Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Damian didn’t care. He was excited for a second son. But he did wish it was easier on Lily.
“How’re you feeling, sweetheart?” Damian asked.
Lily shrugged, smiling when he leaned forward and placed a kiss to the crown of her rounded stomach. “Still tired.”
“Go back upstairs for a while. I’m good here.”
“Yes, Damian, I can see just how good you are down here.”
Joe smacked his hands to the highchair over and over. “Mamamama.”
“He made a little mess,” Damian said, chuckling.
“I saw who made the mess,” Lily teased.
Damian caught his wife’s gaze, noting how she winced a little but tried to hide it. His hand, still resting on her stomach, felt her muscles tense all over. He knew that look on his wife’s face.
Was it finally time?
“Lily?”
She sighed. “I would love some more sleep.”
Damian cocked a brow. “Why did you get up?”
“Contractions. What else?”
She laughed, and it was filled with relief.
Damian smiled, but a hint of anxiety simmered in his blood. He kissed her stomach again. “Go sit in the living room. I’ll give Tommy a call and finish feeding Joe. Don’t worry about the bags, I’ll grab them, too.”
Lily’s fingertips danced over Damian’s cheek and up into his hair. “You’re too good to me.”
“I love you, Lily.”
Damian wasn’t the kind of man who expressed affection openly. His wife always understood, and never asked him for more than he could give her. But he did love her—entirely.
“Love you,” she echoed sweetly.
He rubbed her stomach, hoping it soothed whatever worries she might have. No doubt, Lily would do great once again. She was a champion like that.
Joe started babbling again, taking Damian’s attention away from his wife for the moment.
“I guess supper time is done, huh?” Damian asked his son. Joe threw a pea at him, and he barely dodged it. “Joe, no throwing food.”
“Dadada,” Joe babbled, grinning widely.
Damian forgave his son instantly. “Almost time to meet your little brother, buddy.”
Joe threw another pea.
*
Cory Dino Rossi made his way into the world in a quick few hours. Once Lily’s contractions really started, the baby boy didn’t take long at all.
Damian balanced his one-year-old on his hip to show Joe his new baby brother being washed and dressed by a nurse behind a glass window. Tommas had brought Joe to the hospital the very second Damian called to say that Cory was born.
“Look,” Damian said, pointing at a kicking, crying Cory. “That’s baby Cory.”
Joe’s brow puckered. “Bay-beeee.”
“That’s right. Baby Cory.”
“Bay-beee.”
Damian held his oldest son a little tighter, wanting to keep him close. His most important goal in life had been surviving, keeping out of people’s way, and staying alive. Then he married Lily, and she became his focus.
Now, he had his boys, too.
He wanted them to be happy.
To be safe.
To succeed.
He thought about his wife, and her pleased, proud smile as he left her behind in her hospital room to follow the nurse who was washing Cory up after yet another failed attempt at breastfeeding.
He wanted his sons to find love, too.
One like he had.
Strong, soul-deep, and so beautiful.
But he knew that had to start with him. Growing up, Damian hadn’t exactly had the best models of love surrounding him. He didn’t even know how to love someone properly. Lily came along, and that somehow melted away.
His sons would always see a father that loved their mother. A man who respected his wife, treated her like she was so precious, and adored her like she was the most important thing.
Because she was.
Fathers taught their sons how to be men.
So yeah, that started with him.
Damian still hoped his boys knew that he tried to be good for them—a good man.
*
Twenty Years Later ...
“Joe, stop that goddamn fidgeting,” Damian said sharply.
Joe scowled at his father. “I’m nervous, all right.”
“Be nervous, but stop the jittery bullshit.”
“Easy for you to say, Dad,” Joe muttered.
Damian smirked, but hid it by turning his head to look out at the tress passing their car by. Unfamiliar streets of New York colored his vision and he relaxed in the backseat. Once or twice a year, Damian took a trip to New York to sit down with old friends, talk business, and make sure there was no trouble between families.
It was just one of his jobs as Tommas’ underboss.
He had learned over the years to appreciate the spotlight.
Or as much of it as he could.
“Dad?” Joe asked.
“Yeah?”
“Cory would have been better for this, not me.”
Damian sighed quietly, and turned back to look at his oldest son. Joseph and Cory, despite being only a year apart in age, couldn’t have been more different. Cory was outgoing and had a big personality. He loved people, and he liked attention. He was charming as hell, and the twenty-year-old knew it. He had women coming and going all the time.
Joe, on the other hand, was quiet. He preferred his own company. He didn’t like the limelight, and his business in the Outfit ended up being a lot like his father’s first job had been. Joe was Damian’s right-hand, doing whatever his father needed in the shadows without ever batting an eye about it. He was fearless in that way, and Damian loved his boy for it.