MOBSTER’S BABY_Esposito Family Mafia Read online

  “T!” She squealed again, jumping and making her ass cheeks jiggle a little out of her denim skirt. Though—heh—you could barely call that little strip of cloth a skirt.

  We walked up to the front of her trailer, her fumbling with her keys while I slid my hand up under her skirt. She was already wet; her panties were hot and soaked, and she moaned when I rubbed my fingers over her ass crack.

  “Wait until we’re inside, T—”

  She was trying to unlock her door as I presssed behind her. I was hard hard and not really keen on waiting. I leaned against her, speaking against her ear. I could smell perfume on her. Something cheap. I made a note to maybe buy her a little something I liked.

  “If you think I’m not ready to fuck you enough to slide that skirt up, shove your little tooth-floss panties out of the way, and shove my cock inside you until you’re screaming for your neighbors, you don’t know me very well, doll face.”

  She gasped and her ass jutted back against me, but she damn sure made the effort to open her door, right and quick, too. As soon as we were inside, I slammed her against the door.

  “Ah, hell, T. You’re needy tonight.”

  “Baby girl, I just wanna hear you scream.”

  Needy? Not what I’d call it. I was fucking high—lit light a kite and I hadn’t even taken anything. It was victory. I’d claimed it in a small dose over the Jackals tonight, with help of my boys. Now I’d claim it on Trixie’s sweet little snatch.

  I kissed her before she could say anything more, trapping her against the door. She tasted like beer and lipstick; I felt the stuff smear over my lips and didn’t bother to be annoyed about it. They could smear over my cock later too. Her arms went around me, and those ridiculously long, manicured nails dug into my back. I hoisted her up; she wasn’t that heavy. Her legs went around me, and I pressed against her, rocking my cock against that pretty pussy of hers.

  “I thought you wanted to fuck me?” she panted.

  “I’m gonna; I just like hearing you mewl before you get it.”

  She whined, but she didn’t argue. I was allowed to get what I wanted from her, and she gave it to me like any other club girl would. She was just happy to be worthy enough to take my cock, and as I shoved those frilly, little, barely-even-there panties aside, plunging my fingers into her heat to work her open, she wouldn’t be able to think that I wasn’t being fair to her anyway.

  “Oh, T, fuck!”

  In and out, I fucked her on my hand. So wet and tight. I was used to her by now and knew how to get her wet quickly. I didn’t feel like fucking around on her and taking my time; that kinda shit was for another girl.

  Trixie had strong legs and those thick, pretty thighs of hers held her up while I fiddled with my pants, not too much a gentleman to resist fucking a pretty girl against her door before I decided whether I wanted to bend her over her couch or bed next. I undid my belt, opened the button, pulled down the zipper, and found it was a relief when my cock let loose from my pants. There was a condom in my pocket—I was not a stupid man.But as I went to rip the foil, my phone rang.

  “What the fuck.”

  I groaned. There was a temptation to ignore it, but it was Brig’s ringtone, and he knew not to mess with my me time unless it was something important.

  I set a pouting Trixie on her feet and pulled away to answer.

  “This better be good,” I said.

  “I dunno if it’s good, Trip.”

  “Well, it’s gonna be worse if I don’t find out what it is.”

  “It’s—it’s Misha, T. She’s right outside the fucking club.”

  Chapter Two

  Misha

  Everyone’s eyes were on me—everyone’s. There were only a few of them who I didn’t know, but most I did. There was Brig, who’d filled out a lot since the last time I’d seen him. He wasn’t quite so thin, but then again, he didn’t have quite so many scars, either. He didn’t look like a boy anymore. Jackson and Prewet, the DeVos twins. I could still tell them apart after the years; I’d bet money it was Johnny with the long hair and Peaty with the short. There was Travis, too, with a patch over his eye. Arms folded. He looked dumbfounded like the rest, and I couldn’t blame them for it. I imagined that it was hard to look at someone who you had thought was dead sitting there in front of you, alive, well, and with a little, knee-high girl perched in lap. No one said a word, trying to process what I was doing there, alive and, surprisingly, with a child.

  I never thought that I would find myself here again, Ace of Pride, the bar Bobby Oakland’s Pride worked out of. Though, talk was that Bobby didn’t run the Pride anymore. No …

  I looked down at my little girl, and she looked up at me, a little shy. She had my auburn hair, falling in curls around her little cherub face, but she had her daddy’s eyes—blue as the sky over the sea and just as bright and full of mischief as I remembered Trip’s being.

  He wasn’t here. He’d gone off celebrating on his own. I wasn’t dumb and knew what that meant. He’d either taken someone back to his place or gone back to hers. It didn’t bother me as much as it should. Lord knew I hadn’t saved myself over the years …

  “Mama?”

