Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Just let me go to the bathroom and get my head together,” Carly says, shaking her head and walking away.
I feel like my head is going to fucking explode.
I need to get out of this restaurant, out of this city, away from these people.
And yet, if that’s my baby, how the hell am I supposed to walk away from that? How am I supposed to go back to Connecticut, knowing I have a kid out there being raised by the worst fucking person in the world?
Twenty four fucking hours ago, my life was good.
You’d think it’d get easier, Mateo blowing my life all to hell. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
I turn back to the table, to the site of my fucking destruction. We aren’t going to make it through this week. Carly has hung on for my bullshit, but she’s going to fall off if Mateo’s bullshit is added to the mix. Now she’s not just here to see the ex I was obsessed with, the cousin who plays mind games, the fucking hitman who will probably kill me, but also the baby I may have raped into my ex-girlfriend.
This is a lot to deal with. I only had to deal with ironic coffee mugs, newspapers covered with craft glue, and a history in prostitution. That’s all easy compared to what she has to deal with.
This isn’t going to work.
She’s going to realize I am not worth all this.
Carly was right. Mateo did find me, probably a long time ago. He gave me an inch, he gave me this time to give my heart away, just so he could yank my chain and crush it all over again.
Chapter Twenty
Mia
I lie back on the bed with my knees up, Dom balanced on my legs while Roman snuggles up against my side, clutching his blankie and yawning.
My husband eyes up Roman as he approaches the bed, raising an eyebrow to let him know he’s not impressed with his spot being filled by the smaller Morelli. “You were right; we should have only had girls.”
I smile faintly, but I’m not really in the mood tonight. “The girls love me, too. Sorry to burst your bubble.”
“Yes, but they don’t hog you in bed,” he states, sliding under the blankets as he scoots closer to me.
I rub the small hand Dom has wrapped around my thumb, absently holding onto me while he chows down on his toy. “We have a huge bed. There’s plenty of room for family cuddles.”
“You’re off tonight,” Mateo states, reaching over and running his fingers lightly up and down my arm.
“That was cruel. At dinner,” I specify. “I told you I didn’t want to take Dom. That would have been hard enough on him with just us. You could have given them one night to settle in. We could’ve brought Dom out tomorrow.”
Sighing, Mateo scoops up Roman and settles him in his lap so he can take his place, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me into his side. “It’s not a test if you go easy, Mia. The point of a test is to hit people with everything you have and see what happens. I invited Rafe to Easter dinner, by the way. He said yes.”
“That’s terrible. Spite invites are terrible.”
Mateo shrugs, unconcerned. “Vince doesn’t like him, either. I’d invite your old pal Mark if I didn’t hate him myself.”
“It’s too much. Vince is too…” I don’t finish the thought, because it will only prove Mateo’s point. I’m not allowed to protect Vince anymore, I’m not allowed to keep him alive if he fails the test, but this test just feels like piling on. How can Mateo expect Vince, of all people, to pass if he’s going to blow up his whole world, leave him with nothing, and rub everything he doesn’t have right in his face?
Well, he probably doesn’t.
Mateo has made no secret that he wants to kill Vince, and he’s assured me if Vince can keep his shit together, then he will let Vince live.
So he’s going to make sure Vince can’t keep his shit together.
I shake my head, disappointed. “I just thought you were giving him a chance.”
“I am giving him a chance,” Mateo tells me, firmly. “This is a chance, Mia. This is me going easy on him. I wanted to keep it simple. I wanted to take care of the problem in the simplest and most effective way possible, but you begged me to have mercy. This is what mercy looks like. The only way he gets to live is if he proves nothing I do can make him come back and try to take what belongs to me again. That’s it. No shortcuts. No sympathy. He has to be proven harmless, or he has to be eliminated. If this week is hard on him, that’s his problem. He created this situation. It’s not my fault Dom is his. It’s not my fault it upsets him that the girlfriend who hasn’t been his for years got married. None of that is my doing. Am I exploiting it? Sure. But he gave me the means.”