Page 72 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

I don’t want to leave, but I know I have to reassure her, and I don’t want to wake the kid as this is a conversation we can’t keep hushed in this dark room.

So I take her hand and lead her out. On the landing, I stop.

“Thank you,” I tell her.

She blinks, as if confused.

“For keeping him safe,” I add.

She nods at me. As we start onto the stairs, Mattia slips back into the room. Of course, this child is in a strange house—there should be someone he knows there when he wakes up.

This makes me think. “Mattia knew?”

We’ve made it back to the living area now, and Bianca takes a seat on the couch, motioning at me to sit down next to her.

“No. He wouldn’t keep this secret from you,” she says.

I’m reassured somewhat. Though I know I wouldn’t fault my best friend if he had kept this information from me, because it kept my child safe. It’s easy to make a woman lose her unborn baby, the whole thing written off and brushed under the rug. It’s another thing to kill a living child, the one rule our kind, even across mobs, respects. Even the Albanians wouldn’t stoop so low. Bianca had to go away at least until our child was born.

“But Hana knew,” I say, the information slotting into my mind like pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know made a whole until a fewmoments ago.

Bianca nods.

Something she said upstairs flashes into my mind. She spoke French. And Hana knowing this…

“Was he born in February, at thirty-one weeks?” I ask.

Bianca frowns. “How do you know this?”

The breath leaves my airways for a moment. “You’re the one Hana went to see that day. She called you Beatrice.”

She gulps, then nods. “Bérénice, actually. It was my cover.”

“So all this time, you were in Japan?”

“Yes.”

Something else flitters in. “With Hana’s brother. Hiro.”

“Yes.”

A surge of red-hot rage flares the embers of jealousy inside my chest. “You were with him?”

“We lived with him, yes, but he and I were never together.”

I can’t help my rapid exhale.

“He kept us safe, though,” she adds.

“He is Yakuza, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s protected us all this time. He’d vowed he’d continue for as long as we needed him, even when he got married and had his own children. He’ll have to soon, we both knew it.”

“But you didn’t want to put such a burden on him?” I venture to ask. “Is that why you came back?”

“Somewhat.” Bianca peers up at me. “I came back because Enzo is your heir.”

My heir. I have an heir. I have a son. “Enzo… That’s a beautiful name.”

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