Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King (Possessive Mafia Kings #29)

30. Nadia

30

Nadia

The fading fumes of a city bus leave me in the shadow of a familiar, squat building. The loft is dark and empty. I flick on the light, let it wash over the exposed brick and the high, looming rafters lined with old industrial pipework. I was so excited to get this place for Sincere. I suppose I should be grateful that I wanted her to have somewhere nice. Or what counts as nice in New York.

Harper isn’t speaking to me. I think she’s a little young to know the art of giving the cold shoulder, but she does and she’s a natural. She doesn’t have a bedroom of her own to slink off to and slam the door, so she takes up the bed and my phone, and pointedly puts her back to me.

I try to talk to her about it, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want to hear it. I let her have her space and sit instead on the kitchen barstool. Even for a few grand a month, everything in the loft has that cheap, pre-furnished wobble to it.

I think about unpacking, but that idea gets the cold shoulder, too. I rub my hands into my temples, like I can press the thoughts of Ren flat and sweep them under some locked door in my mind. My eyes linger on the briefcase. The last thing he gave me.

I already have a sense of what will be in it.

I open it up, unsurprised to find thick straight rows of hundred-dollar bills, still banded from the bank. But there’s also a manila envelope, thick with some kind of documents and a letter, crisply folded on top of it all.

I touch the edge of it.

Over the past few years, I have become an expert at resisting temptation. Ignoring the things I can’t afford. Crossing off wants and focusing on needs. But tonight, I brace myself, and I give in.

I unfold the letter and I begin to read.