“Relatively speaking.”

  She sat down beside me, putting her hands in mine. She smoothed them over, just like I had done with her before.

  “Hey. You can tell me. We’re in this together, remember?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah ...ugh. Everyone is okay. A few people got shot, but no one was killed, and otherwise, there was nothing really serious, either. What did happen was they apparently went through the house looking for you. I guess they tried to arrest people, but what the hell were they gonna arrest on? They had no warrants and no probable cause, either. But it was ...shit, Evie.” I ran my hand through my hair. “It was implied that those pictures came from my father. That it was his fault that all of this was happening because he broke the agreement.”

  “The agreement that people wouldn’t know about us or the pregnancy.”

  Nico nodded.

  “Exactly.”

  “Why would your father do something like that, though? I thought he understood that ...this was what was best for everyone. To keep the peace between us and my father?”

  I shrugged.

  “Honestly? I don’t fucking know. Maybe it was a power play. Maybe he thought that this was going to put him ahead of the game or something. There’s only one way to find out, though. The house is safe, and we’re going back to talk to my father.”

  THE DRIVE BACK HOME was quiet. Evie was as much in her own thoughts as I was in mine. Only difference was, I think she was worried. Me? I was livid. My own father ...I couldn’t even begin to explain why what he did was fucked up.

  Allan greeted us when we came up the front. There were bullet holes all over the place and glass on the ground. Tire tracks in the ground. Shit. This place was a literal and metaphorical clusterfuck of a mess.

  “Hey, man.” He nodded to me and Evie.

  “Glad to see you’re good.”

  “Same to you. Same to you.”

  “My father still in his office?”

  “Yeah, man. Just go on right up.”

  I turned to Evie.

  “Let me talk to him on my own.”

  She looked at me, shocked.

  “Why? This has to do with both of us—”

  “I have to be the one that questions him,” I said. “I’m his son, and when he’s gone, I’m going to be the one running all of this. So this has to be a me and him thing. You understand that, right? I’ll tell you everything when I get out.”

  I knew that she wanted to be a part of this, but she knew that I was right, too. She nodded her head, and I turned to Allan.

  “Keep an eye on her. We don’t want any crazier shit going down and happening, you know.”

  With that, I went to my father’s office. I didn’t bother to knock before I pushed in. The air was full of cigar smoke, and I had to squint and blink a little before a lot of it got in my eyes.

  “How rude of you not to knock.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  “So, I assume you figured it out, did you?”

  I sneered at him.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I figured it out. I just don’t know why you did it. Why would you release pictures like that to the public, knowing what Evie and I were trying to do? Knowing that her father would be forced to retaliate? I thought you understood what this was.”

  Annoyingly, he laughed.

  “You thought I knew what this was. Ha. And I thought you knew that sometimes you had to make bold moves in order to get what you wanted.”

  “Was having the house shot up and Evie almost taken away something that you wanted?”

  There, my father was silent. He stared at me. He took another deep puff of his cigar and blew out the smoke before answering.

  “I’ll admit, I miscalculated how much of Rick Brown’s shit would be lost, seeing his daughter’s photos plastered all over the news in the midst of his ... extensive investigations.”

  “You fucked up is what you did.”

  My father shrugged.

  “It happens.”

  “That still doesn’t answer why you did it.”

  There, my father sighed. He let out a large, annoyed sort of huff.

  “When I agreed to take in your pregnant ...side piece,” he said slowly, “I did so understanding that there would always be some sort of play that would go on between us and them. You honestly expected all of this to go smoothly, like some sort of romance—like a child who’s gotten his first taste of pussy and thinks it’s made of gold.” My father scoffed. “I did it because I knew Evie and that baby that’s growing in her belly would be useful in more ways than one. I did it to rattle Rick’s cage and to remind him who truly runs things—to remind him of what I hold in my grasp now. The man is close to washing up. I could easily help him out of it ... I have power and means. I wanted to remind him, though, that just as much as I could help him, I could destroy him.”

  My jaw clenched.

  “You did this for a power play?”

  Again, my father shrugged.

  “I assumed that he would do what he always does—pay off people in order to make the bad ilk run away.”

  “He told the public that we kidnapped and raped Evie! This allowed the cops to be set on us—”

  “And nothing permanently damaging happened.”

  “You gambled with people’s lives, assuming that things would go your way. That’s sick. That’s insane—”

  “That’s business, my boy,” my father said. “And if you want to take my place one day, you will learn that this is all a part of the game. Do you think that, if the roles were reversed—if your pretty girl was a pretty boy instead and you, my idiot son, were instead an idiot daughter who had laid on her back and taken cock that she shouldn’t have, getting herself fat with a bastard child—that he wouldn’t do the same? That he wouldn’t use the two of you, that unborn baby, and this power struggle against me? I made the first move—”

  “And he’s made his. You’ve put us in danger.”

  My father smirked.

  “If you think this is danger, boy, perhaps you’re not as cut out to watch over your little lamb as you think. Now. Leave. I won’t be questioned by you anymore. Not when I need to plan our next move.”

