Page 33 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

“Come on. Clean up. You need some food into you.”

The idea of food makes me nauseous suddenly, and I lean over the bowl again to dry retch.

Something dawns on me. I’ve been throwing up a lot this week. It can’t be something I ate—and the very thought makes me want to vomit again—so if it’s not food poisoning, then what?

A possibility pops up…

“No,” I gasp.

“What?” Hana asks, sounding worried.

It’s been five weeks since her wedding. Since the afternoon with Leo. The dates align, and I’m frowning. I thought you couldn’t get pregnant your first time. Guess that’s a myth.

Guess I’m going to find out…

I look up at my best friend. She’s been trying for a baby—she’s going to have a pregnancy test or two in her bathroom.

“Han? I think I just fucked up. Royally.” I choke on a sob. “Please, you can’t tell anyone! Promise me you won’t!”

Chapter 9

Leo

“Bianca is missing, and I had to hear it from my father’s enforcer?” I shout, barging into Mattia’s house as soon as he opens the door for me.

“Go on,” he says. “Shout it from all the rooftops while you’re at it.”

“It’s already being spoken about in all the relevant circles,” I throw back. “What the fuck, Mattia? Why didn’t you tell me anything?”

He sighs. “Let’s go inside.”

I frown as I watch his trudging step, how his feet are dragging on the marble flooring as he leads me to the kitchen. I came here ready to rip him a new one, but this is giving me pause. When Bruno, my father’s enforcer, summoned me to a meeting at the family home today, I’d been expecting a briefing about the current situation we’re facing on one of our trade routes. Some little fuckers were undercutting our stock in the ports of Turin.

But the news was more dire. There are rumors—Bianca Bonucci has not been seen for over a week, and no one knows where she is. Not even her father, who was supposed to be keeping tabs on her.

Without her, the deal with the Abrashi family collapses. We’dall be back at Square One facing those greedy, blood-thirsty Albanians.

I am worried for our family, our organization. A war is the last thing we need. This news, though? It hit me differently. Like a freight train going right through my chest.

A world without Bianca in it… It’s something I can’t fathom. It kills me to know she’ll soon belong to another, that some other man will get to put his hands on her, take her, put his seed inside her and someday put a baby there, too. All this makes me burn with rage, with jealousy.

Still, at least in all these scenarios, she’s alive. Breathing. Relatively safe—our world is inherently dangerous, true, but we protect our own. At least on this, the Albanians adhere to the same code.

Having her leave me in that loft in Tribeca almost killed me, though I knew I had to let her go. If she’s dead, though, it will annihilate me. Or worse, call out the monster in me. My father often tells me he’s worried about me, about the way I’ll run his operation with my punch-happy fists and cold, calculating mind in business. There is something as too cold and ruthless, it seems, and I fit that definition, according to him and to his enforcer, who’ll be mine if he’s still alive when I become the Don of our family.

Hearing Bianca was missing? I could feel the monster stirring awake. Right now, he’s battering me all over, demanding to be let out, let loose. He’s in my blood, having replaced the soothing Bianca managed to bring to me with her touch, with her presence.

I rushed out of my father’s home and came straight here, my footon the gas pedal of my Levante. The Aventador would’ve gotten me here faster, but the streets of New York are not the place for a sports car. All the way, my heart hammered away, worried about Bianca, about what might have happened to her. How could she have just disappeared? Wasn’t her father keeping an eye on her? And what about Mattia?

This hurt, too, that Mattia didn’t tell me anything. Our relationship has been strained since the day I walked out of his house after breaking a Scotch glass in my hand and giving no explanation for my silent outburst. Can’t have him knowing I have the hots for his very-forbidden sister, that I burn for her with a yearning that’s not of this world, that would make the devil himself seem like a tame angel.

So we’ve been somewhat estranged, my best friend and I, and here we are today.

I follow him into the kitchen. Hana’s at the island, and she gets up to come hug me in welcome. Her face is pale, drawn, her small body tense.

I rub a hand gently on her back as she hugs me. “How are you holding up?”

She sighs, shakes her head when I release her.

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