Perspective (An Exposure Series Novella): Exposure Series Book Four Read Online Free PDF Page A

glass.
    “Mom, say something.”
    She shook her head and started in on her Italian. She muttered something in Italian and shook her head. I wished that I had Asher there to translate for me.
    “Mom, please, say something in English.”
    “You don’t want me to say something in English.” Then she went back to her native tongue while she downed yet another glass of wine and filled her glass again. “Okay, CJ, you want me to talk to you in English, I’ll talk to you in English. What the hell are you thinking? You’re going to bring a child into this mess? What the hell? Your kid is going to have a grandfather who’s a godfather? Listen, CJ, I’ve been around those mob types. You forget that I grew up in Italy when I was a little girl. That kind of thing isn’t something to mess around with, let me tell you. I mean, you’re lucky that his father is a godfather, otherwise everyone else around him would be singing like canaries.”
    Then she shook her head and started to talk in Italian some more. She looked at the ceiling and seemed to be cursing god. “You have no idea what kind of danger you’re going to be in. Do you think for one second that you’re going to be left alone by his father or anyone close to his father? Do you? And what’s going to happen when his old man dies? Right now, I’m sure he’s protected, because nobody wants to mess with the son of a godfather, especially if his family is powerful.”
    I was a bit surprised that mom seemed to know so much about mob culture, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. After all, she was in Italy when she was a young girl. She had never said as much, but she probably had some kind of exposure to this kind of thing when she was a little girl.
    I knew that I was going to get flak from my mother, so I was braced for her reaction. “What’s done is done, mom. I’m married to Asher, and I’m having his child. There’s nothing that can be done about it now.”
    “So, you’re telling me that I just have to suck it up and accept it? Is that what you’re saying? Well, if that’s what your saying, then you have another thing coming there, Cordelia.” She took another gulp of her wine and gave me the stink-eye.
    “Ma, so what do you propose she do?” Stella asked her. “Abort her child and annul her marriage?” I hoped that Stella was only asking that as a rhetorical question, but I couldn’t be sure.
    Mom crossed herself after Stella said that. “And send my little girl to hell?” She shook her head. “No. There’s a baby, so…” She shook her head again. “Why do you do this to me, Cordelia? Why? First you kill my little baby Nathaniel, and now this. I really thought that we were going to be on the road to recovery in our relationship, you and me. But how can I accept this?”
    My heart sunk. “Mom, you have to learn to accept this.” There was nothing more that I could say. As Stella said, what was done was done, and, unless mom wanted me to get an abortion or be a single mother, the cake was baked. There was no undoing any of it.
    Scarlett was quiet through all of this, but I knew that she was going to have my ear later.
    Finally, my mother just said “okay, then. I guess that there’s nothing that can be done, except meet this godfather of his and hope for the best.” Then she started to speak in rapid Italian, and I could just imagine what she was saying.
    “Mom, that will be difficult, to say the least. His father lives in London. But you can meet his sister, Natalia.” I didn’t want to tell her that Natalia, up until just recently, was an integral part of the slave trading business.
    “You bring him here, Cordelia,” she said. “I need to look him in the eye and tell him my piece. I need to tell him that he won’t interfere with the raising of your child and I need reassurance that he won’t try to force your child into his wicked business. And that’s what it is – a wicked business. It’s evil.”
    I couldn’t argue with