Chapter 11 Vega
Vega
Exhausted, I used my forearm to brush a few flyaway hairs out of my face as I walked out of the birthing center a few hours later.
Abi and her precious new daughter, Calina, were doing well.
Mommy and baby had given us all an intensely chaotic adventure, but I was thankful to have been a part of the experience.
Having to shove my hand into my new friend’s body to pull out her afterbirth when it got stuck was a quick way to bond us forever.
We were never going to talk about the fact that she hadn’t had an epidural—there wasn’t time, damn it—so she’d felt it in a big way.
When we’d gotten to the center, Doc had been in the middle of an emergency C-section.
Any one of the six highly experienced labor and delivery nurses working that evening could have easily helped Abi give birth, but Sammy had been insistent I tend to her sister-in-law.
And I was under the impression there weren’t many people who said no when Samara Vitucci Reid insisted.
It was a quick delivery with a beautiful, healthy baby. Quick, as in we barely got the mother-to-be into her suite before she was pushing. Thankfully, her husband was already there. Although Vaughn intimidated the hell out of me, I was glad he was present for the birth of his child.
I wasn’t going to allow myself to get stuck on the realization that neither of my men would be present for the birth of our own baby.
Choices had been made. Not just mine, but theirs when they married other women.
I’d done what was right and told them I was pregnant.
What they did with that information was their own business.
Sweet little Calina, with her red tufts of peach-fuzz hair and those wide blue eyes that looked so wise for someone fresh to the world, was perfectly healthy.
She’d simply been in a rush to get out and stretch her legs once she’d decided it was time to be born.
Abi was the one who had scared everyone with her heavy bleeding following the birth, until I’d found the piece of retained placenta.
Hence, the whole shoving my hand inside her thing.
Hayat’s scream still had my ears ringing, but I wasn’t sure if her shout had been in terror from how her bestie had been hemorrhaging or the abrupt way I’d just done what needed doing.
Given the dangerous people I’d been surrounded by, making anyone scream wasn’t healthy.
One wrong gasp and people could get…twitchy.
After a lot of fluids, a bag of blood, and a ton of TLC from her nearest and dearest, Abi was glowing. I’d left her in the hands of the L&D nurses, with a promise to Sammy I was only a phone call away. My back was aching, and I needed a shower in the worst kind of way.
A chill climbed my spine as I walked to my car.
Lexa or one of our fellow book club members had driven it over for me.
I was thankful for their thoughtfulness, because cabs in Creswell Springs weren’t a thing.
Neither was Lyft or Uber. The only bus I’d seen in the entire county was a school bus.
Small-town life was inconvenient like that, but I’d come to learn that public transit wasn’t needed when everyone knew everyone and their business.
They showed up for each other in the small ways that made the biggest impacts.
With the full moon shining down on me, along with plenty of streetlights, I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings as I walked through the nearly empty parking lot.
I thought I’d miss the sounds of the city, but since moving, I’d discovered the silence wasn’t nearly as loud in my head.
The noise had been a comfort because it was my only constant, like a friend who was always watching over me.
Even with two men in my life back then, I’d been so damn lonely.
Feeling the comforting kick of a tiny foot, reminding me that I wouldn’t ever have to feel alone again, I smiled to myself. Unlocking the driver’s door, I tossed my stuff in and carefully got behind the wheel. After all the excitement, the baby was being super active, and I was freaking starving.
“Vay?”
Yelping, I startled and turned to find a woman walking toward me out of the shadows.
Another chill slithered up my spine as I watched her come closer, the moon washing over her in an eerie sort of way.
I knew who she was—of course I did. Not just because she was Sammy and Vaughn’s mother, although the resemblance to her daughter was uncanny.
Especially with those blue eyes that seemed to see everything at once, including what a person was thinking.
Whatever her skin care routine was, I wanted to adopt it.
There was barely a fine line on her face.
Anya had popped up when I’d done my first internet search on the name Vitucci. Her name was linked to every top-tier crime family around the globe. Before marrying Cristiano Vitucci and adopting his son Ryan, she had an alleged hobby of eliminating problems for people.
