by Bethany-Kris
Beni grumbled under his breath. “Fine. No telling. My phone will be beside me.”
“Better be.”
He barely got the call with his brother hung up before the phone beeped with yet another person trying to reach him. He had a damn good mind to ignore it altogether, but when he realized who it was trying to get a hold of him, he knew that he had to pick up the phone or he would be in a hell of a lot more shit with his father. Considering the thin line he was already walking inside their famiglia and with business, well, he tried not to push the rules set out for him any more than he had to. Things weren’t great with other men in their mafia, but he made it work. At the moment, it was the best he could do.
It was all his father and brothers asked for.
“Kevin,” Bene said, picking up the phone, “what can I do for you today?”
“I’ve got a problem with the asshole on the east side.”
Bene’s brow dipped. “You mean the Capo—”
“Yeah, that asshole. He’s pushing his lines with me again. We’ve had about fifteen sit-downs between Chris and Marcus about it. I called Chris this time and was told to call you. Apparently, you made friends with the fucker and he likes you, so you can go see him today about this problem.”
Why?
Why was this his life?
Oh, he loved it.
He wanted to be a made man, and now he was. He wasn’t a Capo yet, probably wouldn’t be for a while. And he did a fuck lot more running for other people than he wanted to. Really, he probably hadn’t deserved his button and a few people liked to make it known they thought the same, but otherwise ... business was good.
Except on a day like today.
“I’m kind of busy—I can run over in a few hours, though,” Bene said.
“Nope. Now.”
“But—”
“Call Chris, if you don’t fucking like it. You’re now the go-between. That’s what I was told.”
Fuck.
Bene knew better than to call Chris, Marcus, or even his father and ask for special treatment. It didn’t matter what today was or how he promised to be there with Vanna when they found out the sex of the baby. The mafia was what it was—it had to come first, even when he sometimes wished he could put it last. Sure, his brothers would probably work it out, and so would his father, but he didn’t want them to feel like they had to treat him differently than anyone else, either. After all, hadn’t he done that enough before?
“I’ll be there,” he told the Capo. “Just fucking relax, man.”
“Right. Later, Bene.”
Yeah, he’d show up to chat with the other Capo. Right after he made a phone call to someone else, that was.
22.
Vanna
GOD.
Why did she have to use such big purses?
Every time she needed to find something in her bag, Vanna never could because the item she searched for would be the one lucky thing to fall to the very bottom under all her makeup, wallet, snacks, a half a dozen receipts, and ... why did she have so many pens?
“Like, where did you even go in there?” she asked no one in particular.
Except the stupid phone that had somehow managed to get lost in her purse while she stood outside on the sidewalk in front of the clinic where in just ten minutes, she needed to be inside to find out the sex of her unborn baby. She wanted to call Bene back just to make sure he was absolutely positive he wasn’t going to make it in time, but also to find out who in the hell he was sending in his place since he said that’s what he was going to do.
She figured ... his ma, maybe.
Or even Valeria, if she wasn’t busy.
Oh, and did she mention that she had to pee?
Because she did.
Badly.
Apparently, a woman needed to have a painfully full bladder to have an ultrasound done at nineteen weeks so then the tech could get a clear picture of the baby. Seriously, if she coughed or sneezed the wrong way, she was going to lose her bladder all over the sidewalk in her cute maternity dress and kitten heels.
Wouldn’t that just top this day right—
“You okay?”
At the familiar voice—one she had certainly not expected to hear—Vanna finally took her attention away from the purse with the black hole somewhere inside it to stare at the man now stepping up on the sidewalk a few feet away from her. In his usual suit, he offered a smile that felt hesitant, but still seemed true.
Didn’t make her less confused.
Or nervous.
“Marcus,” Vanna said.
Marcus cleared his throat and glanced toward the clinic. “I was closest when Bene put out a couple of calls about getting someone here to be with you for your appointment because you’d probably need a ride home after. I might have mentioned you would possibly not like that—mostly me—but he said you would be fine. So, here I am.”
Straight to the point.
As always.
Vanna nodded. “Um, well thank you. For coming, I mean.”
Could this get anymore awkward?
Probably.
She wasn’t going to test the theory out, though.
“Well, let’s go in,” she said. “My appointment is in ten minutes, and I guess they want me to pee in a cup ... apparently I am supposed to be able to magically stop my urine flow on a full bladder because I can only pee a little.”
Marcus made a face. “What?”
“Nothing ... pregnancy shit.”
“Oh. I’ll stay out here and wait, if you want. I don’t have to go inside and sit in the waiting room.”
Things were not ... great with Marcus. Clearly. They still had a way to go, but he made an effort. The same way Bene and Vanna did for him. She had to give him credit for that, and she appreciated the respect he offered her even when he didn’t have to do that at all. She understood perfectly fine that the man felt as though Bene and Vanna had betrayed the family ... or rather, she did and then Bene protected her after the fact. If there was anything someone should know about Marcus above everything else, it was how close he held his family and how much he loved and protected them.
To him, she had been a threat.
