“Sure.” Louisa turned and walked quickly away.
I stood there, self-conscious. “Uh, she’s interesting.”
“Lou doesn’t get out much.” Natalie opened the door farther. “Come in, please. Call me Nat.”
“Okay, Nat.” I stepped into her room.
It looked very similar to mine, though she had redecorated it. Where my rooms were austere and fancy, Nat had changed her little living room to feel like a normal person’s house. The expensive furniture had all been replaced by modest but comfortable things.
And sitting on the couch were two little boys.
“Kaley, these are my boys. This is Stokes, and this is Cooper.”
They were busy staring at the television, which was playing some brightly-colored kid’s show, the sort of thing that looked like someone on drugs had made it.
“They’re so handsome. Hi, boys,” I said.
Stokes was older and looked exactly like his father. Cooper was younger and looked more like his mother. They were both very handsome boys and seemed very well behaved.
“You caught them at a good time,” Nat said. They’ll be hypnotized for a bit. Come on, sit with me.”
We walked over to a table across the room. I sat down. “Can I get you anything?” Nat asked me.
“No, thank you.”
She sat down and smiled at me. “So. I hear you have a son.”
“Alexei. Three months.”
“Ah, that’s a good time. He started sleeping through the night yet?”
“Most nights. We still have bad ones, though.”
She nodded. “You will, but it’ll keep getting better. These two idiots keep me up sometimes, too.”
I laughed lightly. “They seem good though.”
“Come by sometime when that show isn’t on.” She shrugged. “Anyway, tell me about yourself.”
I felt a little nervous. What did this woman want with me? She was close to one of the most powerful men in the whole mob, and I wasn’t sure what I could say and couldn’t.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m pretty boring. I was going to school until I got pregnant. My family is pretty conservative, I guess, and they weren’t happy about it.”
She gave me a knowing smile. “I bet.”
“I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran here, hoped that Alexei’s father could help us.”
Nat nodded. “Vince is a good guy. Maybe he doesn’t seem like it on the surface, but deep down.”
“He can be an asshole.”
I couldn’t believe I had said that, but Nat just laughed.
“They all can, these men. They’re tough people, Kaley, but you know that. You grew up around mob people.”
“I did,” I said. “But you didn’t.”
“Go ahead, ask me.”
I bit my lip. “How’d you end up here?”
She laughed softly. “It’s a crazy story. I’ll tell it to you sometime, I promise. But believe me, I never in a million years thought I’d end up being the wife of a mobster.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s totally okay.” She leaned back in her chair and looked over at the boys. They were blissfully staring at the television. “Truthfully, I just wanted to check up on you.”
“Why?” I asked her. “I don’t mean to be suspicious, but you’re very close to this family, you know.”
“Of course. Honestly, there aren’t a lot of mothers around here. Oh, how is Sonya working out?”
“She’s great,” I said. “Honestly. She speaks Russian too, which is nice.”
“Good. I thought you’d like her. She takes care of my boys a lot. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
I raised an eyebrow and put that into the back of my mind. Sonya helped raise the grandsons of Arturo Barone. But that made sense, considering she had helped raise his son.
“Can I ask something else?” I said.
“Of course.”
“Do you think I made the right decision? Coming here, I mean. I’m safe, aren’t I?”
Nat nodded slowly. “They don’t hurt kids. They say a lot of things, but they don’t hurt children.”
“Okay.”
“As for whether you made the right decision, I don’t know. If Vince really is the father, I think he’ll step up and help you.”
“He is,” I said firmly.
“I believe you. I know it’s frustrating to be second-guessed, but you can understand. These men don’t take chances.”
“I know,” I said, sighing. “It’s still very frustrating.”
“Of course it is. But tell me, what do you want from Vince?”
I looked over at the window, staring outside. It was a beautiful day and the grounds were so green, just an ocean of blue and green stretching into the distance.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what I want from him. I’m not looking for a father, or maybe I am. I just want what’s best for Alex.”
“Of course,” Nat said softly. “It’s okay if you don’t know.”
“It would be good for Alexei to have a father, but I don’t know if Vince can handle that. I just need help right now until things settle down.”