Marked by the Don's Ghost

I buried my first love. Now he’s back from the dead, he’s a Moretti, and he doesn’t know my daughter is his.

When I met him, he called himself Jamie Cole.

 Every word out of his mouth was a lie, except the ones he whispered in bed.

After Russian hitmen murder my best friend in a dockyard ambush, Orlando drags me behind his fortified walls.

 He puts a bullet in any man who lays a hand on me.

He’s twelve years older and still knows every touch that makes me break.

 This time, he makes me beg for every one.

I should hate him, but he lets me hold him when grief cracks his armor.

 My daughter calls him Daddy before I’ve forgiven anything.

The night he swears it was never a lie, I fall all over again.

 Then my friend’s records reveal that someone close to Orlando sold us out.

Now the Russians are closing in, and they want all three of us in the ground.