19. Mia
19
MIA
T he pregnancy test feels like lead in my hand. It's far too heavy for me to keep holding on to.
I hold it out to him, but he’s still staring at me, his face unreadable.
The nerves kick in as the silence stretches.
Because it’s my duty to sleep with him, my duty to provide an heir to the Prince’s Hand. That was always the understanding we had; that’s what I’d agreed to do.
But what we just did, completely and ruinously ill-advised by any medical professional, had nothing to do with creating an heir. It hadn’t even crossed my mind.
The only goal was to feel. And I’ve never felt more. It was everything.
And everything feels overwhelming in the face of reality. In the face of a positive pregnancy test and a tangible reminder as to why we are both even here in the first place.
“Are you sure?” These are his first words, none bearing even a fraction of the emotion of a few moments ago.
I swallow hard. “I…I should do another. I’ll book an appointment in the morning just in case.”
Leon suddenly rises to his feet, his nakedness entirely distracting when I really need to focus on what he’s saying for my own sanity. “No.”
“We need to make sure.”
“You won’t leave this house,” he says evenly. “I’ll have a doctor come visit.”
I open my mouth and close it again. Let out an equally even breath. “I’m perfectly capable of visiting the clinic myself.”
“There’s no need, not anymore.” Leon takes a step forward.
He’s close enough now that I can see the intensity in his eyes. There’s clarity there that had been absent when his cock was in my mouth. I miss that look of haziness with a pang of unwarranted desire.
I shake my head. “Well, I have to leave at some point. You can’t plan on keeping me locked in here until I give birth.”
He says nothing. He steps closer.
My arms wrap around my chest, suddenly very, very wary. “Leon?”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
“You can’t be serious.” It comes out in a whisper instead of a statement of defiance.
Leon looms before me, his strong shoulders bearing the weight of an entire mafia family, and I realize with a dreadful lurch in my stomach exactly what’s about to happen.
“You bear my child,” he says. “It is now my duty to keep you safe.”
“Your duty?” The words are bitter on my tongue. Because, of course, this is what it all comes down to.
“Mia.”
Not Mia. Not anymore.
Because it might have been fun to flirt with me, fun to fuck me. Fun to dance up against me in a club where no one could see us. But now that I’ve served my purpose…
“No, you’re right,” I swallow hard as I take a step back. “Let’s not lose sight of what’s important here. I wouldn’t want anything to distract from bearing your goddamn children.”
His eyebrows knit into a tight frown. “You know how important this is.”
“I don’t need you to remind me!” I laugh even though I feel like crying. “Is that everything you want from me this evening? Have I fulfilled my purpose? Can your wife return to bed so that she might rot there in peace?”
“I’m not sending you away.” He suddenly crowds me again. “I want you to stay.”
How many times has he asked that of me now? Each request had been like a jolt of electricity to the heart, a whisper of something more that could flourish behind it.
Now it just sounds like…
Stay where I can see you. Stay so you don’t wander too far. Stay so that I can know you’re safe.
Stay safe. Stay safe.
It’s my duty to stay safe.
“Why?” I ask because my heart is already breaking.
His expression shifts into alarm. He wasn’t expecting me to ask.
I want to scream at him, want to beg him. Please, give me one good reason. Please tell me there’s something more. Please. There’s more, isn’t there? You feel this, too. You can’t kiss me like that, make me feel like that, if you don’t feel it. I need more.
“I’m sorry.” He searches my face for something I evidently don’t provide. “You can leave if you want to.”
It feels worse than when Amos Rubio kicked me in the chest. “Right.”
I back away before I can say something I regret. Or my body betrays me with some gross display of emotion that I can already feel simmering under the surface.
“I didn’t mean to…” Leon trails off when I look back at him. He swallows the words back down, chocolate eyes burning with an emotion I can’t name. “Goodnight, Mia.”
I don’t trust myself to voice a reply.
I slip out through the door and into the room that I’ve never slept in before.
The walls of the brownstone feel closer every day, the once-grand space shrinking into a prison with every passing hour.
I’ve memorized every detail of it—the cracks in the kitchen countertops where Leon had once bent me over. The subtle creak of the third step on the staircase, the way the light filters through the heavy curtains in the living room just before dusk.
I can’t remember the last time I felt the fresh air on my face or the hum of the city beneath my feet.
At first, I thought I could handle it. I thought I could just stay quiet and fulfill my goddamn duty.
But after three weeks, I had gone to Leon after a dreadful morning of sickness and begged him. I pleaded with him to let me out. To give me something.
“I’m keeping you safe,” he had said the last time I brought it up, his voice calm but final, his hand brushing over my stomach. Making it very clear who, exactly, he’s trying to keep safe.
The child growing inside me should be a blessing. Instead, it feels like a leash.
