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My pulse starts to go apeshit, the ice in my spine splintering and shattering, piercing my insides like poisoned arrows.
“What if that child grows up to look just like its psychopath dad, huh?”
“Maximo,” Alexius warns, but he doesn’t even flinch or attempt to back down.
I pull my palm down my face. “Trust me when I say I’ve gone through every fucking scenario a thousand times over.”
“Then you fucking know as well as I do that if this baby isn’t yours, Mirabella can’t keep it.”
“It’s not up to me.”
“Like fuck it isn’t!” His voice thunders through the room, his anger slamming into the walls with a force that vibrates against every bone in my body. His eyes are two dark storms hungry to wreak havoc on everything they can rip apart. “She can’t keep this baby!”
“Nicoli is right,” Alexius says coldly, sternly. “It’s not up to him, or any of us, for that matter. Whatever the outcome, the decision is hers.”
“Bullshit!” Maximo seethes. “Bull-fucking-shit. Are you going to sit there and tell me that if this baby is Nunzio’s you’d want that kid around this house? That you won’t once look at that boy and think of the blood that runs through his veins or listen to that girl laugh and hear her dad’s evil laughter?”
Alexius shakes his head. “It’s not up to us.”
“And what about the two families?” Maximo snarls. “Think about that for a second. Like you said, this baby will mean a forced alliance between the Del Rossa and Ferrero families. It will mean that that fucker gets to walk around freely knowing he can’t be touched for doing what he did to my sister. What, are we going to play house with those fuckers, drink a beer and have a barbecue every second Sunday? Over my dead goddamn body.”
All I can do is stand there and watch, witness Maximo lose his shit. It’s warranted. Everything this man has said makes sense. I have had a thousand similar thoughts, thinking of the consequences—thinking of how it would affect each and every one of us if it were true. But no matter how angry the thought makes me, nothing would be able to change it. Nothing.
“Maximo,” I say, trying to remain calm, “it is what it is, man.”
Maximo storms toward me, and I stand my ground, not blinking when he shoves his face so close to mine that I can feel the fire in his breath. “If this baby is his, you will man the fuck up and you will take control of the situation.”
“And what situation is that?” Mira’s voice is like a punch to the gut, and I close my eyes, exhaling as I prepare myself for the mother of all fuck-ups to go down.
Maximo’s nostrils flare as he turns to look at his sister while she stands in the door. No one noticed her come in; everyone too wrapped up in the chaos.
Maximo squares his shoulders, anger seeping from his pores. “If this baby isn’t your husband’s, you can’t keep it.”
“If this baby isn’t Nicoli’s, it’s a decision we’ll make together. Just the two of us.”
“You’ll seriously consider keeping it even if it’s the child of the man who raped you?”
Mira walks up to stand next to me and laces her fingers with mine, pressing herself tight against my side. “It’ll be up to Nicoli and me to decide. It has nothing to do with you, Maximo.” She glances at my brothers. “It has nothing to do with any of you.”
“Mira,” I warn softly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not? Since you’re all here discussing me and this pregnancy, I think this is exactly where I have to be.”
I turn my back on my brothers, leaning close to her, my lips almost touching her ear. “I told you I’ll take care of this.”
“And I told you I want to be involved in this.”
“That’s not an option.”
“When it comes to me and this baby, it’s the only option, Nicoli.”
“Mira. I’m asking you to leave this to me. To let me handle it. Please.”
She purses her cherry-red lips, her eyes conveying the depth of her determination. “I told you, I want to be a part of this.”
“Goddammit, woman,” I grit out softly.
“A part of what?” Maximo demands, his presence a force that takes up all the oxygen in the room.
