It’s okay,” I whisper after letting her cry for a few minutes. “You’re safe with me. Tell me what happened.”

She doesn’t have to say much before I piece it together. I recognize Vito and Jimmy right away from her descriptions of them. I’m sure they were there shaking down my father, trying to squeeze some cash from him, or at least just hurting him because they can. She walked in at the wrong moment and saw something she never should have, and now they know who she is.

“Fucking hell,” I whisper to myself, and I keep holding her tight. I can’t imagine what she must be thinking. Watching my father get violently choked like that was probably deeply scarring and unsettling for her. Part of me is used to that sort of thing, that violence and destruction, simply because I’ve been around it.

But Alexa’s innocent, or at least innocent when it comes to that. It must have been a horrible wakeup call for her, and I wish I could have spared her from ever having to see it.

That’s not how the world works. I can’t protect her, as much as I want to. The world is going to come for everyone sooner or later, and I can only do my best to try and make sure it doesn’t hurt her.

Now I have my work cut out for me.

She sobs, but slowly her sobs die off. I take her hand and we walk over to my workbench. I sit her down on a stool before pulling one up for myself. I keep holding her hand as she slowly gets ahold of herself.

“It was horrible,” she says finally. “The look in your father’s eyes… it was horrible.”

“They probably weren’t trying to kill him, if that makes it any better.”

She flinches. “It doesn’t… but it looked like they were.”

“They wouldn’t do that there,” I say. “Too messy, not even the mob could clean that up. No, they were just trying to scare him.”

“They scared me,” she says softly. “But something else happened.”

I cock my head. “What?”

“Your father, he sort of saved me.”

That gets my interest. “How?”

“Well, the one guy, the younger one, he wanted to hurt me. But your dad basically said I’m a nobody, just a girl working in the office, and the older guy let me go.”

I frown a little. “How’s that saving you? It’s the truth.”

“He didn’t tell them about the baby or about me seeing you.”

I nod a little bit, slowly understanding. “You think he was trying to help you because of me.”

“I think so, yeah. In his own way.”

“Huh.” I laugh a little, shaking my head. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“Are these the people that ruined your shop?”

I sigh and nod. “Yeah, the same guys, I think. They’re gonna get their money one way or the other.”

“And you’re the other?”

I nod again. “That’s right.”

She groans. “Now they know my name, too.”

“They don’t know who you are to me, though.”

“They will.” She puts her hand on her stomach and I can practically feel the fear rolling off of her.

“I won’t let them,” I say fiercely. “Listen, Alexa. I’m one of the few people in this town that can keep you safe, and I’m going to.”

“How?” she whispers. “They’re the mafia.”

“I have connections. And if worse comes to worse… we can run.”

“Run?” She laughs a little. “I have no money and a ton of debt. I can’t run. I can barely afford to stay here.”

“I’ll take care of you,” I say, but before she can argue, I stand up. “Come on. Let’s go get you something to eat.”

“Eat?” she asks, surprised, but she stands. I keep holding her hand as we leave the garage and head out into the night.

“You’re in shock,” I say. “Getting some food in you will help.”

“Huh. You know a lot about being in shock?”

“Maybe,” I admit. “A little too much.”

We walk down half a block before we get to my little house. It’s tucked back behind some large, old oak trees. The front door’s unlocked and we walk up across the front porch and inside.

“You live close, I didn’t know that,” she says as we come into the family room.

“Easier that way,” I say. “I save a lot of money on gas.”

She laughs a little nervously. We head back into my little kitchen and I sit her down at the table. My place isn’t exactly the most beautifully furnished place in the whole world, but it’s simple. I’ve pieced together some decent stuff from secondhand stores and auctions over the years, and I keep my decorations pretty simple. There aren’t any motorcycle calendars with bikini babes hanging on the walls like you see in some bachelor houses. I like to keep mine simple and clean.

She watches me as I quickly throw together a little meal. I cook up a steak I was saving for myself, chop up a salad, and have it all ready in under half an hour. As I cook, I talk aimlessly about the shop, just really filling time, giving her something to focus on instead of what she saw earlier.

I get the food down in front of her. “Dig in,” I say.

