“You’re treading on thin ice. You’re not merging leadership by having Rome’s baby.” There was a beat of silence. “It should be Bastian’s.”
Ah, there was the wrinkle in the suit, the chink in his armor. Therein lay the frustration. My grandfather wanted pure blood. The highest leader in the Armanelli Family tied to his own.
It pissed me off so much that I disclosed what Rome and I had found out through a call on one of my blood tests. “I forgot to tell you, you can officially call the baby a girl now. She’s healthy in case you’re wondering.”
He grumbled over the phone line but I smiled at the news. Finding out the baby was a girl brought some sort of weird recognition and reality down upon me. I wanted to meet her so badly, see the innocence and perfection I created.
“She’s worthless. Not the right Armanelli.” My grandfather carried on.
“And, have you forgotten that I’m a mutt?”
He sighed like he knew his argument was null and void. The traditions of families and their bloodlines didn’t make sense. They never had. No one’s blood was as valuable as their actions or loyalties. His own son had been disloyal in the end. He was a testament to that. Just as Rome’s father had been a testament and Mario too.
Family was only as good as their loyalty to you, not their blood relation.
Power shouldn’t revolve around a birthright.
His voice was low and ominous when he said, “I don’t forget anything, Katalina. Not in the way people think I do. I remember enough to know when to test the bratva and when not to. You’re making your own bed.”
“Are you saying you won’t help me tuck in the sheets?”
“I don’t deal with messes, darling. If you choose this path, have that baby, be with that man; I will wish you the best. But my hands will be tied when it comes to the repercussions.”
I shrugged and let the apathy roll through me. It stopped in my gut and bloomed into worry and fear. Something grew there that I couldn’t shrug off. My neutral ground had been lost, lost to a little soul growing innocently in my belly. The doctor had let us know I was officially 13 weeks along now. My morning sickness had subsided and I had been feeling a wave of normality. But now I was being threatened by the old head of the bratva.
“Ivan, there will be repercussions either way. What’s done is done. You can consider yourself officially retired.”
I didn’t hesitate to hang up the phone. Cutting ties with the man was easy. I hadn’t known him long enough to mourn his loss. I texted Maksim and a few others that Ivan should not be included in meetings in the future, that he needed to focus on his health. Ivan replied in the group chats that he appreciated my blessing.
It was all for show.
He was seething mad and probably plotting something against me. It didn’t matter.
I got the call that afternoon. The last part of the government and the police force had signed off on the contracts with our lawyers. Our state would be held to a new standard regarding sex trafficking, along with about a billion other things, but that was the one are that mattered to me. The lawyers had been hired for this very reason. The partnerships were ironclad, the contracts written by the best in the world, and the government, along with the big players in the city, were all in the know.
If someone acted out, every partner brought them down, legally and with the government behind them.
Rome turned the key in the front door minutes later. I didn’t sit up when he came in, just
looked at him from my spot on his couch. We’d finally agreed to pass the time between my penthouse and his. And by his place, I meant the one with the panic room. I made him get rid of the damn apartment under my penthouse.
Crazy man.
Crazy man that I loved.
This place with the cream tones and the muted colors appealed to me, not because of the design, but because of that damn panic room. It was a little home of mine, a place where I’d felt safe in a weird sort of a way. I’d found comfort there with him and Edgar Allen Poe, with him curled up next to me doing nothing for a time.
“I heard the news, Cleo.” He was smiling, a big bag at his side.
“Did you now?” I swung my legs back and forth in the air, the “fuck” and the “you” written on them flying at him over and over.
“Want to celebrate by opening your gift?”
I turned on the couch and sat upright, a bit intrigued with what was in the bag. “You were out buying gifts?”
“I was at the club, setting up. The opening is in the next few days. There’s something in here you can wear to it.”
I hummed. With all that was going on, I’d forgotten that the man I now lived with was opening a sex club. “I’m not sure how to feel about my future baby’s daddy participating in this exclusive endeavor.”