At the moment, she thought he was trying to decide if that was still the case.
“Would you come in, though?” she asked. “Inside the room with me to see the baby? Bene was supposed to be here, and ... I mean, if something is wrong, I’d like to have somebody in there.”
Marcus tipped his head to the side. “Do they think something is wrong with the baby?”
“No, but—” But what if? Statistics on the internet that could be found with nothing more than a simple search would drive a first-time pregnant mother insane.
Quickly, the man across from her seemed to understand what Vanna didn’t want to say. “Hey, I get it. Sure, I’ll come in.”
Vanna smiled.
So did he.
This time, it didn’t feel hesitant at all.
“Thanks, Marcus.”
“Don’t mention it.”
• • •
“Everything looks great,” the ultrasound tech said, moving to grab the bottle with the cold blue gel once more, “so let me put a little bit more of this on, and we can check to see what this baby is hiding between his or her legs. You did want to find out the sex, right?”
Vanna nodded. “We did, yeah.”
“And Daddy is—”
“Ah, that would be my younger brother, not me,” Marcus said with a chuckle when the tech turned on him. “I am here for ... moral support.”
Yeah, why not?
That worked.
“That’s nice, too,” the tech said.
“So, the baby was good?”
“Perfect size. Measuring just right. The heart looks strong, and everything else is just as it should be ....” The woman trailed off after she squirted a bit more of the blue gel on Vanna’s stomach, and put the wand right on top of it to smoosh it around on her slightly rounded stoma
ch. “Okay, let’s see what we can find.”
Vanna’s gaze stayed glued to the screen as once again, her baby took shape in shades of gray, white, and black. In the background of the white noise, they could hear the beating heart loud and clear. Something else to calm her nerves. Then, the wand moved quite a bit lower on her belly, and she couldn’t quite make out what she was seeing on the screen as the tech hummed under her breath and inched a bit closer in her seat.
“Oh, there it is,” the woman murmured. “Very clear picture, huh?”
Vanna blinked. “Is it?”
A laugh came from the tech.
“Well, I suppose I look at them every day, so I know when I see one or the other. Congratulations, Vanna, you’re having a boy.”
A sharp inhale came from the corner of the room. She turned to see Marcus tip his head back a bit as he watched the images on the screen with a soft smile and kind eyes.
“The first Guzzi boy of his gen,” Marcus murmured, passing Vanna a look as he shrugged under the weight of his navy blazer. “He’s destined to be amazing, and we haven’t even met him yet. That absolutely does deserve congratulations, Vanna.”
Quietly, all she could think to say was, “Thank you.”
23.
Bene
TEN minutes.
That’s all Bene had left before he’d arrive at the penthouse. He could make it in eight minutes if he was willing to push the speed limit any more than he already was, but he figured ... better not to take the chance, all things considered.
He’d not called or texted Vanna. She hadn’t done either for him. Maybe a part of him just didn’t want to ruin the surprise before he got home, or it could have been that he wanted her to tell him straight from her lips what the sex of the baby was seeing as how he couldn’t be there to hear it first with her.
Not to mention, after an entire day of dealing with a spoiled Capo who had been allowed to continue his nonsense for longer than anyone else would be afforded, he was ready to be home. With his girl ... always with her. She made everything else worth it.
Tomorrow, he could call his father and tell Gian someone had to actually deal with the Capo on the east side this time because warnings, threats, and what little punishment he had gotten before now for his behavior was not deterring the fool from causing issues with a neighboring Guzzi man. They couldn’t have that pettiness because it always led to something bad.
But not today.
He’d deal with it tomorrow.
They had time.
Six minutes, he thought as he blew through a yellow light that was liable to turn red at any fucking second. The nice little camera on the lights would have caught his license plate, and he’d get a ticket in the mail, but since he made it before it turned ... winning.
Bene had just turned onto his block when a call started ringing throughout the speakers of his red Lambo. Cursing under his breath and not even giving the automated system a chance to tell him who was calling, he muttered, “Answer.”
A second after the speakers crackled, a familiar voice filled the car. “Bene—hey.”
“Marcus.”
“I just got home. Thought I should call and—”
First things first, he had some shit to say to Marcus.
“Thank you for going to the clinic today, but if you know what the baby’s sex is and you tell me before she can, I swear to God, man, I will drive all the way to your place just to beat the hell out of you.”
Silence echoed.
Then, Marcus chuckled.
“Fair enough,” his oldest brother said.
“But yeah,” Bene said, clearing his throat, “thanks for going there. I know you probably didn’t want to, and you had a million other better things to do than entertain us today, but it means a lot.”
It took Marcus a second to respond. The silence felt weighed down by a lot of things they had yet to say to each other. Frankly, Bene didn’t know if they were ever going to really sit down and discuss everything that had happened leading up to this moment. Maybe they didn’t need to, and each side simply had to process their feelings about it alone.
Either way ...
“It’s not a problem,” Marcus eventually replied.
“Yeah, well ...”
