Page 199 of Mafia Billionaire's Surprise Baby
“Explain to me how you had to,” I grit out.
“He fucking kidnapped me. I wasn’t going to escape Greenland on my own. And, if Elio came for me, he was going to start a war. Against the Irish, who have the most foot soldiers out of any of the gangs we know,” she barks at me. “I wasn’t going to have you die just because I was stupid enough to get kidnapped!”
“You weren’t worried about me…”
“Yes I fucking was, Sal!”
The genuine fear in her voice echoes, falling off of the leaves of the forest around us like rain.
“I was terrified. If there was a war, do you think that everyone I love would have made it out okay? Do you think that you and your brothers, and your sister, and my brother, and our nieces and nephews, all would have fucking survived? I’ve lost my parents. I’ve lost aunts and uncles and cousins. I can’t and I won’t fucking lose you, Sal. Not like that. Not in some kind of a war that’s being fought over me, and absolutely not when it’s well within my power to prevent it. So you can just fuck right off with all your dramatic bullshit, okay?”
I snort. “Dramatic bullshit?”
“Yes, Sal. That’s what it’s called when you’re not being practical or logical or…”
“How the fuck is it practical to say that the woman I… that you are going to marry another man!”
“You don’t get any say in that…”
“Gia. You are carrying my goddamn baby!”
“And if I didn’t want to have the baby then I wouldn’t!”
“Of course, but you are! And if you have the baby and you let another man raise him, don’t you think that it’s not fair to me? To rob me of the chance to be a father? A hus…” I stop at that.
We won’t get to that.
Gia doesn’t respond.
The horse continues to clop down the trail.
Neither one of talks as the trail eventually widens back into the road. There’s no one on it.
“Are the other two Elio and Dino?”
I shake my head. “Elio and Liam.” She must not have heard Elio yelling orders earlier.
Gia tenses.
“Liam was the one who came to get Elio and me. You were taken from his custody, and he didn’t have the resources to come get you. He showed up at Elio’s house…”
“And you were there?”
“Yes,” I confirm, aware that if she’s in front of me she can’t see me nod. “Caterina brought me back.”
“Did she have the twins?”
“Yes.”
“And everyone’s okay?”
“The twins have a set of lungs on them like you would not believe.”
Gia gives the tiniest chuckle at that. “That was me. Our mom joked that I screamed loud enough for the two of us and Elio was the silence I lacked.”
“They’re fine, Gia. Luna misses you.”
She tenses again. “Fuck me, Sal. Why did you have to say that?”