Really, it was hurting the whole family.
Luca pushed off his desk, grabbing a folder and opening it up. Flipping through what looked to be photographs, he started calling out names. Mac recognized some, if only because the men’s names were members of different crews, some he had worked with when he was just a solider.
All of the names came from crews other than his.
Not one was a man of his.
Every time a new name was called for a different crew, a Capo would stand a little straighter, staring at their boss in both concern and confusion.
When Luca was finally done, he tossed the folder aside, photos of men spilling out across the large desk. “We have a problem.”
“Many problems,” Enzo added under his breath.
Luca barely passed him a glance. “The men I named—they’ve all been pulled in by officials over the last month. Figure out why and if they’re a problem we need to fix, or I will do it.”
Mac scratched at his jaw, ignoring a couple of gazes that flew to him, realizing he wasn’t the only one to pick up that not even one of his men had been in the list. He kept them on a tight leash—it’s what a good Capo did.
It wasn’t his fault the other Capos were slacking.
“We’ve got a rat problem; I’m about to clean house,” Luca continued, his eyes passing from one man to another without pause, “and so help you God, I will start with each of you.”
Mac didn’t get home until the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. It would have been a beautiful sight if he cared to stare out the windows and watch the sunrise paint the sky, but he had a much more amazing sight to see.
His wife.
Mac found Melina was tucked into the corner of the couch, a cup of ginger tea between her hands, and a smile already on her face. He hadn’t woken her up before leaving the night before when he got the call, but she probably wouldn’t mind. It seemed like the further into the pregnancy she was getting, and the bigger her stomach swelled, the harder it was for her to get a good night’s rest.
When she was able to fall into a deep sleep, Mac let her.
“Morning,” Melina said, drawing her cup of tea up to her lips.
Mac strolled across the floor, dropping a kiss to his wife’s forehead and soaking in her love and life for those few seconds. “Hey, doll.”
“Busy night?”
“Long,” he offered.
He could smell the scent of the ginger tea she was drinking, and it wasn’t all too appealing. It did help her with the morning sickness that still hadn’t waned half way through the pregnancy, so he didn’t say a word.
“I got a call this morning,” Melina said.
“Oh?”
Mac headed for the kitchen, wanting to make himself a coffee. Just because he was up half of the night didn’t mean he would be able to sleep his day away. He still had to work—business didn’t end just because bad shit was going down in the family.
God knew he needed to tighten up the leashes on his crew, too, though he wasn’t sure just how much tighter he could pull before they broke.
“Yeah,” Melina called back, “Neeya, actually.”
“I’m listening.”
“She wants to have a baby shower for us.”
Mac wasn’t sure how good an idea that was, if only because it would probably be an open invitation event, if the boss’s wife was throwing them a party. Could the men of the family manage to be in the same room together without trying to kill one another?
If last night was any indication, probably not.
Still, Mac didn’t want to refuse his wife.
She deserved happy moments and to have her pregnancy celebrated.
“When?” Mac asked, coming back into the living room with his coffee in hand.
“Maybe a month,” Melina said. “She really wanted to know the gender, if possible.”
Mac smirked, taking a seat beside his wife. “So do we.”
Melina put a hand to the top of her small swell, and Mac followed with his own hand, feeling the gentle rolling of the baby under their hands.
“So is that a yes?” Melina asked.
Mac shrugged. “You can’t refuse the boss’s wife, doll.”
Melina smiled, putting her head on his shoulder. “Or me.”
“Or you.”
Melina sat next to her husband in the back seat of the limousine.
“Is all this really necessary?” she asked.
“What?”
“This limo, Mac.”
“You’re five months pregnant and you’re on your way to what I know is going to be a magnificent baby shower.”
Melina raised a brow. “Magnificent, Mac.”
Her husband placed his hand over her stomach. At five months it was more than evident that she was pregnant. Their son chose that moment to make his presence known. Melina smiled as the baby moved inside her.
“There’s my little man.”
At the sound of his father’s voice, the baby’s movement picked up even more, a particularly sharp kick hitting Melina right under her rib.
“Mac, can you please tell your son to stop kicking me?” Melina asked.