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“A, poor girl You thought I wouldn’t find out?” he taunts, and I see her hands flex

“What does it ot what you wanted I heard congratulations are in order,” she says cal froo Now, she’s having a conversation, with a barrel ai a bouquet of flowers instead

“Because it’s the principle of it all Our faoddaers un stays on Bella “I will lose my seat in the hierarchy of the Cosa Nostra, in The Ruin, and I’ll be left with nothing So why the fuck do you think I’d leave the two of you alone to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after?”

“At least you got what you always craved You finally have your heir on the way Why don’t you just… leave, take your child and its mother with you?” she asks, and the wild look returns to his eyes as he turns them toward her

“What the fuck do I need an heir for when I have nothing to leave to hi a child of my own to raise and… love,” he sneers the word like it tastes bad “It was about acy of the Fetulli family It’s up to me alone to carry on our name, but what the hell is there to carry on, now that you’ve ruined everything because you just Couldn’t Die!” He shakes the gun at her, gritting his teeth, before he lets out a long breath, a spark of unhidden insanity showing through when he cracks a sun back and taps the end to his te to have a conversation with himself inside his head

I speak up to distract hi I can’t figure out in all this How did you know to go into hiding? How did they knoas me at the ball?”

He grins, and I fight to keep my expression neutral “Well, that’s a fun story Where do I begin?” He thinks for a moment, then comes to a conclusion “Ah, I know When you infor he’d soon wonder where you were”—he waves the gun at Arabella—"since he’s always up your fucking ass, calling day in and day out Not even a day later, the Father of the Year hihter was And not long after he left, we discovered hi into your car Nohy in the world would he be hanging out with the very hter?” He pauses a moment, but it’s clearly a rhetorical question

“I wasn’t positive why that would be For a while there, I thought it was because you were going to lead him to her body, because I knoould’ve paid handsootten so ood Hedead, and when he didn’t coured I was in the clear”

The entire ti, the driver keeps a steady speed tohatever destination we’re heading for Wherever it is, it’s in the complete opposite direction of my ho backup

“So, I sent Ofa to see the OB/GYN finally, since we’d kept her pregnancy a secret for weeks and she hadn’t been to the doctor yet By then, news had spread of ine ot his heir after all I’ll certainlymy pockets’”

His eyes flash with rage “I guess she didn’t feel the need to keep your secrets any longer, since she thought you were dead All it took was a gun to her temple for her to elaborate what she e comment her new doctor made She told me all about the birth control pills, and the only reason she isn’t dead and buried as we speak is because she’s under the protection of The Ruin But that didn’tas well if she told anyone details about either the birth control pills or how far along Ofa is in her pregnancy”