She hesitates, but she eats. She must have been hungry. I sit down across from her and crack open a beer, sipping it and picking at a salad. I’m not starving, and I’m not sure I could eat, anyway.

If she wasn’t tangled up in all this before, she sure as fuck is now. Even if my father managed to sell her as just some random member of his office, they still know her face. They’ll see her with me sooner or later, and they’ll figure it out. Buddy was protecting her, and she’s more important than she seems.

Then they’ll use her against me.

I have to stop them from doing that. I can’t let her become a pawn in this game and risk letting her get hurt. But the only real way to do that is to step away… and if I do that, I’ll lose her, and I think I’ll lose my baby.

Fucking shit. I’m stuck and I know it. I can stay with her, protect her, and potentially risk her, or I can be a terrible father and walk away from her entirely.

There’s no right decision here. I’m stuck, locked in this fucking impossible situation, one that I didn’t even make for myself. I despise my father for what he’s done, and now I have to deal with it.

She finishes eating and leans back in her chair. “That was really good,” she says.

“Good. Glad you liked it.”

“You’re not hungry?”

I shrug. “Guess not.”

She laughs a little bit. “I don’t know the last time I had a steak like that.”

“Not much of a meat eater?”

“No, I guess I just never think to get. But it was good. Nothing sexier than a man that can cook.”

“I can make two things,” I say, grinning. “Steak and potatoes.”

“The classics.” She nods at the salad. “But you can make that, too.”

“Good point. I’m good at chopping shit up and throwing it in a big bowl.”

“And covering it in dressing.”

“The best part.”

She laughs a little bit and takes another deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I do feel better, by the way.”

“Good. You were just panicking back there.”

“I’m calmer now. I guess I can try and think about what I saw rationally.”

“That’s not easy to do.”

“No,” she says softly. She watches me for a second. “Did you really mean what you said?”

“Which part?”

“About protecting me.”

“Absolutely.” I watch her for a second before standing up. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

She follows me into my little living room. I sit her down on the couch before fishing an old book out from the bookshelf I have in the back corner. It’s a photo album I found in my mom’s things from when I was younger.

“Take a look at this,” I say, handing it over.

She opens it and starts leafing through. “These are old,” she says. “I keep wanting to pinch and zoom in on them.”

I laugh a little. “I have that impulse sometimes too.”

“These are all you?”

I nod. “Mostly just me.”

“And this is your mom?” She points at a picture of my mother, smiling big for the camera, while I’m squirming in her lap. I’m probably one in that picture.

“That’s her,” I say. “She looks so young there.”

“She is young.” She laughs a little and goes through the rest of the album.

There aren’t that many pictures. It’s less than half full, with only marginal dates written next to each picture to give them some context

“You were cute,” she says. “You looked happy.”

“I was. But I wanted you to see that for a reason.”

She frowns. “What’s that?”

“There was something missing from all those pictures.”

I watch as she opens the album again and goes through it, looking at all my old memories. I hate looking at this. I hate thinking that all of those pictures are snapshots of a thing I’ll never, ever get back again.

But I notice her starting to figure it out. “Your dad,” she says finally. “He’s not in any of these.”

“Right,” I say. “Even before he was the mayor, he was pretty much always absent from my life. I think he took some of these, but he’s never in them with me, never where it really counts.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Very hard,” I say. “You’ve seen what my father can be like, what he gets himself into. Imagine that, but all your life, and from the only male role model you have.”

“Being the mayor’s son probably wasn’t fun,” she says and laughs softly to herself. “That’s probably an understatement.”

“It is, but I’m not trying to win sympathy. I just want to make a point.” I take a breath and slide the album from her hands. I carry it back over to the shelf and back it back before sitting down next to her again.

“I don’t want to be like my father,” I say softly. “I’m not going to abandon the people I care about, no matter how hard it gets. No matter what I do.”

She watches me closely. “Do you mean that?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.

“I won’t be missing from a single photo of our baby. Not a single fucking one.”

I pull her close and kiss her. It happens spontaneously. I didn’t plan this, but it feel so right and I can’t help myself. I kiss her full and deep, pulling her tight, and she kisses me back.

I don’t know how I’ll keep her safe, but I do know one thing: I’m never going to give up trying.