Claiming His Baby

by Nikki Chase

  Something about her happy face reminds me of that smirk. She turns to me. “Why are you staring at me? Did you miss me that much, brother?”

  “What did you do?” I swipe my phone, looking for any signs of her shenanigans.

  “God,” she says dramatically, rolling her eyes. “Can’t a girl just be happy for no reason?”

  I eye her with suspicion. I hate to admit it but she probably hasn’t done anything wrong. Damon’s right; I’m getting obsessive. Not everything is about Ashley.

  “I think this color would go really well with your wedding decor, don’t you think?” Rosa holds her hand up, showing off her pink, gleaming nail polish.

  “Fuck off.” I stab my phone and navigate to an article on narcissism, comparing the bullet points to what I know about Rosa. Elena and I have long suspected our sister of having some mental issues, but of course she thinks she’s perfect.

  Rosa laughs. “Hey, I was here first. You were the one who decided to join me.”

  “I’m just waiting for Dad.”

  “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” Rosa’s dark hair covers her face as she bends down to continue painting her nails.

  “None of your business.” Not creative, I know. I’m repeating myself already and I’ve only been home for a couple of weeks. But the less ammunition I give Rosa, the better.

  “Huh. Pity. I was going to ask you to come to a club with me. There’s a girl I want you to meet. She’d be perfect for you,” she says.

  I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t need you to play matchmaker. Besides, you were just talking about my wedding.”

  “Come on. Let’s not pretend it’s going to be a real marriage,” Rosa says. “It’s, what, a month before the wedding? And you’re still going out to clubs and giving women your number.”

  “What did you say?” I sit bolt upright. How did she know that?

  “So, this friend I want you to meet . . .” Rosa inspects her nails, ignoring me. “You know what? I think I’ll wear purple to your wedding. Or white. I’ve always wanted to wear white to a wedding. You wouldn’t mind, would you, brother?”

  I march toward her and slam my hands on the back of the couch. “What did you say about going out to clubs and giving out my number?”

  Rosa flinches. Her lips curve up as she stares at me. “Oh, right. I was about to say something about my friend. Her name’s Ashley. Interested?”

  “Did she call?” I growl.

  Rosa continues working on her nails. “Maybe.”

  “Rosa. Fucking tell me or I’ll—”

  “Matteo,” my dad’s voice booms through the house as he opens the door to his office.

  “What?” I snap.

  “We need to talk. Come see me in my office,” he says.

  “Give me a minute.” I grab Rosa’s wrist. “What did you tell her on the phone?”

  “Office. Now,” my dad says with finality.

  “We’re not done,” I mutter to Rosa as I walk away.

  I shut the door behind me. My dad’s office looks just the way it always has since I was a boy. I used to sneak in here every once in a while, of course, although I’d never been careless enough to actually drop any toys in here.

  Even back then, he knew we did it. When he punished me, it wasn’t because I broke his rule. It was because I’d gotten caught.

  Enzo Guerriero’s legacy is a life of crime. He’s never wanted to raise an obedient heir. What he needs is a son who’s smart enough to not get caught.

  “Take a seat,” he says, pointing at the empty chair across his massive desk.

  His secretary isn’t here today. This talk must be special.

  “What is it?” I perch my elbows on the armrests and interlace my fingers.

  “I understand you feel like you need to enjoy your freedom while you’re single, but there’s a lot of work you’re neglecting while you’re out there doing God knows what.” An unpleasant frown creases his forehead. There seems to be more of those deep lines than I remember.

  “I’ve been busy.” Busy looking for Ashley. I’ve been going back to the club every night, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, seeing her shadow in every girl who passes me by. It’s been torture.

  “You can remain busy after your wedding too. All you have to do is convince your wife you’re working,” he says.

  “Is that what you tell Mom?”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass. And show some respect,” he says, his voice growing louder. “There’s a mountain of things to finalize. We have a long contract with the Espositos I need you to look over. I didn’t send you to law school to sit on your ass all day.”

  I groan. After decades of conflicts, the two families are finally dividing the disputed assets and territories. It’s a shitshow. My dad wants me to roll my sleeves up and clean it up for him.

  “You also need to pick a house for you and your wife to live in,” he adds. “Take the girl to see my properties. Plan some home improvement projects together. Go furniture shopping. ”

  “Yeah. Okay.” I run my fingers through my hair and massage my scalp.

  After college, I’d been away, living my own life on the other side of the country. Now that I’m living under the same roof as my demanding old man and my evil sister, I remember why I was so eager to leave home.

  “Stop being so moody all the time. You’re acting like a teenage girl.”

  I bite back the words I want to hurl at him. We’ve gone through this many times before. The wedding is the only way to end the war that has swallowed up too many victims. If I were to refuse, I’d be responsible for the deaths of many people.

  “Pay some attention to what’s happening around you. Show some interest in the business, in the wedding. Anything,” he drones on. “You haven’t even seen a picture of her yet. Grace Esposito is a pretty girl. I’ve already had people congratulating me on what beautiful grandchildren I’ll have.”

