Hitman Next Door

“Your mother told you everything about my life.”

“Yes, she had no choice. I think she did it to prove how amazing you were but I don’t know.” She rubbed at her temple. This was all too much. She hadn’t spent this much time with her father since before that day when he ignored her.

“I miss her,” Rocco said.

Lemon finished pouring them a coffee, stepping toward him, and placing the mug in front of him. “I bet you do. I do as well. At times, I swear I can still hear her. Giving me advice. Telling me what I’m doing wrong. Complaining about the type of stitching I’m using.” All of her equipment was back at the house. Everything. “I can’t go back there, can I?”

“Not for your safety, you can’t.”

She sighed. “Then I guess it’s up to you where I live.”

“Can I ask you something?” Rocco asked.

“Can I stop you?”

“Lemon, I’m not a bad man.”

“You’re a mafia guy, Dad. Forgive me for not thinking you’re a saint.”

He chuckled. “I’ve missed this too. You know that day at the mall, all I wanted to do was come with you. I was shopping for one of Isabella’s parties, and I hated it.”

“You hate your kids?” she asked.

“No. I don’t hate them, but it is different with them. It always has been. Their mother, my wife, it is an arranged marriage. Neither of us can stand one another, Lemon. Your mother, though, she was a ray of sunshine to me. I told Nate she was my piece of heaven. So are you. I didn’t want to reject you that day. I do love you and your mother very much.”

“You expect me to believe you haven’t found another mistress to replace her?” Lemon asked.

“You can believe what you want. I haven’t. There is no one else that I want. I loved your mother more than anything. I can’t be with anyone else. I don’t want to be.”

“I believe you,” she said.

“Are you in love with Nate?” Rocco asked.

Lemon lifted her gaze to look at her father. She nodded, unable to say the words out loud in case they doomed her.

“Then you need to go to him. You need to fix this. As a man who only got a short time with your mother, with love, do not let it go just because he hurt you.”

“Dad, I’m not a doormat.”

“Neither was your mother. Do you think once you were born, we were back together? That she forgave everything?”

“She didn’t?” Lemon asked.

“Lemon, your mother and I didn’t start dating until you were nearly three years old,” Rocco said. “And then it took her a long time to accept this life. It’s why I worked so damn hard to make hers special. She gave me peace when no one else did. She was special. But you won’t have to do that with Nate.”

“What?” she asked.

“Nate is not … he’s not a capo. He’s a hitman, hired by us. His life is part of this world, but he hasn’t got any woman arranged. If you love him, just as he loves you, there is nothing stopping you. You are both free to be together.”

“What about you?”

“I made a promise to your mother some time ago. She asked me that when you found the man you loved more than anything, I wasn’t to interfere. I wasn’t to scare him off. Nate’s a good man. He’s also a fucking asshole, but if there is ever a man who will keep you safe, and I know you’ll be good with. It is him.”

Lemon nodded, sipping at the coffee.

“Also, you might want to drink tea, or one of those herbal things, because I have it on good authority you might be pregnant.”

Her mouth dropped open as she looked at her father. “You can not … what the hell, Dad?”

Rocco got to his feet and surprised her as he pulled her into his arms. “Your mother said one day you would call me that again. I didn’t realize how right she was, nor how desperately I wanted to hear it.”

Her father held her for the first time in years. She tensed up to begin with, but slowly, as his warmth surrounded her, she smiled. It wasn’t too bad getting a hug from her dad.

“I do love him, Dad.”

“I know you do. I’m not going to get in the way, no matter how desperately I want to.”

She giggled.

He kissed the top of her head.

“Don’t let my screwups affect your life. That was all on me, no one else. Nate is not the same as me,” he said.

“You like him?”

“I respect him. There is a difference.”

She couldn’t help but smile. This was the first time she’d been close with her dad, all of her own choice, but it was good to put the past to bed, to move on. For some reason, she knew deep down her mother was much happier with her being close to him than keeping him far away.