  “Not until you answer me about what you promised Rick in return for us meeting,” I said. “You remember, right? A couple months back? I knew something was sneaky back then, but I didn’t think to look too much into it. Maybe you were looking out for me. Obviously, you weren’t.”

  My father smiled.

  “I promised him his grandchild if he poked at you a little. Naturally, I wasn’t going to give into such a thing, but it was nice making him feel like he had the upper hand. Certainly you had fun with him, no? You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy seeing the man riled. You can’t claim to be holier than thou, Nico, when you’re my son and I know just how you operate. You don’t fool me anymore than you’d be able to fool a man like Rick Brown.”

  I walked to the desk. Each step was deliberate. I could have choked him, beat him, and bashed in his head. I could have killed him.

  I didn’t.

  Instead, I leaned forward, putting my hands on his desk. I got in his face. I looked in his eyes and made damn sure that he saw the fury there—and oh, there was fury. Lots of it.

  “One day,” I said levelly. “One day, you’re going to be old and decrepit, and you’re going to need me to take care of you. And on that day that you look at me, thinking that I’m gonna wipe your ass, coddle you, and, tell you everything is gonna be okay, I’m going to remember this moment and tell you that you can rot in hell.”

  Instead of being angry, my father laughed. His head tilted back and his belly rolled. It was the most amused I’d heard of him in years.

  “For once, you act like my son. I remember saying the exact same thing to my father when I was your age. Careful now, Nico; we’re more similar than you think.”

  I scoffed. “I’m nothing like you,” I told him. “Nothing. You claim that you’re all about family and protecting what’s yours—what’s ours. How was this protecting? How?”

  “You’ll understand one day, when you’re actually running this business and you have a family of your own that you have to keep track of. Until then, my boy,” my father said, continuing to smile at me. “Try not to bite off more than you can chew. Remember who’s in charge here.”

  Chapter 4

  Evie

  Nico was taking some time talking to Geno. I had gone up to the nursery, sitting in a rocking chair that we had gotten for the room. It was a quaint room and it was comforting. Within it, I was allowing myself to think.

  I was tired of being passive.

  I was tired of waiting.

  I couldn’t let my baby come into this world to a mother who just ...let things happen around her without intervening!

  There was a fire lit under me, and I wasn’t going to let it go out.

  When Nico came looking for me, I began talking before he could put a stop to it.

  “I want to go to the press and fix what my father has done,” I said immediately.

  “What?” He blinked at me as if I were crazy. I stood my ground.

  “I want to go to the press and fix what my father has done,” I repeated. “All of this. All the lies. Everything. I want to come clean about us—about the pregnancy. They can’t vilify and they can’t control if I’m the one setting the record straight, and they can’t make a victim out of me if I’m not one—”

  “No.”

  I stopped my tirade.

  “What do you mean, no? You heard what my father said. You saw what happened because of what he said—”

  “No one was hurt—”

  “Not this time. Nico, what the hell is wrong with you? This isn’t okay. We have to fix this.”

  “You’re not fixing anything, Evie. Do you hear me?” He shook his head. “Listen, this will blow over, and we’ll figure something out. You don’t need to be doing anything rash. Let me handle this.”

  My jaw locked.

  “Let you handle this?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you plan to do, then? Go public and tell them that you didn’t do all those things to me? Do you think that they’re going to believe you when you’re the one who’s being accused? Do you think they’re going to care?”

  “Evie.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Look. Our fathers are involved in this. And they’re not good men. We both know this—”

  “If I can tell the truth—”

  “Evie, just let me handle this, okay?”

  I stared at him. He wasn’t going to back down. That was fine. I wouldn’t either.

  “Fine. Do what you have to do.”

  At least not to his face.

  NICO WAS A HEAVY SLEEPER. It served me well when I wanted to do things like make him breakfast in bed or get some shopping of some sort done before his very, very late rising. This morning it was serving a different purpose, as I was the first to rise in the entire compound and therefore able to leave without being noticed and before anyone could stop me—let alone tell Nico.

  The plus side to being my father’s daughter was that I had the numbers to all the major press. I knew personally several news anchors and quite a few journalists who were always interested in a story—even if it wasn’t a factual one. Regardless of that, I had resources and they were meeting me at City Hall to prep for the interview of a lifetime.

  It had been so long since I’d been in front of a camera, let alone pulled at, poked, and prodded. I was made up and done up to perfection—though I would admit it was nice that all of this was happening outside of the scope of my father’s control.

  I was surprisingly calm when all was said and done and I was placed upon a podium. Camera lights flashed. The phone that Nico had bought me buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. Nico would be furious, but it was something that I was willing to endure if it meant that I got this out the way that I wanted to get it out.

  I started to speak.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in front of a camera, so forgive me if I’m a little rusty,” I said, giving the crowd that Brown smile that they had come to know and love. “But it’s been for good reason. As you can see, the rumors are true—I’m very, very pregnant.”