  “That’s a little premature.” I don’t care how pretty she is. I’ve met many beautiful women, but none of them have ever affected me the way Ashley has.

  “Jesus. What am I going to do with you?” Dad glances up to the ceiling as though God resides on the second floor of this house. He grabs his phone and swipes. “Here. I’ll show you a picture.”

  I give him a cursory glance as he brandishes his phone. A family photo with two older couple and two girls. Too small for me to see any faces, but I don’t care.

  What’s the point of this? I’ll have to see the girl’s face every day for the rest of my life, starting next month.

  “Beautiful, huh?” Dad asks, swiping to show me another picture.

  Sighing, I take another look at the glowing screen of his phone.

  Holy shit.

  I lean forward and reach across the desk to seize my dad’s phone. Holding the phone close, I stare, unblinking, until pain stings my eyeballs.

  “That’s her?”

  I’ve found her. Ashley. Grace. Whatever her name is.

  My kitten. I’m going to marry her.

  Grace

  Four Years Later

  It’s dark in here. Pitch black.

  My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears.

  Darkness reminds me of that night, when I hiked away from the campsite, somewhere in the middle of Mount Diablo State Park.

  I threw one last glance at the five colorful, plastic tents on the grass. People were gathered around their campfires, telling stories, singing to acoustic guitar, and roasting marshmallows.

  They would be the last people to ever see Grace Esposito alive. Tomorrow, my family would call the cops, who would ask these people about me.

  But none of them was even looking in my direction.

  And I’d never even read the news about me either. Like my mom had told me, I was to cut all connections to my past. If I wanted to keep my baby and me safe, I should never even Google myself.

  As I ventured deeper into the woods, the human voices grew faint. I stopped hearing the crackle of the
campfires and started to pick up the night calls of birds and insects instead.

  “So, Ashley, what do you do?” asks a deep, masculine voice seemingly coming from in front of me.

  His name is Matt, which gave me some pause when he introduced himself. But then I realized I was being silly. It’s a common name.

  “I’m a graphic designer.” I smile out of habit before I realize he can’t see my face anyway.

  “Oh, really? What kind of stuff do you design?”

  “Oh, event posters, book covers, images for advertising . . . all kinds of things.” I deliver my lines so smoothly, now that I’ve had plenty of practice.

  In reality, although I do some freelance work from time to time, it’s difficult to get my design business off the ground, especially when there’s so much competition for online work. Being a single mom to a toddler doesn’t help either.

  But I don’t lie to impress anyone. I just haven’t found a way to tell people I don’t make much money without raising questions about how I support myself. Obviously, I can’t tell them I got a bag full of money from my mom when I ran away from my mafia family.

  Sometimes, I wish I could get a job outside the home, but then I wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with Jack.

  “How about you? What do you do?” I ask the man presumably sitting across the table from me.

  I’ve almost sat through appetizer with this guy, but I still have no idea what he looks like. I stab at my plate and hit porcelain before I manage to pierce through something soft—something edible, hopefully.

  I feel dumb.

  If it weren’t for Lily, my nosy neighbor, I wouldn’t even be here. But she insisted. When she told me about this literal blind date, she’d already paid the dating agency and booked a sitter for Jack.

  “I work in the family business,” my date says.

  “Oh.” I struggle to hide the judgment in my tone. I’ve built the entirety of my new life on the premise of escaping my family. I can’t fathom the idea of just following in my parents’ footsteps, filling a role that has been prepared for me since birth. “Do you like it?”

  He chuckles. Something about his voice sounds familiar. “I didn’t, at first. But it grew on me.”

  “Did you ever want to do something else with your life?”

  “Yeah, of course,” he says. “Then I realized I was just being a little shit. I thought I was so different from the rest of my family. I thought I was meant for something bigger. Something more noble. But as it turned out, my family knew exactly what I needed.”

  I bite my lip. Have I offended him with my questions? “That’s great.”

  I rest my hands on my lap as a waitress comes to clear the table and place the entrées before us. It’s hard to believe she can navigate her way around the tables and other diners without knocking into anything, while balancing plates on her hands.

  Everyone who works here has impaired vision. The restaurant donates a percentage of their profit to the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind. That’s one big reason why I agreed to do this—it’s for charity.

  “How about you? Are you close to your family?” Matt asks.

  I almost burst out laughing at how far he is from the truth. “No. They’re on the other side of the country.”

  “You don’t keep in touch? You can visit. Or call, at least.”

  “Nope. We haven’t spoken in four years.”

  “Family is important. You may miss them when they’re gone,” he says. Why is he being so insistent?

  “I’ve cut ties with my family. I’d prefer not to talk about them.” That usually shuts up anyone who asks.

  Matt remains silent for a second. “So you’re not from around here, huh?”

  “How do you know that?” My pulse quickens.

  “Your family’s on the other side of the country.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I’m so paranoid it’s not even funny. This is why I can’t socialize. I’m too scared someone will connect me to my old identity.

  Is it paranoia, though, if currently two mafia families may be waging war against one another over my disappearance?

  “Where’s your hometown?” he asks. “Wait. Let me guess. California. Maybe San Francisco.”