  Rose looked up to me. I hadn’t realized I’d zoned out.

  “Yes, baby?”

  “I’m sleepy.”

  “I know, baby. It’s okay. It won’t take long, I promise.”

  “Okay, mama.”

  She tucked herself into me, drawing away from the big men in leather kuttes who surrounded us. I wished it was a sight that was unfamiliar to her, but I couldn’t boast about being a mother who had been able to keep her daughter from the things that had driven me away from the Pride to begin with. No …out of the fire, into the frying pan. That had been my life for the last five years.

  I looked to Brig. He didn’t seem to know what to do about me, but we’d been friends back in the day. He’d always treated me kindly, especially since Trip had been so sweet on me.

  “Is there a room in back she can lie in?”

  “I dunno if that’s a good idea, Misha. Should keep you together in the same place and all.”

  My face fell a little. It didn’t seem that our old friendship would win me any bonus points here.

  “I guess you have a lot of questions.”

  “T’s gonna have a lot of questions, too.”

  Harsh.

  I bit my lip.

  Things had definitely changed.

  # # #

  I didn’t know how long we waited. The buzz from the bar up front went from steady to decayed and there was a lull that told me the boys who stayed had found their places in their rooms, and those that had left had taken their women and gone to spend their nights elsewhere. Brig had called Trip after I’d arrived, bringing his closest boysthe ones from five years ago, the ones that had come up with them—to the back with me.

  It was so uncomfortable.

  I almost started to fall asleep when the office door opened. My eyes widened falling on the man in the doorway.

  “Trip …”

  He was the same as he was five years ago. Tall. Handsome. His kutte fit him like a glove still and I was reminded how the look had drawn me to him, all those years ago. His black hair was military cut, and his arms, thick with muscle, were covered in tattoos. Idly, my fingers brushed over the one that I had, inside my left wrist. The only one I’d ever wanted.

  Trip.

  It wasn’t his real name, but it was the name that he preferred, and the name of the man that I had fallen in love with when I was a dumb sixteen-year-old girl. Before I realized that I was pregnant with Rose, before I knew that living this life and having her—having Trip—just wasn’t going to work if I was going to raise a child. Funny how things turned out.

  He stood there at the door, as dumbfounded as the others had been. Looking at him, taking him in, I noticed the slight smudge of color on his lips; he’d definitely been with a woman before Brig made the call to have him come here.

  H
e made no move to walk to me, he only stood and stared, as if I were a ghost. I might as well have been. He didn’t stir until there was a movement in my lap, a sleepy little girl who moved and blinked up at me once more.

  “Mama, is it time to go yet?”

  “Not yet, Rose.”

  There was a choked sound from Trip, and I looked back at him. He was eyeing Rose, taking her in. I could see the wheels turning plain as day—she was old enough to have been born in the time I was gone. Old enough she was either his or some other bastard’s from around that time. But I knew who she looked like when she turned her face on him, and I could tell that he did, too. It was his own eyes that looked at him from Rose’s face; no other man could claim to be her daddy.

  “Get out.” He looked to Brig and the others. When they didn’t move, he slammed his hand on the wall.

  “Get out!”

  One by one, his boys flowed out, Brig being the last to go. I watched as they exchanged a look, and wordlessly, Brig nodded and left too.

  It was the first time in years that I was alone with Trip. He walked toward me, slow and deliberate. There was tension in the air. I didn’t know if it was sexual or anger or just longing from the years gone by.

  I knew, when he came in front of me and wrapped his arms around me, that maybe it was a little something sweeter.

  “I fucking missed you.”

  “Language.”

  It was a knee-jerk reaction, one that made him pull away from me for a moment. It was as if he’d forgotten about the little girl between us. Rose looked up at him curiously, as if she hadn’t expected him to get so close to touch.

  “Oh. Oh fuck—”

  “Trip—”

  “Is she mine?” he asked, so quiet that not even Rose heard him.

  He didn’t have to ask the question. He knew the answer. I gave him one anyway.

  “Yeah.”

  He sucked in a breath, looking down at her. His hand twitched, like he was going to reach out and touch her, but he never did. She blinked up at him in return. I hadn’t told her a lot about Trip, other than I loved him and I had to leave him, but that one day I’d come back to him and she’d be able to meet him in person.

  “What’s her name?” He asked it like he was afraid to ask her himself.

  “Sweetie, tell the nice man your name.”

  She looked between the two of us, almost uncertain. I nodded at her, encouraging.

  “Go on.”

  “My name’s Rose.”

  “That’s a pretty name.”

  “Mama says it’s because roses are the prettiest flowers, and I got to have the name to match me.”