  Click, click, flash. Cameras went off. I playfully showed off my belly and went back to it.

  “I know there’s been a lot of talk the last few days about this whole thing. And a lot of people have had a lot of opinions about this pregnancy. After my father’s colorful press conference, however, and the photographs that were released to the press without my consent, I wanted to set the record entirely straight. Yes, this is a child conceived between myself and Nico Esposito. But unlike the story that my father told you, I wasn’t kidnapped, nor was I raped, nor have I been raped. I willingly, and knowingly, had unprotected sex with Nico Esposito, knowing exactly who he was. A child came about from that, and while it wasn’t the most responsible thing, I also don’t regret it,” I said. “I’ve been staying with the Esposito family, not against my will, but as family. I haven’t been mistreated. I haven’t had anything bad happen to me. I’ve even had regular prenatal checkups. I have a nursery planned for my baby. I’m certain that, given the circumstances, my father thought that he was doing the right thing in trying to explain and even trying to protect the image that he thought would be ruined by this, but the truth is that, whatever you happen to think about this personally, I’ve never been happier, nor have I ever been healthier. I hope this clears everything up for you. I’ll be taking my leave now.”

  Questions boomed out as I started walking away. People tried to approach me, but by merit of me being pregnant—and having confirmed quite boldly that, yes, it was an Esposito child—they weren’t so rough with me that they risked or threatened any sort of real harm to me.

  I led myself to the taxi that had brought me here and could take me discretely back to my car where I’d garage parked it without my being further hounded. Whatever happened now would be determined by which story was the believed story—mine, or my father’s—but I was fairly certain that it would be the story told by a woman who was glowing with pregnancy and not the repugnant story that my father told.

  I paid the cabbie when we pulled into the garage, thanking him. He tipped his hat, too busy counting the rather large stack of bills that I slid to him.

  My phone buzzed again in my pocket and I checked it. There were several texts from Nico.

  Where are you?

  Evie, this isn’t funny.

  Evie, I swear to God, if this is to make a point.

  Evie, they’re saying you’re about to make a press release at City Hall. Tell me you’re not there.

  Evie, this is serious. What the hell are you doing? I’m on my way.

  I’m watching this on my phone, and I swear to god, you’re marvelous, but also fucking crazy.

  Evie, we need to get back home ASAP. I’ll meet you where you parked; Allan saw the garage, but getting in is a bitch.

  YOUR FATHER IS HERE. WATCH YOUR BACK JUST IN –

  I never finished the last message from Nico before I was pulled into a vehicle.

  “Let me go—”

  “Evelyn.”

  Across from me, my father sat. The only thing keeping me from lashing out at him was the fact that I was in a very, very strong set of arms. I glared at him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Trying to fix the horrendous mess that you’ve decided that you’re going to make of our family name,” my father said. “When I got wind that you had called a press conference, I came right down. I had hoped that you would corroborate what we released, but clearly that was asking far too much of you.”

  “You lied about how I got pregnant and where I had been.”

  “A far better cover than telling the country how you let some mafia thug screw a baby into you.”

  “You can’t change facts just because you don’t like them.”

  My father’s lip twitched as we pulled away.

  “If you think that there’s going to be anyone who buys that story you told, I wasted the money spent on your education. Clearly what’s wrong is that you were made to think that this was all okay—Stockholm’s, if you will. But no matter. You’re going to be a good girl for me, Evelyn, and you’re going to play by my rules.”

  “Or what?” I challenged. “What are you going to do to me, hm?”

  “If you decide to continue on with this little fantasy about having consensually decided you were going to have a child with Nico Esposito, I don’t think I’ll have much choice but to relieve you of your source of trauma.”

  He let that sink in.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said, horrified. “I’m too far along—”

  “And I know plenty of doctors that don’t care as long as there’s money involved and a sob story about a disenfranchised girl to go along with it. So. I’ll ask you again, Evelyn. Are we understood?”

  Chapter 5

  Evie

  I’d known for a while that my father wasn’t a good man. That wasn’t something that I was unaware of. I had always thought that maybe ...he thought he was doing things for the right reasons, or that there were right reasons for the things that he was doing, but I had to accept the fact that my father was none of those things—he was a monster.

  The very blatant threat to my child’s life is what had me returning to him, the dutiful daughter. Speculations were circulating around over the validity of both press releases. My father played up the speculation, only offering this to the press:

  My daughter has been through a very tough and trying time in the recent months. She should be given her privacy and her time to recover while we sort through the events leading up to her disappearance and her return.

  In other words, I had no idea what I was talking about and my trauma was so severe that no one should take me seriously.

  I showed up at charities and fundraisers. I was never without a guard—for my own safety and protection—and I was never allowed to be alone, even when I was brought to the family home. I had learned that my father had fired Mary Ann after she had ‘let’ me get away with Nico. For that, I felt somewhat sorry; what was she to have done—fight him off? I’d have left with him anyway, but it was obvious that my father didn’t care about anyone else other than himself.