Anya Vitucci stopped a few feet away, her eyes drifting over me before going to the birthing center, her shoulders tense.
Vulnerability flashed across her face for only a moment before she blanked her expression.
In my gut, I knew she’d allowed me to witness that small trace of emotion.
To remind me she was just as human as I was, maybe to set me at ease.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” She held up a bag, the scent of food making my stomach rumble. “I picked this up for you before Aggie’s closed. Figured you would be hungry. Once I made it through the morning sickness phase with Samara, I felt perpetually empty.”
I hesitated, wanting to stuff whatever that heavenly smell was into my mouth, but there was the whole taking-food-from-strangers thing. And I wondered if maybe she had ever eliminated a “problem” by poisoning a hungry person’s food.
Her lips twitched, once again leading me to wonder if she could read my mind. “It’s just a cheeseburger, Vay. A tiny thank-you for helping my daughter-in-law tonight.”
“One, she’s my friend. Of course I would help her.
Two, it’s also my job. I love what I do.
” Aggie’s had the best cheeseburgers in the freaking country, and I couldn’t turn that down.
After another small hesitation, and an insistent kick from the little person growing inside me, I took the bag from her. “Thank you.”
She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat. “How are you settling in? Are the locals treating you well?”
I stiffened. It wasn’t that I hadn’t spoken to Anya before. Abi had introduced us when I’d seen them out shopping one Saturday the month before. Anya lived in New York, but apparently she visited her children here often.
When Abi had introduced us, she’d told her mother-in-law that I was new to the area.
Our conversation hadn’t lasted more than ten minutes, with Abi doing most of the talking.
Then Sammy joined them and told Abi they were getting lunch.
They’d invited me to join them, but I’d made up an excuse, uncomfortable with how Anya kept looking at me.
She looked at me with eyes that cut through the layers of concrete and steel that I’d built around the pain and emptiness that weighed me down.
As if she saw the me I didn’t want to be, the person who gave away every piece of herself for free, without expecting anything in return.
The girl who had loved with her whole heart but was now crushed by men who’d given worthless promises of love and a future together.
Fuck, it had even felt like she could see that little girl who had been tossed into foster care.
No family. Always running because nowhere felt safe enough to close her eyes at night.
That sullen kid who was given one last chance in the form of a group home.
All the broken, angry, hurting versions of me, right there on display for her to see.
She hadn’t radiated judgment, just…knowledge.
And I hated that.
I’d been raw that day as Anya’s blue eyes had scraped over me, every part of me aching like an invisible bruise, but I’d worked on healing.
It took a little while, but I’d found something new.
Not better, just real and mine. Piece by piece, I’d been working on putting myself back together after being shattered.
This life I was making for my child and myself wasn’t perfect, but it would be ours.
“I’m finding my stride,” I finally answered with a shrug.
Another grumble of my stomach had me extracting the to-go box, popping off the top and grabbing the burger.
It was a big, beautiful mess of thick, perfectly seasoned ground beef patty, American cheese, lettuce, red onion, thick slices of tomato, and spicy dill pickles stacked high.
It was so big, I had to practically unhinge my jaw to take that first bite, but it was worth it.
“Oh God.” Moaning, I licked my lips. “Sorry. Also, again, thank you.”
She smiled, a genuinely pleased smile, and let me eat in silence for a few more huge bites.
“So…” she said when I’d devoured half the burger. “You’re happy here?”
The food suddenly felt very heavy in my stomach, a sharp kick from a tiny foot reminding me that I needed to be careful. “Yes, I’m happy.”
“Happier than you were back in Philly, or happy enough?”
Tears instantly blurred my vision, fear choking me. “Why does it matter?” I whispered. “What do you want from me?”
I wasn’t going to ask how she knew where I was from.
Only a few people knew the truth, my legal name, where I used to live, and who I was hiding from.
Having ended up in a small town with ties to the world’s most powerful crime family, I was aware that someone had placed me in their periphery on purpose.
But Sammy, Abi, and even Vaughn hadn’t mentioned anything about my past.
Regret flashed over Anya’s face. “I owe someone a favor, and he called it in.”