Phantom's Baby: A Mafia Secret Baby Romance (Mob City Book 3) (17 page)

My eyes were wet with tears, but I opened them anyway. "You don't understand –"

He cut me off. "Try and tell me I don't understand! I've been where you are, Cara. It's a fucking hopeless place, and you think you'll never get out. I've been there. You know when I was in that cell? I spent six months barely eating. I just slept, or else lay on my bunk with my eyes open and nothing in my mind. I was depressed; I'd given up on life."

"That's –"

He cut me off again.
That's where I am
, I wanted to scream.
Why won't you listen?

"But you never did, Cara, and you never will. You're stronger than that – than me. All that time I was away, you never gave up. Even," he raised his voice to parry away any chance that I could butt in. "If you think you did, you didn't. You kept on fighting, for Kitty, and yourself. You think escaping your dad's place was running away?" His voice hardened more the longer he spoke.

I nodded, and as I did salty droplets fell off my face and splashed against the concrete floor, staining it dark.

"Well that's bullshit too, Winters. Sometimes running
is
fighting."

I shrugged. I was uncomfortable with his – what? Praise? I didn't know exactly what the hell this was, but it didn't feel right. I knew what Val was doing, trying to make me feel better. And even though he seemed sincere, even though every fiber in his body screamed that he was telling the truth, it didn’t stop me from squirming. I wasn’t used to it, I wasn’t ready for it, and I sure as hell didn’t know what to say back to him.

"Talk or don't, Carrie," he said, his voice softening again as he ran his fingers through my hair. "But you're going to pull that trigger today, even if I have to wrap my finger around yours and do it for you. You understand?"

I looked up at Val and wiped the tears off my face with the back of my hand. I could tell by the sound of his voice that he believed in me so damn deeply. Even if I didn't yet believe in myself, I believed in him. I trusted him. I wanted to be strong for him.

"I –," my voice cracked.

I tried again. My voice was so soft that even I could barely hear it.

"I don't want to be the girl who freaks out because she drops some hand cream on the floor. I don't want Kitty to grow up thinking her mom's weak. I can't promise anything, but I'll try."

Before I knew what was happening, Val smothered my face with his. He pressed his mouth against mine, his lips against my lips, and he kissed me. It was the kind of kiss that turns a girl's legs into jelly. The kind I'd longed for all my life.

And then he broke away from me, and pulled me to my feet, and there was a gun in my hands, and I was facing down range.

It happened too fast to think.

It happened too fast to speak.

I breathed out,
one, two
. I closed my eye. I focused on the center mass.

I squeezed the trigger, I didn't pull it.

And the gun spat fire.

I love you too, Valentino No-name
.

T
ime with Cara
seemed to flash by in like I was stuck on Earth, and she was a satellite flashing by overhead. One second I was standing there with my fingers around hers, and the muzzle of her pistol coughing lead. The next I was lying in bed with her hair spread out across my chest, feeling like I'd run a marathon with my cock spent and limp.

If only I'd had her in that cell with me … I never would have had to learn to meditate, because the years would have flown by before I knew it.

And the sex
…

Jesus, if Cara had been locked up in that concrete box with me, it wouldn't have been coughing up blood after a boot to the ribs that would have killed me, or a knife to the throat. It would've been sheer exhaustion; and I would have loved every second, embracing my death the way a drunk craves the bottle.

My cock twitched just at the thought. Lord knows how after the session we just had, but I almost felt ready to go again. Her scent teased my nostrils – soft, and gentle like spring petals. The smell of our sweat underlined it, as well as the musky aroma of sex, and I drank it in as deep as it would go.

I couldn't stop looking at her. I kept staring at the way her naked back rose and fell with her breath; I couldn’t stop tracing my fingers down the crack of her spine; or caressing her long red hair. Every second, one thought kept repeating in my mind.
She makes me a
different person; a better man
.

The man who escaped his cell a few short weeks before, had only one thought on his mind – revenge – bloody revenge, at that. He fell asleep at night dreaming of the screams of his enemies, pictured their red life force dripping from his fingers, and daydreamed of their last, anguished breaths escaping their labored lungs.

But the Val in the here and now, the one with Cara's hair on his chest and her trust in his plan – he was different. Better. He had something to live for that wasn't just an urgent, all-consuming thirst for revenge. He had a family: a woman –
maybe
one day a wife
– and a child to care for. His dreams were different too.

"You're awake."

Her breath tickled my chest, at least what little of it that wasn't covered by her long hair like fallen auburn leaves in fall. The few short, dark hairs that stood uncovered upon it, like fir trees on a mountain range, danced in the wind.

