Page 23 of Mafia Billionaire's Surprise Baby
I give her a smile. “Let me make some calls to get some new clothes, and so that we can get the hell out of here.”
The shutter of her hopeful gaze kills me. Somewhere inside, part of me crumples.
I’ll never even be able to explore that with her because we can’t even fucking get to that place.
“I’ll be right back, Gia,” I whisper.
“Okay.”
I know that I’m ruining the potential for this… whatever is between us.
It’s better this way, though. Gia can’t be what I need her to be.
And I can’t be what she needs me to be.
So, it’s better just to fucking end it before it gets to be something we can never have.
I head downstairs.
The liquor cabinet, as with all of my properties, is fully stocked. I grab one of my more expensive bottles of gin, taking it out so that I can pour a ridiculous amount of it into a glass.
Gin is not fun to drink straight.
But it reminds you that you’re alive.
I’m one glass in when the memories of Belarus overwhelm me.
Slowly, painfully, I remember the last time she looked this way. Since the memory is so persistent, I entertain it. You can’t heal what you didn’t feel, right?
So, I let myself feel it.
* * *
The building is on fire.
As I come over the hill, that’s the first thing that I think. The building is on fire.
And Gia Rossi is dead.
The thought compels me to gun the stupid Soviet-era motorcycle that I stole in Minsk, racing at a breakneck pace over the broken dirt road that leads to the warehouse.
How Gia ended up here, at a warehouse in the middle of the Belarusian countryside, is a fucking mystery.
Except, I guess it’s not.
She came looking for Anastasia. Stassi, as Gia calls her.
She was convinced that this would be the way to get the Russians back on our side.
And that is going to get her killed.
I cut the bike off and run straight into the building.
“Gia!” I scream.
There’s nothing.
Panicked, I look around. Everything is burning. Smoke is rolling out of the areas around me like thunderclouds, and the acrid air burns my lungs.