Page 68 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

“Not okay,” my brother confesses. “But he is in his right mind. And we talked, smoothed things out between us. Listen, this can be a new beginning, for all of us. If it’s my blessing you need, then you have it. You’ve had it since…”

Since you left.We both know this is what he’s saying.

Had I waited, would he have blessed a relationship between me and Leo at the time? Would my father have, as well? I don’t think so, and either way, we’re here now, and we can’t turn back time.

I clasp his hand where it rests on my shoulder. “Thank you.”

He presses a soft kiss to my cheek, so like when we were younger. I smile and burrow into him a little before he lets me go, and I find my feet moving soundlessly on the wooden floor and then the stairs.

My heartrate accelerates with every step I go down, beating in trepidation when my foot lands on the first floor. From this angle, I can see into the kitchen if I lean a little forward, and that’s what I do. And as luck would have it, Leo decides to look at the stairs at the same time, and our gazes collide.

He’s on his feet in a blink, then stands stock-still, the color draining from his face as he stares at me. I can only stare back, unable to move, my hand frozen on the banister as I clutch it tight, every cell inside me constricting with need and loss as I see him there and I allow myself to feel all those moments, all those minutes, seconds even, when I haven’t been able to have him in my life, when I’ve had to forego him to spare all our lives.

Time stops, and we remain like this, still as statues while our eyes, they convey a world of feelings and emotion and turmoil.

He’s just as I remember him, though he looks tired, a little beaten if I’m honest. There’s a bit of tightness around his eyes—maturity, I reckon—and age has tautened his features, making them look harsher, sharper, as if one stroke against his face and you’d risk a cut on your hand. This is not a man to mess with. Leo has always had this vibe to him, but now, it’s deeper, inbred almost, the Don inside him radiating out in all his infinite powerand ruthless strength.

He's scary, I have to say, but he doesn’t scare me. He never has, because I know him. I know the gentleness that can lighten those dark eyes, the beautiful smile that can move the almost-cruel lines of his mouth into something so magical, it needs to be experienced and can’t be described.

Then that mouth, it tightens, his jaw clenching.

“Bianca?” he asks.

“Leo.”

I can’t move, can’t say anything else. His voice, his name flowing from my lips, it all makes me stop. I reveled in the sound while listening to him earlier. Even when reverberating with anger, the sound of his voice made me feel safe. Again, I know this man, intimately, and I mean this in both the literal and figurative sense. Leo, he’s my person.

“Bianca, what the fuck?” he throws out. “You’re alive? What’s this game?”

His voice is rising crescendo. I throw a glance upstairs, as he might wake Enzo with his shouting.

“You’re looking for Mattia?” he shouts. “Me, too. Where is he? Mattia! Come back here and explain this!”

“Leo, stop,” I start, my soft voice getting drowned in his yelling.

I’m not getting through to him, and he’s now pacing in front of the island. I’m worried he might overthrow a stool or something in his apparent distress, and I can’t let this happen.

“Is this a joke? What’s going on? You can’t be real,” he continues. “You’re not real, I’m losing my mind…”

The turmoil in his tone makes my heart clench, and I throw caution to the wind as I draw close to him and place a hand on his forearm. The contact of my palm against the hair-roughened skin shocks me, and I think it shocks him, too, because he goes abruptly quiet.

Time seems to stop again, and we’re staring into each other’s eyes.

He blinks. “You’re real.”

“Yes,” I murmur.

I’ve hardly finished saying the word when his arms wrap around me and he’s pulled me to him, clutching me to his chest tight, as if he won’t ever let me go. This? This is the welcome I dreamed about whenever I’ve allowed myself to think of him since I decided to come back.

A sob clogs in my throat as I release the tension inside me and fall into his embrace, melting against his big, hard, warm body. Without a word, we mold against each other, finding the groove that says we belong together, that we’re made for each other.

Leo has buried his face in the crook of my neck, and I can feel his sharp inhale against my skin as he lifts his head and presses a kiss to my ear.

“You aren’t dead. I knew you weren’t. I never believed it,” he’s saying rapidly now. “But I stopped looking. I should never have stopped looking. I let you down. I didn’t… Forgive me, Bianca. I should have—”

“Shh, my love,” I soothe as I hold him tighter to me. I can’t bear the self-loathing in his words, this flagellation he’s inflicting upon himself. “I chose to disappear, and I made sure no one would find me.”

He chokes on some air, then he’s breaking free only enough to stare down into my face.

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