Conquered by the Mafia Boss

Johnny’s hardened face stares me down. “He has a right if he’s the father.”

Tony’s jaw makes a tic as he looks back at Johnny, fuming. “John, I don’t want that asshole at my engagement party. If he’s showing up, we’re leaving.”

Disappointment steams off Johnny’s face. I can tell that he doesn’t approve, but he can’t force us to accept a fucking audience from my ex at my own party.

“Fine. I’ll let them know to bar him from the restaurant.” His eyes slide to mine. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to face him.”

He walks off, leaving me trembling in Tony’s arms. The horror of it all buries me, until breathing feels painful. I never anticipated all this shit, but of course we should have. We were so stupid.

“Tony.”

Suddenly his hand is viselike around my arm. “Elena, get behind me.”

“There you are, you fucking cunt!”

A vicious voice fills my veins with toxin, and Tony throws an arm in front of me, shoving me back as Rafael lunges forward. Looking furious, Johnny seizes the back of his collar and yanks him.

“I fucking told you to be civil,” he hisses into his ear before giving him a sharp slap across the face.

Rafael’s head rips to the side. His eyes lift to John, and I’m surprised at the threat simmering inside them. “She’s carrying my kid, John.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“If there fucking even is a kid at all,” he snarls.

I open my mouth in fury, but Tony gets there first.

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

A cruel grin stretches Rafael’s mouth as he appraises Tony, who is a much larger man. Unfortunately Tony doesn’t seem to intimidate Rafael.

“So you’re the asshole fucking my girl?”

Tony smiles. “She’s not your girl.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.”

“You lost the right to call her that the moment you laid a hand on her.”

His face contorts with rage. “She’s mine and everything that belongs to her, belongs to me!”

“You whine like a little bitch,” Tony snaps, finally releasing some of his anger. “She doesn’t want you. She wants me.”

“Get over here!” he screams at me. For a moment Rafael just stands there, quietly burning as the things he thought he had slipped from his grasp without him even realizing. I watch him suffer with a cruel sort of satisfaction pounding against my ribs. He won’t win. Not this time. First he lost me. Now his pride is gone, too.

“You’re a dead man.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Johnny shouts. He motions with his head, and two men grab Rafael’s arms, dragging him out of the restaurant.

Rafael snaps the moment they touch his arms. His voice raises to the ceiling as he screams at the top of his lungs. People glance around in their seats. Flecks of spittle fly from his mouth.

“YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU BETTER-”

I disappear from Tony’s side and run through the restaurant, ignoring everyone’s sympathetic looks as I disappear into the bathroom. My chest swells and I check every stall first, confirming that I’m alone. Then I let myself curl into a ball.

Only this once.

My back slides against the wall and I try to cover my mouth to stifle the horribly loud and embarrassing sounds. My insides feel like caving in because I’m so humiliated. Tony’s mother must have seen the whole thing-and all the other wives, too. There’s also the fact that we completely overlooked that Rafael might be crazy enough to claim the baby was his.

I stand up, shaking in anger as I stare into the mirror over the sink, tears blurring my vision. I want to smash that weak, pathetic thing. Who the fuck is she? She isn’t Jack Vittorio’s daughter. She’s just a scared little girl, too weak to handle her own problems.

The door rattles. “Elena?”

He opens the door before I can tell him to leave and steps inside, locking it behind him.

I look at his cool, indifferent face for a while. “What the hell are we doing, Tony?”

The bathroom echoes with his sharp footsteps, which make me flinch. He stops in front of me and my skin prickles as he brushes his fingers over my bare neck.

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t possibly-we’re fucked! There’s no way we can keep up with these lies.”

“Sure we can. We’ll pay off those technicians to fake some tests for us.”

He sounds so sure. So confident.

“Then what happens in a few months when I’m supposed to be showing and I’m not?”

He shrugs and laughs at me, as though I’m making a big deal out of nothing. “So we fucking say you miscarried it. It’s no one’s fucking business. As for Joe Jerk-off, well, he’ll have to back off once we’re married.”

I don’t know.

His lips descend over mine and I seize his neck, leaning into him as his mouth devour me. At the same time, I hear a sound that reminds me of fabric-

BZZZZT.

The vibrator hums to life and my arousal returns with a vengeance as I open my mouth in a gasp. “Tony-this isn’t the time!”

“This is the perfect fucking time. You need to get your mind off things, and I’ll be a lot happier watching you come while you shake Johnny’s hand than watching you cry.”

His voice is sweet. I don’t expect that, and tears thicken my throat as he cradles my cheek in his hand. There’s not a tinge of doubt in his eyes, just reassuring confidence.