Chapter 30 Luca
LUCA
A baby.
The words echo in my head, bouncing around like they can’t quite find a place to land. Gigi is pregnant. With my baby. Our baby. A tiny little baby and I can’t—I can’t fucking breathe.
“Luca?” Her voice is uncertain, worried. “Say something. Please.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. What do I say? How do I put into words this overwhelming tide of emotion that’s threatening to drown me? Terror and joy and love so intense it physically hurts, all tangled together until I can’t separate one from the other.
My hand moves to her stomach, feeling nothing but the soft warmth of her skin beneath the hospital gown. But knowing what’s there—what’s growing—changes everything.
“I-I’m going to be a father,” I manage finally, and my voice sounds wrecked and raw. “Gigi, I’m going to be a father.”
“Yes.” She’s crying and laughing at once. “We’re going to have a baby, Luca. You’re going to be a father.”
The reality of it slaps me across the face. A child. My child. Someone who will look up at me with Gigi’s eyes or my own, who will depend on me for everything, who will need me to be better than I’ve ever been.
Someone I could fail. Someone I could damage. Someone who deserves so much more than a father with blood on his hands and violence in his past.
“What if I’m terrible at it?” The words spill out before I can stop them. “What if I don’t know how to be a father? What if I fuck them up the way my father fucked me up?”
She looks pained. “Luca—”
“No, listen to me.” I need her to understand. “I’ve spent my entire adult life being a weapon. Breaking things, destroying people. That’s what I’m good at.” I clench my fists, my stomach flip flopping. “What if that’s all I know how to be?”
Gigi takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her.
Her brown eyes are full of love. “You are so much more than that,” she says firmly.
“You’re the man who spared my father when you had every right to kill him.
The man who was with me when I released Bambi.
” Her thumbs brush away tears I didn’t realize were falling.
“That’s the father our baby is going to have. Not the weapon. The man.”
I want to believe her. God, I want to believe that I can be the father this child deserves.
“I’m terrified,” I admit, the confession torn from somewhere deep inside. “I’m absolutely fucking terrified, Gigi.”
“Good.” She smiles through her tears. “That means you care. That means you’re already thinking about how to protect them, and to keep them safe. That’s what good fathers do.”
Our baby. The concept is still so abstract and impossible to grasp. But one thing keeps ringing through my head: life. We created life together.
“Seven weeks,” I say, doing the math. “That means—”
“Conception was probably the first time we had sex.” Gigi’s cheeks flush slightly. “Remember? In my room?”
“I remember.” How could I forget? I remember every detail of that night. The fight she and I had. How I was so angry at her, how I wanted her to hurt and feel pain. “I remember exactly.”
I press my forehead to hers, my hand still splayed across her stomach. “I love you,” I tell her, the words inadequate but all I have. “I love you so fucking much, Gigi. And I already love this baby. Our baby.”
“Yeah?” Her voice is small and hopeful.
“Yeah.” I pull back enough to see her face, wiping away tears. “The second you told me, I loved them. Completely. Irrevocably. The way I love you.”
Then I’m kissing her—fierce, desperate, pouring every emotion I can’t articulate into the press of our lips. She responds immediately, her hands fisting in my hospital gown, pulling me closer despite my injuries.
This is it. This is everything. Gigi and our baby and our life. Not perfect, not without scars, but ours. Real and messy and beautiful.
The heart monitor beside my bed starts beeping frantically, the steady rhythm accelerating into something that sounds like an alarm. My pulse is racing, my blood pressure probably through the roof, but I don’t care. I just keep kissing my wife, tasting salt from both our tears.
The door bursts open and a nurse rushes in, her eyes going wide when she sees us. “Mr. Marchetti!” she yells. “You need to calm down, your vitals are—”
“Get out,” I growl against Gigi’s lips.
The nurse blanches. “But your heart rate—”
“I said get out.” I finally pull back from Gigi just enough to glare at the nurse. “My wife just told me we’re having a baby. My heart rate is fine. Everything is fine. Now leave us alone.”
The nurse looks torn between professional concern and self-preservation. Self-preservation wins. “I’ll check back in fifteen minutes,” she says, backing toward the door.
The moment she’s gone, Gigi bursts into laughter. Real, genuine laughter that makes her eyes crinkle and her whole face light up. “Oh my God, Luca. That poor nurse.”
