Page 85 of Obsessed by My Ex's Mafia Uncle

Chapter Fourteen

Robert

The child is mine, I feel it.

I swing again and the skipping rope slashes through the air in an incessant rhythm.

It slaps lightly against the concrete with every pass, the sound repetitive enough to try and halt everything else if I let it.

I don’t.

My body moves on instinct, my feet light, timing exact, and breath even. There’s no effort in it, no strain. It's a habit. Something to do while my mind refuses to shut up.

“…and if we route it through the second-tier accounts first, it won’t flag as quickly,” Enzo is saying somewhere behind me, his voice carrying just enough to be heard over the soft clang of metal he's lifting.

A dumbbell hits the floor, then lifts again.

“As usual, we will keep the event itself pure. We will front a charity or something believable. We’ve done it before.”

I keep skipping.

Faster now.

The rope blurs slightly at the edges of my vision, my focus narrowing to the rhythm, to the consistency of it, to the control I can maintain here even if everything else is shifting.

Because everything else is.

There’s Christine and the way she looked at me. The way she pulled away. The way she still responded to my touch.

Then, there's Blue. Her eyes. Her face. Even down to the texture of her hair.

It's not something you overlook. Not something you question once you’ve seen it clearly.

I’ve run it through every angle already.

Timing. Location. The years in between.

It doesn’t leave room for coincidence. It leaves room for one thing.

Truth.

Truth I will be getting from her today, even though she's yet to reply since Saturday night.

She'll give me what I want.

“…we’ll need at least three fronts to make it look legitimate,” Enzo continues, unbothered, his breathing stable despite the weight in his hands. “I’m thinking about hospitality, logistics, and maybe…”

The rope stops mid-air. Not because I miss a step but because he catches it.

His hand closes around it, halting the motion like he’s done with the performance.

The sudden stillness is louder than the rhythm was.

“Enzo?” I look at him, unamused.

“You’re not listening.” He looks back, one brow raised, the dumbbell still hanging at his side.

“Okay?” I shrug. “Its not the first time we're laundering money for the elite.”