t want just anyone to be able to see into the house, especially not now.
Not when we don’t know what’s happening out there. Not when I’m not sure if I can trust Trevor or not.
“He could be telling the truth,” my mom says, walking up next to me. “And if that’s the case, Jane, then you need to let him help you. You can’t keep Annie safe if there really is going to be another war here and you might get caught in the middle.”
“Right, but I don’t know if he is telling the truth. He lies all the time.” I’m still looking out of the window, checking out the car sitting across the street from us. Was it there before? I don’t think that it was.
Even though I’m not looking at her, I still hear my mom snort in derision.
“When has he lied to you?”
Slowly, I turn, letting the curtain fall from my hand. The air in the room suddenly feels very tight and still and I look at my mom in shock. That’s a crazy question for her to ask me, but the fact remains that it’s out in the open between us and I don’t know what to say.
“What?” The surprise must be evident in my voice because she raises her eyebrows at me like she can’t believe that we’re about to have this conversation.
“Jane. I’m serious. When has he ever lied to you? Sure, he knocked you up, and he’s in the mafia, but you’ve always acted like he’s this terrible person that you can’t be near because he spews lies.”
“No, he’s a terrible person that I can’t be near because he murders people, Mother. There’s a pretty big difference there but I still don’t want him anywhere near me or Annie.” I’m doing my best to keep my voice low because apparently my daughter has developed supersonic hearing and can tell what I’m saying from halfway across the house.
“Everyone does terrible things,” she says, flapping her hand at me like that’s going to brush away what I’m feeling.
My jaw drops as I stare at her. “You can’t honestly be trying to defend him to me right now, can you? Mom, seriously! He’s a Bonanno, for fuck’s sake, and that’s dangerous. Just his last name is dangerous.”
“Life is dangerous.” She steps closer to me and stabs me in the middle of my chest before I can move out of the way. “Life is dangerous, Jane, no matter what you do. You can do everything right and still lose the game. Trust me, I know. But you have someone in your life who apparently cares enough to want to keep both you and my granddaughter safe and you’re ignoring him. Get your head on straight.”
I swear to God, I have no idea who this woman is. She’s gone off the fucking deep end, that’s for sure. Encouraging me to shack up with someone from the mafia? It’s insane. She’s insane.
“You’re insane,” I spit at her, which feels good to say but obviously doesn’t affect her as much as I’d hoped it would. She just grins at me like I’m finally figuring something out that she’s known for a long damn time.
“And you need to learn when you can trust people to help you out. You want to keep Annie safe, Jane? You want to make it through this life with a shot at love and happiness? Then get down off of your high horse and call the man.”
Before I can respond she turns and stalks back into the kitchen. Now I’m convinced that she really is pouring herself a glass of wine, but instead of following her and drinking straight from the bottle, I turn and look back out the window.
Huh. The car that was there a moment ago has disappeared. Weird. It was probably just a neighbor parked there for a moment while they loaded or unloaded something. I didn’t recognize it, but that doesn’t mean anything.
It’s not like I should be expected to know all of the cars on the street. I just moved back, for crying out loud, and I’m trying to get my life back together.
By myself. Well, with Annie. But not with Trevor.
Sure, thinking about him has me clenching my legs together to try to stop the throbbing between them. And, yes, I’ve never felt so gorgeous and perfect as I feel when his hands are on my body and his cock is in me.
But that does not, in any way, mean that being with him is the right thing to do. I can want something so badly that I think I’ll fall apart without it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good for me. No, the right thing to do is to make sure that Annie is safe, and I’ll do that by keeping her as far away from Trevor as possible.
It’s for her own good.
Even as I tell myself that, though, I feel a stabbing pain in my chest. I don’t want to think that I’m making a huge mistake by keeping the two of them apart, but there’s a little voice in the back of my head that tells me that I might be.
Before I can devote any time to figuring out what the right thing to do is, there’s a knock on the front door.
“I’m coming,” I say, giving my head a little shake to push the thought of Trevor from my mind.
The knock comes again. It’s louder this time, like the person on the other side of the door is in a real hurry to get in.
“I said that I’m coming,” I say, picking up the pace. Before I can get to the door, though, there’s a terrible explosion and it flies open in a mass of splinters.