  “Well, your Mama would be right, you know. You’re a pretty girl.”

  Rose giggled at that, and I shifted her on my lap.

  “It’s late …” I looked at Trip. “Can I put her down in a room? We can talk?”

  Trip nodded.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

  I stood with Rose in my arms, leaning down to get the duffle bag I’d brought with us. Trip didn’t seem to know what to do—whether to take her, or let me hold her—but he led us out of the office with one last little glance at her, and an almost disbelieving shake of his head.

  There were a few locked rooms, and I knew what was likely going on or had gone on behind them. But the room that Trip brought me to was in the very back, set away from the others. I knew it well; we’d spent many nights there when we were younger.

  His room hadn’t changed much. There were still pictures on his dresser, clothes sticking out of the drawers. He didn’t have proper curtains; there was an old blanket that his grandma had knitted him tacked up over where the window was.

  As much as the nostalgia flooded back in, I wasn’t here for that. After setting our duffle off to the side, I set Rose in the middle of his bed, tucking her in.

  “I’m gonna come back when it’s time to leave, okay, Rose?”

  She nodded.

  “Mmhm, Mama.” She was already closing her eyes and snuggling beneath the covers.

  Back in the office, it was quiet. We stood there in silence, now that we were alone. Trip stared at me, long and hard. It was a surprise when he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

  “I missed you.”

  There was passion in his words. It lit a fire in me that I hadn’t felt in years. It was like there weren’t five years between us—

  But when he leaned in, as if to kiss me, I remembered that there were five years. Five years and secrets, so many that it was hard to keep track of them sometimes. I stepped away from him before he could lean all the way and claim my lips. I’d be so far gone if that’s what he did.

  There was a flash across his eyes. It wasn’t anger; it was hurt.

  “It’s been a while,” I said, as if that made up for anything.

  “Yeah. It has.”

  Trip ran his hand through his hair. He sat back on top of the desk in his office and leveled a look at me. I hadn’t allowed that intimacy to connect, so now it was cut off. This was business. Perhaps it was better that way.

  “What happened, Misha?” he asked. “What happened? We all thought you were dead. There was so much fucking blood! Your room was a wreck. And now you’re back five years later. You got a kid. You say she’s mine—”

  “She is yours.”

  “I didn’t say I thought she wasn’t; her face may as well be mine.”

  “That’s what I always thought.”

  He ran his hand through his hair again. His arms folded across his chest.

  “What happened?” he repeated. “There was so much blood … You disappeared. No one saw you; everyone knows what those Jackal bastards are capable of when they take someone out.” He was desperate for answers, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him for that.

  I had known that this was going to come up. How could it not? It didn’t make me feel any better about telling him.

  “That night … they came to my place. Packed. Said they were tired of Bobby and the boys—and especially you—footing around them. Not giving them what they wanted. So, they decided to take something that you had.” I tugged at my ear, a reflex, before showing him my palm. A thick, ugly scar arced across it. “They made me cut myself so if you did perhaps get the cops involved, my DNA would be there. The rest was pig blood, just to make it look like they messed me up real bad. They wanted to scare you, maybe bait you into doing something really stupid. I suppose you did, just … not in the ways they expected. When you didn’t show up when they thought you would, looking for me—”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t wanna come looking for you—”

  “I never said that was it,” I said sharply. Christ, he’s defensive. “It would have been suicide back then. It’d be suicide now. That’s not … that’s not the point. Trip, let me finish.”

  He nodded, letting me continue.

  “They assumed you’d do what you always did. Act rash. Come guns blazing. They were going to keep me and rough me up. They did, the first few days.” I shifted where I stood; it wasn’t like that was a lie, and the memory of those days wasn’t something I liked to remember, let alone talk about. Especially not to Trip. “When you came, they were going to show me to you, make you flesh out a deal that they wanted from you. When you didn’t, they thought about killing me to make their point drive a little harder than it apparently already had. I told them I was pregnant and—”

  “You knew you were pregnant?”

  I sighed, looking away from him. My hand found my ear again.

  “I was going to tell you. Before the Jackals decided they wanted to use me as Pride bait.”

  “Hm.”

  “Anyway … I told them I was pregnant. They didn’t believe me, but their president has this thing against killing the unborn. Obviously once I started to show, they knew that I was telling them the truth. So, when that was confirmed, he thought it would be more elaborate, then, to keep me and let me have Rose,
and then show up with me and our baby one day and shock you then. Real theatric, Holland.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “Me.” I shrugged. “He took to me.”

  Something dark flashed across Trip’s face. I wasn’t sure if I should be scared or turned on by the possessive streak that was clearly still there.

  “…You were his old lady or something?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that. He had an old lady. He just liked me, kept his boys off of me.”