“I’ll be there,” he told the Capo. “Just fucking relax, man.”
“Right. Later, Bene.”
Yeah, he’d show up to chat with the other Capo. Right after he made a phone call to someone else, that was.
22.
Vanna
GOD.
Why did she have to use such big purses?
Every time she needed to find something in her bag, Vanna never could because the item she searched for would be the one lucky thing to fall to the very bottom under all her makeup, wallet, snacks, a half a dozen receipts, and ... why did she have so many pens?
“Like, where did you even go in there?” she asked no one in particular.
Except the stupid phone that had somehow managed to get lost in her purse while she stood outside on the sidewalk in front of the clinic where in just ten minutes, she needed to be inside to find out the sex of her unborn baby. She wanted to call Bene back just to make sure he was absolutely positive he wasn’t going to make it in time, but also to find out who in the hell he was sending in his place since he said that’s what he was going to do.
She figured ... his ma, maybe.
Or even Valeria, if she wasn’t busy.
Oh, and did she mention that she had to pee?
Because she did.
Badly.
Apparently, a woman needed to have a painfully full bladder to have an ultrasound done at nineteen weeks so then the tech could get a clear picture of the baby. Seriously, if she coughed or sneezed the wrong way, she was going to lose her bladder all over the sidewalk in her cute maternity dress and kitten heels.
Wouldn’t that just top this day right—
“You okay?”
At the familiar voice—one she had certainly not expected to hear—Vanna finally took her attention away from the purse with the black hole somewhere inside it to stare at the man now stepping up on the sidewalk a few feet away from her. In his usual suit, he offered a smile that felt hesitant, but still seemed true.
Didn’t make her less confused.
Or nervous.
“Marcus,” Vanna said.
Marcus cleared his throat and glanced toward the clinic. “I was closest when Bene put out a couple of calls about getting someone here to be with you for your appointment because you’d probably need a ride home after. I might have mentioned you would possibly not like that—mostly me—but he said you would be fine. So, here I am.”
Straight to the point.
As always.
Vanna nodded. “Um, well thank you. For coming, I mean.”
Could this get anymore awkward?
Probably.
She wasn’t going to test the theory out, though.
“Well, let’s go in,” she said. “My appointment is in ten minutes, and I guess they want me to pee in a cup ... apparently I am supposed to be able to magically stop my urine flow on a full bladder because I can only pee a little.”
Marcus made a face. “What?”
“Nothing ... pregnancy shit.”
“Oh. I’ll stay out here and wait, if you want. I don’t have to go inside and sit in the waiting room.”
Things were not ... great with Marcus. Clearly. They still had a way to go, but he made an effort. The same way Bene and Vanna did for him. She had to give him credit for that, and she appreciated the respect he offered her even when he didn’t have to do that at all. She understood perfectly fine that the man felt as though Bene and Vanna had betrayed the family ... or rather, she did and then Bene protected her after the fact. If there was anything someone should know about Marcus above everything else, it was how close he held his family and how much he loved and protected them.
To him, she had been a threat.
At the moment, she thought he was trying to decide if that was still the case.
“Would you come in, though?” she asked. “Inside the room with me to see the baby? Bene was supposed to be here, and ... I mean, if something is wrong, I’d like to have somebody in there.”
Marcus tipped his head to the side. “Do they think something is wrong with the baby?”
“No, but—” But what if? Statistics on the internet that could be found with nothing more than a simple search would drive a first-time pregnant mother insane.
Quickly, the man across from her seemed to understand what Vanna didn’t want to say. “Hey, I get it. Sure, I’ll come in.”
Vanna smiled.
So did he.
This time, it didn’t feel hesitant at all.
“Thanks, Marcus.”
“Don’t mention it.”
• • •
“Everything looks great,” the ultrasound tech said, moving to grab the bottle with the cold blue gel once more, “so let me put a little bit more of this on, and we can check to see what this baby is hiding between his or her legs. You did want to find out the sex, right?”
Vanna nodded. “We did, yeah.”
“And Daddy is—”
“Ah, that would be my younger brother, not me,” Marcus said with a chuckle when the tech turned on him. “I am here for ... moral support.”
Yeah, why not?
That worked.
“That’s nice, too,” the tech said.
“So, the baby was good?”
“Perfect size. Measuring just right. The heart looks strong, and everything else is just as it should be ....” The woman trailed off after she squirted a bit more of the blue gel on Vanna’s stomach, and put the wand right on top of it to smoosh it around on her slightly rounded stomach. “Okay, let’s see what we can find.”
Vanna’s gaze stayed glued to the screen as once again, her baby took shape in shades of gray, white, and black. In the background of the white noise, they could hear the beating heart loud and clear. Something else to calm her nerves. Then, the wand moved quite a bit lower on her belly, and she couldn’t quite make out what she was seeing on the screen as the tech hummed under her breath and inched a bit closer in her seat.
“Oh, there it is,” the woman murmured. “Very clear picture, huh?”
Vanna blinked. “Is it?”
A laugh came from the tech.
“Well, I suppose I look at them every day, so I know when I see one or the other. Congratulations, Vanna, you’re having a boy.”
A sharp inhale came from the corner of the room. She turned to see Marcus tip his head back a bit as he watched the images on the screen with a soft smile and kind eyes.
“The first Guzzi boy of his gen,” Marcus murmured, passing Vanna a look as he shrugged under the weight of his navy blazer. “He’s destined to be amazing, and we haven’t even met him yet. That absolutely does deserve congratulations, Vanna.”
Quietly, all she could think to say was, “Thank you.”
23.
Bene
TEN minutes.
That’s all Bene had left before he’d arrive at the penthouse. He could make it in eight minutes if he was willing to push the speed limit any more than he already was, but he figured ... better not to take the chance, all things considered.
He’d not called or texted Vanna. She hadn’t done either for him. Maybe a part of him just didn’t want to ruin the surprise before he got home, or it could have been that he wanted her to tell him straight from her lips what the sex of the baby was seeing as how he couldn’t be there to hear it first with her.