Chapter 8
Sienna
Three days had passed since I'd first suspected. Three days of mounting certainty, increasing nausea, and desperate planning.
I needed confirmation. Real, medical confirmation. Not just suspicions based on missed periods and morning sickness. A pregnancy test. Something concrete before I decided what to do with this information.
The problem was getting one.
Luca's staff watched everything. Every delivery was logged. Every package was inspected. I couldn't exactly ask one of his stone-faced security guards to pick up a pregnancy test from the pharmacy without the news reaching him within the hour.
So I'd formulated a plan. A risky one.
The rotating cleaning staff arrived at nine every morning like clockwork.
Today, for the first time in weeks, I'd managed to slip one of the delivery receipts from the kitchen trash—a grocery order placed with a local service.
I'd memorized the company name, the ordering system, the typical delivery window.
If I could access a phone—a real phone, not the monitored one Luca provided—I could place an order myself. Have it delivered to a nearby convenience store. Slip out during the brief window when the morning staff was in the far wing of the penthouse.
Thirty minutes. That's all I needed.
The penthouse had security cameras in the common areas, but I'd studied their blind spots during weeks of pacing. The service stairwell had a dead zone—three floors where the camera angles didn't quite overlap. If I could reach that stairwell, I'd have a chance.
My stomach churned—whether from nerves or morning sickness, I couldn't tell.
I waited until the cleaning staff were working in the master bedroom, their vacuum's roar covering any sound. Then I moved.
The service door opened silently—I'd tested it yesterday, applying cooking oil to the hinges during a middle-of-the-night raid on the kitchen. The stairwell was dimly lit, emergency lighting casting everything in harsh shadows.
I began descending, counting floors. Twenty-eighth floor. Twenty-seventh. Twenty-sixth.
My head swam. I gripped the railing, forcing myself to keep moving. Just a few more floors. Just—
The dizziness hit without warning.
One moment I was on the landing, the next my vision tunneled, darkening at the edges. My knees buckled. I reached for the railing but my hands felt numb, distant.
I was falling.
My shoulder hit concrete, then my hip. Pain exploded through my side as I tumbled down half a flight of stairs, my body ragdoll-limp, unable to catch myself.
I came to rest on the twenty-fifth floor landing, vision swimming, ears ringing.
The baby.
The thought cut through the fog of pain with terrifying clarity. I pressed a hand to my stomach, as if I could somehow protect what might be growing there.
Footsteps thundered above me. Below me. Voices shouting.
"—found her—"
"—call the boss—"
"—don't move her—"
Strong hands on my shoulders. A face swimming into view—Angelo, Luca's guard, his expression tight with concern and anger.
"Mrs. Romano, can you hear me?"
I tried to respond, but the darkness was pulling me under again. The last thing I heard before everything went black was Angelo's voice, sharp and urgent:
"Get Luca. Now."
I woke to voices—low, tense, arguing just beyond wherever I was lying.
"—shouldn't have been in the stairwell—"
"—obvious she was trying to leave—"
"—security failure on our part—"
Luca's voice cut through, cold as winter: "Everyone out. Now."
The sound of footsteps retreating. A door closing. Then silence, broken only by my own shallow breathing.
I opened my eyes slowly. The penthouse. I was back in my bedroom, lying on top of the covers. Afternoon light filtered through the windows—how long had I been unconscious?
"You're awake."
I turned my head to find Luca sitting in the armchair near the window, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. His expression was carefully controlled, but I could see the fury simmering beneath.
"What were you doing in the service stairwell, Sienna?"
I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. Pain shot through my shoulder and hip where I'd hit the concrete.
"Easy." He was beside me in an instant, hands steadying me as I struggled upright. "You took a bad fall. The doctor said you have bruising, but nothing broken."
"Doctor?" Panic spiked through me. "What doctor? What did they—"
"My personal physician. Discreet. Thorough." His eyes bored into mine. "And very good at his job."
The weight of his words settled over me like a shroud.
He knew.
"Luca—"
"Were you trying to run?" His voice was deceptively calm. "Or were you trying to kill yourself?"
"What? No! I would never—"
"Then what were you doing in a service stairwell at nine in the morning?" He stood abruptly, pacing to the window. "Angelo found you unconscious on the twenty-fifth floor landing. You could have broken your neck. You could have—" He stopped, jaw clenched.
I wrapped my arms around myself. "I needed to get out. Just for an hour. I was going to come back."
"To get what, Sienna?" He turned to face me. "What was so important that you risked your life—risked both your lives?"
The emphasis on "both" confirmed it.
"You know," I whispered.
"The doctor confirmed it when he examined you after the fall. Six to seven weeks pregnant." His expression was unreadable. "Were you ever going to tell me?"
The question hung in the air between us, heavy with accusation.
"I needed to be sure first," I said, hating how defensive I sounded. "I wasn't going to tell you about a maybe. I needed proof."
"So you risked falling down a flight of stairs to get what—a pregnancy test from a pharmacy?" His voice rose slightly. "You could have asked me. I would have gotten you whatever you needed."
"And you would have known," I shot back. "You would have controlled the information, controlled the situation, controlled me. Like you control everything else."
He flinched as if I'd struck him. "Is that really what you think?"
"What else am I supposed to think?" I gestured at the room, the locked-down penthouse, my gilded cage.
"You've kept me isolated here for weeks.
I can't make a phone call without your permission.
Can't leave without an escort. Can't even order a damn pregnancy test without it becoming a security issue. "
"Because there are people trying to kill us!