I held my tongue for a second. It wasn't
just
that I didn't know what to say – though I didn't. It was because I felt like speaking might ruin everything. This was the most perfect moment I could imagine, even more so because it came after two years in which I hadn't allowed myself to dream. And a dream was what this was – or at least what it felt like. A daydream in which everything was perfect…

… perfectly poised to crumble in front of my eyes.

I'd never lived this life. I'd never had a family – at least, not a normal one with a white picket fence and 2.4 kids. Now I had it all, with my whole life running ahead of me like a road to the Promised Land at the far edge of the desert, and it still felt like I was only one step from disaster.

"I am."

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

I didn't know how to answer. I was thinking of Kitty, and her, and of running far, far away from this place: to a tropical island, maybe, where our biggest worry would be lathering enough sunscreen on the kid's skin. Or kids’ …

Would you have another? With me?

So I answered honestly. "I’m thinking of you; of how damn scared I am; of how sorry I am that I put you and Kitty in all this danger."

Cara laughed. Her light voice tinkled like bells on a mountain breeze.

"You didn't hear?"

"What?"

"I'm a crack shot, now," she giggled back, pinching a patch of skin on my chest between her thumb and forefinger. "You don't need to worry, because Cara's here to save you."

I rolled onto my side and rested my head on my arm. Cara tumbled off me, and sat up with indignation on her face.

"Hey! What was that for?"

I reached over and grabbed her by the shoulder. I squeezed. "I'm serious Cara. This city's sick. It's no place for you and Kitty. There are things you –"

“– things I what?" She replied sharply.

"You don't know about…" I said, realizing my mistake. Then I decided to ignore it. If I couldn't trust Cara, then who could I trust? If I couldn't trust her, then what was the point in all of this – in any of this?

"You remember Anatoly?"

Cara scrunched up her face as she tried to remember. "You mean your man – the fat one?"

I chewed on my lip. "I wish," I growled. "He's gone rogue. At least I think he has. Dimitri hasn't heard from him since we raided –, since the last mission. I think he sold us out. Just be careful okay?"

"And that's why your stomach's cut to shit?" She asked pointedly, gently scratching one of her manicured nails against a closed-up cut on my belly.

I cleared my throat hurriedly. "That's –. That's something else."

"Uh huh," Cara replied, sounding less than convinced. But she didn't push the issue, and I couldn't have been more grateful. I didn't want to keep secrets from her. Not in the long-term. But right now, there were things I was ready to share, and things that I wasn't … What had happened with Rat in that warehouse fell decidedly in the second category.

"So what are you saying, Val? You want us to leave? That’s just too bad because we're not going without you. I love you, Val whatever-the-hell-your-second-name-is, you hear that? I love you and you know something -- me and Kitty? We ain't going anywhere."

I stared at her, stunned. Twenty-one years and no one in my life had ever told me they loved me. My mouth went dry and my fingers clammy all at once. I tried to speak, but all I could manage was a wide opened mouth. I stared at her like a character from a kid's cartoon, my eyes huge in my face.

"You –" I croaked.

She grinned, and the smile split her face from ear to ear with happiness. "I love you, Val. So you better just goddamn believe it."

I swallowed and wiped my hands on the bed sheets. I couldn't understand why my body was betraying me. I didn't mind throwing myself into a fight with a feral dog, or taking on half a dozen men with nothing more than the knife strapped to my ankle, but this?

This was more terrifying than any fight I'd ever undertaken – as part of a group or alone.

Cara stared at me expectantly, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and plant a kiss on her face. To throw her back down on the bed and take her for hours, to –

She cleared her throat, and all of a sudden she seemed to be staring at me with just one eye. It was focusing on me, pressuring me, waiting for me to say something.

"I –"

"You what, Val?" She smiled wickedly.

Don't make me say it
, I squirmed.
You know I mean it, please just don't make me say it
.

The silence built between us. I needed a way to hide from it. I reached over and rested my hand on her cheek. Her skin burns to the touch. Her fiery hair tickled the backs of my hands.

"I love you, too," I whispered, so quietly even I could barely hear it.

Cara cupped her hand around her ear. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite…"

I growled and pushed her backwards against the bed, and the sheet she was holding around her body fell away, and my eyes feasted on her pale skin as she collapsed onto her back. Her eyes were opened wide, her breath ragged, and her puffy nipples rose and fell in disarray.

"I said I fucking love you, Cara Winters. Is that loud enough for you?"

Cara blinked and nodded. Her red hair fell like a fiery halo around her head, dancing like the flames of a campfire at night as she moved.

