Not to mention what might happen if Dario hears about it. World War III would break out.
Starting the noise triage, I swipe reject on the call from Dad and wrap the bottom of my shirt around Izzy to keep from dripping on the rug. Even after eight months of motherhood, I still cringe, but I'm going to change both my clothes and hers anyway, so I squelch us together, swing by the washer and stop the infernal beeping before heading for the changing table. Looks like it’s going to be a mother-daughter shower.
While I'm changing my little girl after cleaning both of us off, I wonder—and not for the first time—how this would have been with one of the guys to help me. To be able to sometimes sleep in while he takes the baby, to be able to leave him with a bottle and Izzy so I can go for a walk, or even just someone to hold me and make me feel better after a rough day. And these days, they're all rough days.
I’m not starving and we have a roof over our heads so I know I’m lucky. Dad still provides me with that, even though I'm as good as isolated from the Family now, other than making an occasional showing to keep up appearances. But while the money solves some pretty important problems, it does squat for my time demands, my sleepless nights or my loneliness.
“What do you think, kiddo? Did the guys make it?”
Izzy sniffles and rubs her face against my chest.
It's been a few days and I haven’t seen anything in the news, but I know better than most people how much gets swept under the rug in this town. No one knows I warned them—I hope—and it's not like an ambush by Dario going behind Papa's back would be something advertised or celebrated. Maybe I should've warned Papa too. But then Dario would know it was me, and assuming he survived his chastisement, he'd never leave me alone again.
I hope they made it.
As I wrap up Izzy and start rocking her to sleep, I daydream about Viking taking my place while I go make myself an espresso, curl up on the couch and read a little, or watch a stupid soap opera or reality show, or just do something simple and easy for myself without fear of being interrupted. Just for a little while. I could totally see Bear cuddling up with Izzy. My heart melts a little at the thought of her sprawled onto his massive chest, using him for a bed while he gently rubs her back. Snark? He'd be the one to make her laugh when she's awake, to take her out to play. I'm not sure he can sit still long enough for a nap. Hawk, on the other hand… No, he's not the cuddling type, or the playful type. But I'm pretty sure that if anyone ever hurt our daughter, he'd make sure it'd be the last thing they ever did.
But that'll never happen. It's too dangerous.
Which one of them is the actual father? I have no idea. Izzy looks like a little mini-me as a baby, and every time I look for signs of the guys in her, it's never just one. At least not consistently. It's like they all left a little part of them in her, in her determined little jaw or blue-turning-amber eyes or her dazzling smile. I know it’s not biologically possible, but without them being here to know for sure, I’ve let myself imagine that she shares all of them.
Just as I close the bedroom door with Izzy safely snoring softly in her crib, the phone rings again. I dash for the coffee table to get it before it wakes her back up and we start this all over again.
“Hey, Dad”
“Piccola mia,” he starts, letting me know right off the bat I’m not going to like this. “Alessandra. How are you?”
“I'm fine. What do you want?” I gear up for another argument about wanting to know who the baby daddy is, or about how he could arrange for Izzy to move to a safe home so I could get back to the life I should be living.
“Dario is asking for you.”
Oh. That. Somehow even worse. That's another part of my fantasy of having the guys around. I'd like to see Dario try to break their legs.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were busy, of course. Cazzo, if it were up to me, we would push the damn Fabbris out of the Family the hard way and dump their corpses in the river. But Papa thinks they're too valuable. And I suppose he's right. They provide a lot of muscle.”
“He still wants you to convince me to marry Dario, doesn’t he?” Just saying that makes me shiver. “I know he wants to keep the peace, but I’ll run before I let that happen.”