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Any other day, I would’ve argued that I was capable of making my own decisions, but Dominic took the opportunity from me when he kissed me stupid. We were nothing but teeth, tongues, and the need to connect. When he finally let me go, I was breathing heavily and my brain definitely leaked out of my ears. “I mean it, mariposa. Lock the damn door.”
My lips were still tingling when they shut the door behind them, three sharp raps reminding me to lock it up.
In the time we’d been at the hospital, I hadn’t really considered my libido. I liked sex and the connection it brought, but I’d had more pressing matters to think about. Now that Greyson was mostly out of the woods and we were working on getting back to the real world, that low-level need my men instilled in me seemed to flare back to life.
Maybe I can convince Dominic to have a quickie in the bathroom later. I needed all of them again, but there was no way Grey or Nate was up to sex yet. They needed more time to heal. I was sure Dominic could carry the weight of responsibility happily until they were.
Chuckling to myself, I took my gun to the window and sat on the bench seat before dialing the number. It rang twice before he picked up.
“Mari.” There was obvious relief in my uncle’s voice, and I hoped it wasn’t the last time I heard some sort of softness pointed my way. “Where are you?”
“Safe. Did you know you had another son?” I didn’t see the point in beating around the bush.
Rafael’s sigh was loud over the line, but he didn’t ask how I’d found out. I had a feeling he knew exactly who had spilled the beans. Which, I guess, answered my question.
“Is Christian aware?” I’d never met any Osorios besides Rafael and the Wolf, so I didn’t want to assume that my cousin knew. I’d barely known about my father’s actions when he was alive.
“He is,” Rafael admitted. “It’s part of the reason we don’t get along very well.”
I wasn’t aware they weren’t on good terms. “He doesn’t like that he has a half brother?”
“The boy was the product of an affair.”
Was it the disrespect of his mother’s marriage that bothered Christian, or was the problem that Two-Bit—Dante—was a potential rival for his birthright? “Ah.”
“I wasn’t around the boy when he was younger.”
The boy, not Dante. Interesting way to keep himself distanced from his youngest child.
“Because of your wife?” Most mafia wives knew their husbands were cheaters because the generations that raised them had been too. Absolute devotion like my men gave me was abnormal in our world. This conversation made me all the more grateful for it.
When someone made you their whole world, it was hard to believe they’d ever turn their back on it.
“Because I felt awful that he existed. She left because of him.” The heartache in his voice told me who he meant. His wife. “She could have handled the affairs in general—and had more than once—but creating a child with someone else was too much. She walked away, and Christian never forgave me.”
“You never saw Dante?”
“No. Guilt kept me away, and his mother raised him as long as she was able to.”
“But not the whole time?”
“She moved to the States and died young. Overdose. I wasn’t aware she was into drugs when we were together, not that it would have mattered. By the time I found out she was gone, Dante had disappeared.”
“How hard did you look?” He had the resources to search the world twice over. I didn’t believe he couldn’t have found Dante if he’d wanted to.
“I looked into his family, but when it was obvious they didn’t have him…”
He’d left him there.
Anger burned in my gut. It was common knowledge that foster care in the States was rife with abuse. The man had more than enough money to give his sons separate households if that was what they’d needed, and he’d done nothing.
“You’re a piece of shit.”
“Your mother would’ve said the same thing. I should’ve fought harder to find him, but I was a coward. I didn’t want him to implode the peace I’d finally found. Christian’s anger didn’t help.”
“Don’t blame your son. They were your decisions.”
“They were, and I regret them.”