“She interrupted,” I say, mock-serious, but I’m grinning too. “Important moment. Baby announcement. She should have known better.”
She shakes her head, still laughing and smiling. “You can’t terrorize the hospital staff,” she chides me gently.
“Watch me.” I pull her back into my good arm, carefully this time, mindful of both our injuries. “Besides, they work for Viktor. They’ve seen worse than one overprotective almost-father with elevated vitals.”
“Overprotective almost-father,” she repeats, a broad smile crossing her lips. “I like the sound of that.”
“Yeah?” I press a kiss to her temple. “Get used to it. I’m going to be insufferable for the next seven and a half months.”
She laughs again, the sound warming something in my chest that’s been cold for too long. We settle back against the pillows, and I keep my hand on her stomach, unable to stop touching the place where our baby is growing.
“Luca,” Gigi says after a moment, her voice going quiet. “Can I ask you something?”
I kiss her temple. “Anything,” I murmur.
“Can you really love a child conceived like this?” She’s not looking at me, focusing instead on our joined hands, stroking my wedding ring. “A baby that was made while I was your prisoner? Born from a marriage that started as revenge?”
The question hits me like a punch to the gut. That she even has to ask, that she’s worried I might see our child as tainted by how we began—
“Gigi, look at me.” I wait until her dark eyes meet mine, and it tears my heart apart to see tears brimming.
“I don’t care how this baby was conceived,” I state firmly.
“I don’t care that our marriage started wrong.
All I care about is that they’re ours. That they’re half you—the strongest, most compassionate person I’ve ever known—and half me.
” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and cup her jaw. “That’s not a curse. That’s a gift.”
She leans into my touch but doesn’t look convinced. “But—”
“No buts.” I brush her hair back from her face. “You want to know what I see when I think about our baby?”
She nods.
“I see your courage. Your kindness. Your refusal to be broken by everything I put you through. I see Marco’s belief in redemption.
” I take a deep breath, feeling emotion well up in me.
“I-I see the possibility of being better than I was.” My voice cracks.
“I see hope, Gigi. Real, genuine hope for a future I never thought I’d have. ”
She’s crying again, but she’s also smiling through it. “You’re going to be such a good father,” she says before placing a kiss on my jaw.
“I’m going to try.” That’s all I can promise. “I’m going to try so fucking hard to be the man our baby deserves.”
We lie there in comfortable silence, just breathing together, existing in this bubble where nothing exists except us and the tiny life we’ve created. But reality intrudes eventually, as it always does.
“We need to talk,” I say finally. “About what happens next. About what you want.”
Gigi tenses slightly in my arms. “What do you mean?”
“I mean we need to be honest with each other. Really honest, in ways we’ve never been before.
” I choose my words carefully, needing her to understand.
“This baby—it changes everything, Gigi. The marriage contract we signed, that was about revenge and control. But this?” I gesture to her belly.
“This is about building a family. And families need honesty.”
“Okay,” she says slowly, but I can still feel her tense. “So let’s be honest.”
I take a deep breath. “I want you to stay,” I say, deciding to put all my cards on the table.
“I want us to raise this baby together, to be truly married. But I need you to know that if you want to leave, if being married to me is something you’re only doing because you feel trapped, I’ll let you go. ”
Her head snaps up. “What did you say?”
“I’ll let you go,” I repeat, and the words taste like ash. “I’ll set you up somewhere safe, make sure you and the baby have everything you need. You’ll have your own money, your own life, your own choices. No strings attached.”
She looks stricken. “Luca—”
“Let me finish.” I need to get this out even though it physically pains me.
“I’m not saying I want you to leave.” Fuck, the thought of her leaving actually hurts.
“I’m saying I need you to stay because you want to, not because you’re scared of what I’ll do if you don’t.
” I take a deep breath. “I need you to choose me, Gigi. Not the contract, not the threats, not the fear. Me.”
She’s staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “D-Do you really think I’m still here out of fear?” she asks incredulously.
“I don’t know. Maybe?” The uncertainty has been eating at me. “You’re pregnant now. That’s a reason to stay that has nothing to do with wanting to be with me. And I need to know—”
“I’m choosing you,” she interrupts firmly. “I chose you the moment I realized I was in love with you. I chose you when I could have run but stayed instead. I’m choosing you right now, Luca. Not because I’m trapped or because of the baby. I want you.”