Chapter Thirty One #3
“She was thirty-nine. The pregnancy was high-risk. She had complications when the twins were born, and doctors told us it was unlikely she would carry again. Seventeen years later, she did.”
His throat moves once.
“She wanted the child.”
I cannot speak.
“She knew the risks. We both did. We had doctors. Monitoring. Instructions. She followed every one of them.” His eyes close briefly. “She hemorrhaged at home while I was out.”
Oh God.
“I came home to paramedics in my house and my wife already gone.”
My hand covers my mouth.
I cannot help it.
The grief in his voice is not fresh or dramatic. It is old and bone-deep and still bleeding into every word.
“They could not save her,” he says. “And the baby was not yet able to survive outside of her.”
A sound leaves me. I press my fingers harder against my lips.
“Mario.”
He looks at me then.
That was the information missing in the articles. That's what reporters were speculating on. The reason for all the privacy.
It wasn’t murder. Of course. It was simply grief.
A wife and baby dead in his home while the world invented uglier stories for the entertainment value.
Shame floods me so hot and fast I feel dizzy.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
His eyes stay on mine.
“For suspecting I was capable of killing my wife?”
“For that,” I say, knowing I have a lot to make up for. “And for what happened with her.”
The words seem so empty and meaningless now, but I owe them to him.
“Are you sorry you’re pregnant?”
My whole body stills at the question.
Whatever else, I owe him complete honesty.
“No,” I whisper.
The answer comes out before fear can interfere.
His gaze drops to my stomach again.
This time, his hand moves slowly, then stops just short of the blanket.
I nod.
His palm settles over my hand, over the place where our baby grows.
It’s warm and heavy and comforting.
My breath catches.
For several seconds, we sit like that, his hand over mine, both of us looking down.
“You said they knew,” he says.
It takes me a minute to understand the statement.
The fake Cindy Sullivan and the man in the park.
“You were talking about the baby, yes?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I don't know how. I haven't told anyone.”
“I may,” he says cryptically but doesn't explain.
“I thought they were going to—” I can't finish my sentence. My fingers tense under his.
Then he says, very quietly, “They threatened the baby.”
The fear comes back so fast I taste metal.
“Yes.”
His hand tightens over mine.
I force myself to look into his eyes.
His face has changed.
Still calm, but the softness is gone now. Not from his hand over mine, but inside him.
“What did they say?”
My breath hitches. “Mario—”
“Tell me,” he orders, and even though his anger is not directed at me, I feel it in my bones.
“They said I should go with them quietly or the first bullet would go right into my baby.”
My voice cracks on the last two words.
His eyes practically go black, and I nearly gasp.
For the first time ever, I let myself acknowledge exactly who’s sitting next to me.
Mafia.
The violence being held in by expensive clothes and eloquence is now plain as day.
For one second, I am afraid.
Not of him but of what he will do.
Of how much blood those words have just spilled.
Then his hand lifts from my stomach to my face, and he turns me gently toward him.
“You are safe,” he says.
I want to believe that.
God, I want to believe that.
“I don’t know if I am.”
His thumb moves once against my cheek.
“You are in my house. With me. With my people. With my family around you.”
“I can't always be.”
“No,” he says. “But you will always have protection.”
His eyes stay locked on mine.
“And this particular threat won't be a threat much longer.”
I swallow. I'm not sure I want to know what that means.
The fire crackles in the silence.
I look at him, this man I accused in my mind of murdering his wife, this man who lost a woman and a baby to the thing now living inside me.
This man, who will likely spill blood in my name.
I'm not sure how to feel about that.
But I'm too exhausted to give it any more thought tonight.
“I should have come to you,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says.
No softening. No lie.
A tear slips down my cheek.
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
“I’m still scared.”
His expression shifts.
“Of me?”
I shake my head. “I wasn't scared of you. Not really. I was scared of the situation and of my feelings and how quickly it was all moving.”
“You're not the only one, you know.” His voice is quiet when he says it.
“Really?”
“I'm still human underneath it all.” Then his hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck. “Just don't tell anyone.”
My small laugh ends on a shuddering breath. “It'll be our little secret.” I look up at him. “I don’t know what happens now.”
His eyes move over my face.
“Now,” he says, “you eat. Then rest.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “Always with the food.”
“You'll just have to get used to that.”
I wish I could make some clever joke back to him, but I'm still lightly trembling, and I just want to stop thinking for the night.
I turn toward him, and his arm comes around me, pulls me to him.
I press my face into his shirt, breathe him in, and finally let myself hold on.