  “How did you know that?” My lungs tighten. Maybe he is someone from my old life. Could he be the same Matt I met at the club?

  “Well, you work online. It’s a wild stab in the dark.”

  I laugh, partly out of relief. “Yeah. You got me.”

  Relax, I tell myself. Millions of people were born and raised in San Francisco. I grope in the dark until I touch the cold stem of my wine glass and take a gulp.

  “Man, I miss that place,” Matt says.

  I almost choke on the wine. “You’ve been there?”

  “Yeah. I still live there,” he says in a casual tone. Too casual, surely, for him to be a hired man sent to hunt me down. “I’m on a business trip right now, and it’s taking longer than expected.”

  “Oh. That’s annoying.”

  “Tell me about it,” Matt says. “I was supposed to see someone a couple of weeks ago, but the meeting kept getting delayed. Everything’s under control now, though. I’ve tracked down that person.”

  He’s not talking about me, right?

  Of course he’s not. Stop being crazy. This is just a date.

  Yes, I grew up in a crazy environment where surveillance, violence, and illegal activities were commonplace. But this is the real world. Things like that don’t happen.

  Even if the man sitting in front of me is the same Matt who’s the father of my child, he’s not going to pose any threat to Jack. He doesn’t even know Jack exists, so he’d never track me down to sue for custody. That’s just an insane scenario my paranoid mind dreamed up.

  As far as Jack’s father is concerned, I’m just a one night stand who ghosted him. Even if the man sitting across the table is really him, I could just say I’m not interested in dating him and that would be the end of it.

  “So how do you find the food?” I steer the conversation toward a safe topic.

  “It’s nice.” Matt pauses. “But you know what I’d rather be having?”

  I congratulate myself on coming up with a nice, safe thing to talk about, like all the restaurants I miss in San Francisco. “What?”

  “Something I’ve hunted myself.” Danger laces Matt’s voice.

  A chill runs down my arms. “Oh. You, uh, you’re into hunting, huh?”

  “Yeah. I love the outdoors. How about you? Have you ever gone hiking?”

  My breath catches in my throat. “Yeah. I used to. Not anymore, though.”

  Is it just me, or has this dinner conversation taken a dangerous turn? I rest my fork on the table. I haven’t been eating for a while. I can barely swallow. It’s not like Matt can tell if I’m eating anyway.

  That’s right. He can’t see me. Maybe I can make a rush for the door before he notices I’m gone?

  No. That would be crazy.

  Don’t be crazy, I tell myself. Crazy draws attention. That’s the last thing I need.

  I should lay low. Act normal. Behave like a normal twenty-something out on a date.

  Pick up my wine glass, I tip my head and let the alcohol wash down my throat.

  “Why not?” Matt asks.

  “I don’t have much free time. I’m trying to build a design business, and it’s not easy.” I don’t normally like to talk about myself, but I’m not my normal self tonight. I’m freaked out.

  This dark dining thing was a bad idea. I’ve got to tell Lily to stop meddling in my love life because I’m perfectly happy with its lack of existence.

  I tell Matt about the online platforms where I offer my work, about the designers from all over the world who are willing to work for less pay than me, about the vague emails I get from clients demanding countless revisions.

  By the time the waitress comes to bring out the desserts, I’ve recounted everything there is to know about my job.

&
nbsp; “Wow.” Matt lets out a low whistle. “You sound like a busy girl. I thought designers just . . . designed.”

  “Well, running a design business is different from just working as a designer,” I say, eager to continue talking business.

  The alcohol is supplying me with plenty of boring details to share. It’s not like I want a second date—I’d rather not have anything to do with anyone from my hometown—so who cares if he finds me dull?

  “Don’t you want to take a vacation sometimes?” Matt asks.

  “Well, yeah. Sometimes. But I can’t.” I bite back the words before I tell him I have a son I can’t leave home alone.

  “It’s good to get away every once in a while. But it’s probably easier for me to say that because I can ask someone to cover for me at work. You’re a one-woman show.”

  “Yeah.” I smile to myself in the dark, letting the alcoholic buzz buoy me to a place far away from my anxious thoughts.

  “You know where I like to go on my days off?” Before I can answer, Matt says, “Mount Diablo.”

  A shudder rips down my spine.

  Did he say Mount Diablo? As in the state park where I went hiking before I “disappeared?”

  I can freak out now, right? That wouldn’t be crazy.

  It’s not just the alcohol rising to my head. There have been too many coincidences.

  First, Matt asks about my family. Then, he starts talking about San Francisco, and he even still lives there. Now, he’s just casually name-dropped Mount Diablo?

  “I should leave,” I stammer as I run my fingers over the smooth tablecloth, searching for my phone. “I just remembered I’ve got something to do tonight. A design I need to send to my biggest client. I’ve had too much to drink, too, and my head feels funny.”

  Damn it, I curse inwardly. One excuse was enough. Two sounded phony. And my voice was shaking.

  “Wait.” Matt’s voice exudes authority. It really reminds me of the man I met at the club.

  “Sorry, I have to cut this date short,” I say, clutching my bag. As I get up to my feet, the chair legs drag noisily against the floor.