" His control finally cracked. "Because the moment our enemies know you're carrying my child, you become the ultimate target.
Did you think about that while you were sneaking down service stairwells?
Did you think about what would happen if someone other than Angelo had found you? "
The raw fear in his voice caught me off guard.
"I was careful—"
"You fell down a flight of fucking stairs, Sienna.
That's not careful. That's reckless. That's—" He turned away, running a hand through his hair.
When he spoke again, his voice was quieter but no less intense.
"You're pregnant. With my child. A Romano-Moretti heir. Do you understand what that means?"
"That I'm even more of a prisoner than before?"
"That you're even more precious than before." He faced me again, something raw and vulnerable in his expression. "That child—our child—changes everything."
The possessiveness in his tone should have angered me. Instead, it sent an unwanted flutter through my chest.
"So what now?" I asked. "You lock me up even tighter? Post guards outside my bedroom door?"
"Now we keep you safe." He moved closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. His hand hovered near my stomach, hesitant. "Both of you."
I should have pushed him away. Should have maintained the walls between us. But something about the careful way he wasn't quite touching me, the fear still lingering in his eyes, made me reach out instead.
I took his hand and placed it on my still-flat stomach.
"Six weeks," I said softly. "Maybe seven. It's too early to feel anything. Too early to show. But it's there. Growing."
His hand was warm through the thin fabric of my shirt. "A baby," he murmured, wonder creeping into his voice. "Our baby."
"An heir to both families," I corrected. "A target before it's even born."
"Protected," he countered. "By me. By my men. By everything I've built." His eyes met mine with fierce determination. "No one touches you. No one touches our child. I don't care what I have to do or who I have to destroy."
The vow should have terrified me. Instead, for the first time since waking up in this penthouse weeks ago, I felt something close to safe.
"The doctor," I said, breaking the moment. "How much does he know?"
"Everything. But he's loyal. He delivered me, patched up my father's men for thirty years. His discretion is absolute."
"And your staff? Angelo?"
"Angelo knows you're pregnant. The rest know you had a fall but not why." His jaw tightened. "Though we'll need to explain it eventually. A Romano-Moretti heir can't stay secret forever."
"Giuseppe," I said, the name bitter on my tongue. "When he finds out—"
"He'll see it as an opportunity or a threat." Luca's hand remained on my stomach, protective. "Either way, we need to be ready."
I thought of Adriana's warnings from days ago. Someone orchestrated this. Someone wanted you and Luca together. Had they anticipated this? Planned for a child to unite the bloodlines?
"What if this is exactly what they wanted?" I voiced the fear aloud. "What if getting me pregnant was part of someone's larger plan?"
Luca's expression darkened. "Then they'll discover that creating life was the easy part. The hard part will be surviving what comes next."
The threat in his voice should have chilled me. Instead, it reminded me that I hadn't just married a monster. I'd married a predator. One who now had something to protect beyond his empire.
"I need to call Isabella," I said suddenly. "My sister. She must be terrified. It's been weeks—"
"Not yet." At my protest, he continued, "Giuseppe has been watching her. Using her to try to get to you. Any contact puts her at more risk."
"She's seventeen, Luca. She's just a kid—"
"Which is why we're keeping her out of this." His tone brooked no argument. "She's safe at boarding school. Guarded. Monitored. The moment she becomes a liability instead of leverage, Giuseppe loses interest."
The cold calculation in his words reminded me who I'd married. But he wasn't wrong. In our world, the safest thing for Isabella was distance.
"After the baby comes," I said. "When things settle. I want to see her."
"When things settle," he agreed. Then, softer, "You're a good sister. Protective. Fierce. You'll be a good mother too."
The compliment caught me off guard. "How do you know?"
"Because you were willing to risk everything—even falling down stairs—to protect something you weren't even sure existed yet." His thumb traced a small circle on my stomach. "That's the kind of mother our child deserves."
Our child. Not his child. Not the heir. Ours.
The shift in language felt monumental.
"I'm scared," I admitted, the words escaping before I could stop them.
"Good." His hand tightened slightly. "Fear keeps you careful. Recklessness nearly got you killed today."
"Not of the pregnancy. Of—" I gestured vaguely, encompassing everything. "All of it. Giuseppe. Ricci. Unknown enemies. Bringing a child into this nightmare."
"Then we end the nightmare." His eyes met mine with cold resolve. "Before the baby comes, we eliminate every threat. Giuseppe. Ricci. Anyone who would use our child as a weapon."
"That's months away. You can't just—"
"Watch me."
The absolute certainty in his voice should have been impossible. But looking at him—jaw set, eyes hard, every line of his body radiating lethal purpose—I almost believed him.
"The doctor said you need rest," Luca said, standing. "The fall, the pregnancy, the stress—your body needs time to recover."
"I can't just stay in bed—"
"You will. For today, at least." He moved toward the door, then paused. "And Sienna? If you ever try another stunt like today's, I'll post guards outside your door. Test me on this."
The threat was clear. But beneath it, I heard the fear. The desperate need to protect what was his.
What was ours.
After he left, I lay back against the pillows, hand drifting to my stomach. Six weeks. Maybe seven. A cluster of cells that would become a person. A Romano-Moretti heir who would inherit two empires built on blood and violence.
Or a child who might finally bring peace to families who'd been at war for generations.
I didn't know which future awaited. But lying there, bruised and aching, I made a silent vow to the life growing inside me:
I will keep you safe. No matter what it costs. No matter who I have to become.
Even if it meant becoming a monster myself.