Page 61 of Mafia Billionaire's Surprise Baby

“I think I got it. Since we announced the whole marriage between Elio and Caterina, you’ve been basically just following me around all the time, and you think that keeps you safe from my scrutiny.”

Damn it.

She’s pretty much correct.

I fly under the radar compared to my brothers.

Marco is… Marco. He’s the heir of the De Luca family, and he’s the one who ran everything until his disappearance.

Dino is… a bull in a China shop on a good day, a wrecking ball on a bad one.

Both Marco and Dino are pretty even in terms of their ability to fly off the handle at a moment’s notice.

When we go out together, it’s pretty much a guarantee that one of them is going to get into a fight.

Which is why no one ever seems to notice me in the background. They don’t notice that I move all the things that I know will piss either one of them off out of the way.

I stay close to them too.

I wink at Gia. “Okay. You got it.”

She laughs. “I knew it! And you figured out that you could do that because Marco and Dino are basically juggernauts, yes?”

“Yes, actually.”

“So, if people were constantly looking at something louder and more annoying, then they’d never look at you?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew I never would because I assumed pretty much the same thing?”

“I figured the fact you found me attractive helped.”

Gia rolls her eyes. “You never knew I found you attractive.”

I study her. “The first time I saw you, at Caterina and Elio’s first engagement party, your pupils got big like saucers.”

“It was night.”

“Not at the incredibly well-lit party it wasn’t.”

“Fine,” Gia huffs. “I feel like you took some kind of online course in FBI-level body language. But fine. I did always think you were the hot one.”

I want to beam at her. “It wasn’t an online course. Criminal justice at Rutgers.”

Gia barks a laugh. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“You. The third son of a prominent mafia family. You took criminal justice?”

“I needed to know,” I say quietly. “I needed to make sure that no one would ever take members of my family away in handcuffs ever again. I needed to know how they thought. What they looked for. So that no De Luca went to jail. Ever again.”

Gia stills, her fork halfway to her mouth.

Slowly, she puts it back down. “That’s really why you did it, isn’t it?”

I nod.