My cock began to grow. I dipped my lips to her pinks and kissed her, and her body responded like a thoroughbred.

Oh yes. I love you more than you can imagine.

* * *

"
I
've got a baby girl
, Val," Cara laughed. Turns out that telling a girl you love her is like an aphrodisiac. Fuck oysters, and the little blue pill; I've never seen a woman ride my cock like Cara just did. Christ, if I'd had my way she wouldn't have gotten off for hours; but she would have gotten off for hours.

It took my brain a little while to respond. I was sex drunk, and intoxicated by her pussy.

"You… Baby?" I shook my head in a cartoonish attempt to clear it.

Cara picked through the mound of discarded garments on my bedroom floor. "Kitty, Val? She's a champion napper, but I can't just leave her on her own all day. She'll go crazy. Besides, I would too."

Kitty
.

"Kitty!"

I leapt out of bed and dived for the door. The last few hours had changed me somehow. No – holding Cara in my arms and contemplating how delicate she was, how fragile, and how all of a sudden I had something to lose,
that
was what had changed me. I was a family man now, for better or worse, for ri –

"Val!"

I stopped mid-stride, tried to turn and almost toppled over. I waved my arms in the air to regain my balance, and saw Cara's lips turn up into a smile. She tossed a crumpled white shirt at me. And I couldn't help but notice that her eyes danced across the cock now swinging from side to side between my legs. She cleared her throat.

"Before you go and see my, I mean
our
daughter, Val – would you mind awfully putting on some clothes? Just because I like the heat you’re packing, doesn't mean it's age-appropriate just to walk around the apartment naked, you know?"

My face flushed with embarrassment and I dived into the shirt to hide its redness. "Old habits," I mumbled from behind the material.

Suitably dressed, and a little more restrained, I followed Cara down the corridor to Kitty's room. I was so excited I started hopping from foot to foot. I'll be honest, I'm not one for mumbo-jumbo, but you know what? Maybe that's just because I'd never been in love. I felt like saying those words to each other had changed everything. It was like all my life I'd had tinted-gray goggles strapped to my eyes, and today was the first day of freedom seeing in color – and living that tired old cliché: the first day of the rest of my life.

"Geez – got ants in your pants much?" Cara grinned as she pushed open the bedroom door.

"Mama!", Kitty gurgled as we walked into the room.

"Hey baby," Cara cooed. "Did you have a nice nap?"

Kitty pouted. "No more nap."

Cara held her hands above her head. "Are you sure?" She teased.

Kitty nodded.

Then I couldn't help it. I plucked Kitty off the bed and turned her into an airplane above my head. I made engine sounds and she giggled, flight announcements and she laughed, and the whole while Cara just stared on, with a happy, sad smile on her face.

"Why the long face, Ms. Winters?" I asked, cradling Kitty to my chest as she beat against it with her hands and fists, demanding that I restart the game.

"It's nothing," she said quickly, turning to one side to hide her eyes.

I lifted Kitty back up and pressed my ear right against her mouth. "Mama's sad," I whispered – quiet enough that Cara couldn't hear a word." Wanna cheer her up with me?"

Kitty stared up at me with big, wide and serious eyes. She nodded and her rich, red-brown hair danced up and down like one of those tiny little backyard tornadoes disturbing a newly raked pile of crisp, dry freshly fallen leaves. I set her down on her feet, and we toddled over towards her mama, hand in hand.

Kitty looked at me and I nodded, and as one we both grabbed one of her legs and held on tight. Cara started, and her hands jumped guiltily away from her face. "What are you two –?"

She looked down.

"Mama, why you cwying?" Kitty asked with an adorable, crestfallen expression on her face as she stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

"It's just," she croaked. "It's just I'm so happy, you know?"

A tear leaked out from her eye. I cocked my head and looked at her askance. "Are you sure?" I questioned disbelievingly. "Because from where Kitty and I are looking, you look like you're crying…"

Cara shook her head and nodded it all at once, and the tear fell from her face and glinted in the light on its long way down. "No," she sniffed, holding one hand down to each of us. "I really, really am. I just never thought I would ever get to see you two together like this – and both so happy!" She did a little dance of excitement on both feet and almost sent Kitty flying.

"Whoops," she snorted guiltily, grabbing hold of her daughter. "Sorry baby girl."

I pulled myself to my feet. "What about me?" I asked with a false pout on my face.

Cara raised an eyebrow. "You, mister, can look after yourself."

I paused for thought. Her words echoed in my mind, and I caught myself shaking my head. “No,” I said quietly, gathering both of their soft, delicate bodies against my own. “I’m going to look after both of you.”