Page 74 of The Don's Secret Heir

“We’re not fighting, baby,” Liana assures him. “Just talking.”

“Sounded like fighting.” He rubs at his eyes, clearly still sleepy.

“I’m sorry we woke you,” I say, picking him up.

Instead of putting his head on my shoulder like usual, he looks into my face.

“Do you think... do you think you could be my daddy? Since I don’t have one?”

Something in me cracks straight down the middle, tears springing to the backs of my eyes. But just as quickly as the feeling starts deep in my chest, Liana snatches Sonny from me.

She sets him on his feet.

“Dario isnotyour daddy.”

Sonny’s lip trembles. “But?—”

“He’s not,” she says flatly, and takes his hand. “Now, let’s get you to bed.”

My jaw clenches so tight it feels like my teeth might crack.

So nothing’s changed. She still fucking hates me.

She takes him up the stairs and I make a phone call.

“Rocco?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“You said to call you if I wanted to get drunk.”

“Hell yeah! I’ll pick you up in fifteen.”

Maybe I’m relying on alcohol as a crutch too much, but I’m a mobster. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

Rely on our vices?

It’s better than relying on my other vice: Liana fucking Rossi.

19

LIANA

I usher Sonny up to bed and he fights me on it, then starts to cry. I have to read him a bedtime story three times to calm him down, and finally he’s out like a light.

I look at my watch. It’s after two. I heard Dario slam the front door not long after I came up to bed, so I know he’s gone out.

Out to some bar to pick up some whore, no doubt.

I grit my teeth just thinking about it.

There’s no reason I should care. There’s no reason that I should be angry.

Nonetheless, I find myself padding down the stairs at three, worried out of my mind. The bars around here close at two, so where could he be? Some afterparty?

His penthouse apartment where he takes women?

My breath catches in my throat when I see headlights.