He’d just pulled into the underground garage for his building, already snatching up all the items he had sitting on the passenger seat, so he didn’t have to waste anymore time than he already had before he could get home.
Stepping out of the Lambo, he slammed the doors shut and moved for the bank of elevators toward the far end of the garage. The Bluetooth in the vehicle switched to the one in his ear as he pulled out the fob that would open the elevator with a press of a button once he was close enough. Sometimes, it paid to be rich. Especially in a city like this one.
“I gotta go,” Bene said, “because I just got home.”
“Right, but hey.”
“What?”
Marcus made a noise; one Bene couldn’t decipher. “Just ... water under the bridge, all right? If you or Vanna need something—anything—you call me, okay?”
All at once, Bene’s trek to the bank of elevators came to a complete stop. He swore the noise in the underground garage silenced as he took in his brother’s words and tone. For a second, he just stood there staring at the cement wall to his right.
“Bene?” Marcus asked.
He dragged in a lungful of city air. “It’s a boy, isn’t it?”
“You didn’t want—”
“It’s a boy.”
He didn’t even pose it as a question that time. What did it matter when he already knew?
“Yeah,” Marcus said, “it’s a boy, Bene. Congrats, man.”
This time, it was Bene who went quiet.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, uh, I was just thinking. What if it had been a girl, Marcus? Would it still be water under the bridge, or ...?”
“Yes,” Marcus said instantly.
“Why?”
“It’s about family, Bene. The baby—boy or girl—is family. Maybe I hadn’t really settled myself on the fact there was a baby until he was on that screen today. And I just ... shit, my bitterness isn’t worth family not being family. So yeah.”
“Yeah,” Bene echoed.
What else needed said?
24.
Vanna
THE hot bath water soaked into Vanna’s skin and calmed her senses. Vanilla clung to the air, compliments of the bubble bath she’d poured into the tub while it filled. She also dimmed the lights in the room and lit the floating candles that floated in the large Jacuzzi tub.
It wasn’t that the day had been hard. Quite the opposite, really. She just needed a moment to decompress and process everything. Not just the fact she was pregnant, but also that now she knew what she was having—a little boy.
Sometimes, people needed a second.
Vanna was one of those people.
She’d managed to zone into the sound of her favorite singer belting a ballad from the speakers of her phone resting on the counter that she hadn’t even heard the bathroom door creak open. It was the shadow of his form crossing over her in the water that had Vanna lifting her gaze to find exactly who she expected. She wasn’t scared—couldn’t be when it was him. No matter what, if the two of them were in the same room, she swore she could find him just from the feeling of his presence alone.
God.
She kind of loved that.
“Babe,” Bene murmured.
She found his dark eyes looking her over in the tub, and then falling on her nineteen-week swell that barely peeked out above the hot, bubbly water. Subconsciously, maybe, or perhaps it was just a need to touch her little bump, she pulled her hand from the water to place it overtop her stomach. Beneath her palm, the baby shifted.
“I wonder if he can feel the warmth?” she mused. “He moved.”
It wasn’t big movements. Some pregnant women—not that she knew a lot of them, but she talked to
women who had been pregnant before and also stalked online forums because she needed someone to talk to sometimes about this—said it could be uncomfortable. Vanna had yet to get to that point in her pregnancy. Right now, her little guy’s movements were all flutters and pops inside her belly or against the surface when she pressed her palm to him.
“Do you think so?” she asked Bene again.
Overhead, Bene smiled. “Probably.”
She couldn’t help but grin at the way his smile turned soft the longer he stared at her. “What is that for?” she asked, pointing one dripping wet finger at his face.
“Hmm?”
“That ... that smile, Bene.”
“You, mostly.”
Vanna laughed, and dared to cut her hand through the top of the water and bubbles so that just a bit would come out of the tub to splash him. “Mostly.”
He barely reacted to the new wet stains on his slacks and dress shirt. She didn’t know where he’d thrown his blazer after arriving home, but that was fine, too. There was something to be said for the way Bene looked in dress shirts and dark slacks. The way the fabric molded to all the hard, fit lines of his body was art, really.
It should be appreciated.
Vanna tried to admire it as often as she could. Thankfully, Bene just happened to be vain enough that he enjoyed her perusal. Not that she was any different in that regard.
“Also,” he murmured, kneeling to rest one of his arms along the tub and be at eye-level with her, “because you said he when you mentioned the baby. Didn’t even realize, I don’t think. But I heard it.”
Ah.
Yeah.
Vanna nibbled on her lower lip. “So, yeah, the baby is a—”
“Boy,” he finished for her, leaning in before she could even take a breath. His lips found hers in a kiss that had her burning up for entirely different reasons than just the hot water she currently rested within, and she didn’t mind a bit. There was something sinful, but also loving, about the way he kissed her in that moment.
Vanna didn’t want it to end.
Although, when he did finally pull away, it was only to dot the sweetest of kisses over her face. Down her jawline, over her cheekbones, and across her smiling lips. She never had to wonder if this man truly loved her. He showed her that he did in more than enough ways. She adored him more for it, too.