That was the day I decided to leave. I ran down the stairs, my feet making the third step creak, and burst through the front door. For a moment, I just let the sounds of the city overwhelm me.
Then I saw that Max was stationed outside. He turned me back around with a sympathetic look of a man on someone else's payroll.
Leon’s absence only sharpens the edges of my isolation. At first, his injury kept him home. But once he was mobile again, he threw himself back into his world of business and violence, leaving me behind to rot in silence.
Well, not complete silence.
“I don’t know how you tolerate that shade of paint,” Isabella says, eyeing the soft gray walls of the study with disdain as she scrolls through an iPad.
I don’t answer her. Instead, I sip my mint tea (the only warm beverage I can tolerate at the moment) and try not to let her snide comments get under my skin.
It’s become a near-daily battle now that we’re making some headway on the casino. But, ironically, it's one of the only ways I’ve managed to stay sane.
The workload piles up every time Isabella visits, and my life revolves around completing it before she returns.
I pour myself into every detail of the casino, pouring over layouts, reviewing color schemes, and fine-tuning the marketing strategy. If Leon won’t let me leave this house, I’ll make damn sure I leave my mark on something outside of it.
“You should approve these floor plans for the third floor this week,” she says, sliding the tablet toward me. “Otherwise, we’ll have to delay the scaffolding.”
Her tone is sharp and businesslike, but I catch the hint of sympathy in her eyes. As if she is realizing she might be the only person her brother even allows to visit.
“I’ll do it,” I say, because I will. Because I have nothing better to do.
I spend my mornings reviewing invoices and liaising with contractors via email. Afternoons are devoted to drafting proposals—VIP memberships, themed rooms, and entertainment lineups.
Evenings are the hardest.
The house is too quiet, and the ache of loneliness settles in my chest like a weight I can’t shake. Some nights, I sit by the window and stare out at the city, wondering if Leon even remembers I’m here.
It’s not just Leon’s absence that eats at me. It’s the silence between us when he’s here, the way he looks at me with something that feels less like love and more like obligation.
He wanted an heir, I remind myself bitterly, not a partner. He wants me to stay right here. Until the baby is born and he has no use for me anymore.
More often than not, I spend my evenings thinking of his other self. The one who offered desperate kisses and longing moans and words that praised me and pushed me over the edge of my own control.
The man who graces me with his presence only to dart back out of it at his earliest opportunity is nothing like the man who had held me that night.
I can see it on his face, the exhaustion that lines his every expression. This is a man built for war, a man able to continue on nothing more than fumes. There’s no life there anymore, just action and firm words and practical solutions.
By the time I’m ready for my twenty-two week scan, we feel almost like strangers.
“Lie down whenever you’re ready,” the pre-approved doctor tells me as I drop down onto the bed.
Leon had brought up all the equipment necessary to do my checkups personally, as if worried it might spontaneously explode if he didn’t check it all over himself. Now, the ultrasound machine hums non-threateningly in my ear as the doctor lifts up my shirt.
“There,” the sonographer says, angling the screen toward us.
Leon automatically sits beside me, his hand finding mine, solid and steady.
The image of a tiny, perfect profile appears on the monitor, and my breath catches. I’ve seen ultrasounds before in books and movies, but nothing compares to this—to seeing our baby.
“And here’s baby number two,” the sonographer continues casually.
Leon’s grip tightens on my hand. “Two?” he echoes.
The sonographer smiles, nodding. “Twins. Two healthy heartbeats.”
She adjusts the wand, and I see it: two tiny shapes nestled together in perfect harmony.
My chest tightens, and tears blur my vision. I glance at Leon, expecting his usual calm composure, but his face is anything but. His mouth is slightly open, his eyes wide and glassy, unguarded in a way I’ve never seen.
“Twins,” he murmurs, almost to himself. He leans closer to the screen, his hand trembling in mine.
The sight of his rare vulnerability breaks something loose inside me. The tears come harder, and the words spill out before I can stop them.
“Leon, I can’t stay locked away anymore. I need to breathe. Please.”
He tears his eyes away to look at me; shock and sorrow and pure, unfiltered longing echo across his face.
“It’s okay.” An arm around my shoulder, holding me. I crave it like nothing else. “I’ve got you.”
“This is important,” I half choke on the word. “I want to share it. I want Cas to know, Isabella. My dad. Leon, please. I need to feel human again, I need to get out of here and I need to see them. Let me…let me have a baby shower.”
He doesn’t answer right away, his gaze fixed on the screen. Then, slowly, he turns to me, his eyes damp.
“A baby shower,” he says softly, his thumb brushing over my knuckles so gently. “For you three, anything. A small one. Our family, our people.”
Relief crashes over me as I cling to his hand like it could anchor me to my sanity.
“Anything, Mia. I promise.”