Bastard’s Baby(25)
I nodded. “Yes, I understand.”
“Tell me now if you’re lying. We’ll let you go, but this is your last chance.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Good.” He leaned back in his chair and almost looked relieved. “Gian, go tell the others.”
The young man nodded and then left the room.
“Last thing, Kaley,” Arturo said. “We need you to be useful to us, and so I want you to think real hard about any information you can give me that will help our cause.”
“I won’t betray my family.”
He laughed. “The family that wants to steal your child away?”
“I won’t betray them,” I said softly. “I don’t want them to get hurt.”
“Of course not. But unfortunately, your actions have ensured that they will. So I implore you, give me information, make this war easier on everyone.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know anything, but I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
“We’ll see.” Arturo looked at Vince. “Take her back to her rooms.”
“Yes, sir.”
We stood. I followed Vince out of the study and could feel Arturo’s eyes on me the whole time.
Once out of there, we walked quickly away. We got a few halls over before Vince stopped and turned toward me.
“I hope you understand what happened in there,” he said.
“I get it.”
He pressed me up against a door, pinning my body against it. “Are you sure? Men are going to die.”
“I didn’t ask them to go to war.”
“No, but your actions forced them to.”
I couldn’t look at him. “Alexei is your child, Vince.”
“Yes, maybe. I’m not afraid of war, Kaley. I’ll kill your family if I have to. But if you can help us avoid that, think very long and hard about it.”
Anger rose up inside me. “I don’t know anything, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did,” I snapped. “You’re not going to find it so easy to kill my family.”
“Maybe,” Vince said, smiling. “But we’ll definitely give it our best.”
I pushed him away, pissed beyond words. Why would he say that to me? I didn’t want anyone to die, didn’t want my family hurt. I didn’t want the Italians to get hurt, either. All I wanted was my baby, nothing more.
Maybe I had made a huge mistake coming to Vince. Maybe I should have just run away, tried to make it on my own. I knew my family would hunt me down though, and I had basically no resources to help me. Vince was my only real hope.
But it was coming with so much more pain. I hated that I was going to be the direct cause of death and destruction. I hated that my family was willing to go to war over me, because I knew they didn’t care about me.
I was just a pawn in all this, an easy excuse. Arturo wasn’t going to war over me; he was going to war because he was sick of my family taking his territory.
The bastards all wanted to pin it on me. They were all bastards, especially Vince.
He grinned at me, a delicious grin.
A dirty bastard’s smile.
“Come on, princess,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“You can use me as an excuse,” I said softly, “but the truth is, you all just want to kill each other. I’m a convenient reason. But I won’t let you drag me down with you.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Come on.”
We continued walking, heading back toward my rooms.
How quickly things changed. Not long ago, I was thinking about wanting Vince in my life. He had made my body feel so incredible.
Now, though, he was just another bastard I had to deal with. All of these men wanted to kill each other, and they wanted to use me as an excuse.
But I wouldn’t break. I had Alexei to think about.
Vince dropped me off at my rooms and walked away, a dark and stormy look in his eyes.
14
Vince
So it was going to be war.
I hadn’t really expected it to come to this. When I first saw her standing outside the gate, I thought it might lead to some bickering, some annoying skirmishes, but not all-out war.
How fucking wrong I was.
The day after Kaley met with Arturo, I was out in the streets preparing for the coming fight. I still had her taste in my mouth and her anger in my mind, both of which drove me absolutely crazy.
I understood her anger. I understood why she would hate us for blaming her for this war. Truthfully, I knew it wasn’t her fault, and Arturo had even gone out of his way to make sure she understood that.
But she still resented being used as an excuse to kill each other.
Kaley was going to have to understand the men she was involved with. If she wanted me to be a father to her kid, which I wasn’t sure I really wanted, then she was going to have to accept that I was a fucking violent man.