Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“So, what are you saying?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think or if I’m not ready, because she’s pregnant, she’s keeping it, and it’s mine. It’s mine. Of course, I want it. Yeah, I don’t know how to be a dad, but I’m gonna be one. I want her. I literally tell her to marry me every fucking day. I don’t say that because she asks questions I can’t answer unless she’s my wife. I say it because I want her to be my wife! That’s what kills me here.”
Nico laughed bitterly. “I would marry her tomorrow if I could, and that has nothing to do with whether she’s pregnant or not. That’s just what I fucking want. I wanted it the moment I knew I loved her. I will want it until it happens. And I will want her long after I’m dead. I want that, to call her my wife, because that means something to me and she’s the only one meant to be mine, and it has nothing to do with her being pregnant. I wanted it, always.”
Pursing his lips to keep from talking, Salvatore was grateful for the sudden buzz in his pocket as a distraction. He let Nico sit in his thoughts and contemplative silence, watching him lean forward on the couch to place his head in his hands while Salvatore checked the phone.
A text from Larkin waited: Girls on the property, boss man.
He knew which girls.
“Okay,” Salvatore said, clearing the thickness from his throat so he could put the fucking dad hat back on and handle the other kid in this messy equation. “Get yourself straight and fix your fucking face, because it’s showtime. They’re home.”
Nico straightened a bit on the couch, but he didn’t make a great effort to finish wiping the remaining tears that trickled down his trembling cheeks as the minutes passed. The item still sitting in his lap gained Salvatore’s attention just as he heard familiar heels entering the outside hall.
“And put that away,” Salvatore said of the item. “Get back to that later, huh?”
Nico didn’t respond. The small black box disappeared into his jacket pocket all the same. He leaned on the armrest of the couch as the footsteps neared the door.
Carina hesitantly showed herself in the doorway, instantly picking up on the other person in the room although she would’ve seen his vehicle in the garage. Parked next to Nico’s others, which he had never asked to have removed from the property.
“So,” she said, meeting Salvatore’s gaze with sadness radiating back to him, “I see that you know we have a situation.”
“Mmhmm.”
She nodded.
“Um...okay,” she added, as if surprised at his calm demeanor.
Carina finally stepped to the side to allow Frankie to show herself in the hallway. His daughter glowered at the back of Nico as tears streamed down her face in heavy rivulets. Still in the practice uniform provided by NYU and with her hair hanging loose, it looked as though her hands had been combing through the strands.
“Frankie,” Salvatore started to say.
She didn’t even hear him. Dragging her fingers through her hair, she snarled at Nico, “Oh, so we’ll go to Vegas, right, babe? Tacky fucking aisle. Isn’t that what you said to me? You’ll marry me and that’s the first thing you’re gonna do, right, baby?”
Both animals in the room scattered as the tension in the room changed to something far worse. Nico’s expression twisted from the taunting, but he stayed quiet. He didn’t even turn around to face Frankie.
“And then you what?” Frankie shouted the question, stepping slightly closer to Nico as she held her new team jacket. “You run to my father to rat me out!”
“Frankie, enough,” Salvatore snapped.
“Are you crying?” she asked, her tone curdling with disgust the closer she came to him. “Why are you crying? You don’t get to fucking cry right now, Nico!”
Salvatore barely had time to react to what happened next.
Frankie whipped that jacket at Nico as she came around the side of the couch fast. “No, you just left me standing there! And you’re fucking crying?”
Nico grabbed the jacket and deflected it at the same time Salvatore grabbed his daughter. Slinging an arm around her middle, he pulled her into the nearby chair.
“Frankie, that’s enough!”
She leaned around her father, pointing at Nico. “Fuck you!”
“That’s enough!”
That time, the entire room went silent. Frankie’s fight fled all at once, and she dropped into the chair with wide eyes up at her father at the same time his bellow echoed back to him. His throat ached from the volume of his shout.
Salvatore couldn’t name one time he yelled at Frankie the way he just did. He had made a great effort as a father to be different than the one which raised him. He wanted to be different.
Better. And he had been.
But goddammit...she needed that.