Page 75 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

“I think we need to take some time. All this…it’s a lot.”

Chapter 21

Bianca

That’s not what I wanted him to say. It’s not even what I ever expected him to say. How did we lose our way from wanting to be together one moment and needing time the next? I thought Leo wanted me, wanted more between us, from us, with our child now in the mix. When Mattia told me earlier in the night that Leo was ready to marry me, I was surprised. So the “Marry me” he’d thrown at me in the Tribeca loft, he’d meant it. I’d thought it was an afterthought, an easy way out of our predicament at the time.

It would’ve meant a war with the Albanians if we’d gone ahead at the time, not to mention disgrace on my father and Mattia’s name.

But like Leo said, the war came and went anyway, and the stigma that can fall on my family now, it won’t be this bad. Because I bore a Don an heir—no matter what, nothing can change who Enzo really is in the scheme of things.

And this is what I have to recall today, now, as I stare at Leo’s hardened face just a few inches from mine. I need to think clearly, and this means thinking of my son.Ourson. I’ve lived with this knowledge for years, ever since that pregnancy test confirmed his seed had germinated in my womb. Leo, he’s had no clue. It’s been four years—I can’t expect him to compute all this in forty minutes. He’s right to want space, to want time.

Everything I’ve done, it’s upended our future even more than the fact Leo killed Ardian. Just like I reckoned earlier when I stood and took his hand to show him Enzo, we need to put the past to rest before we can look forward. At that moment, I was ready to put the past behind us, to have all the secrets out. That’s why I got up and revealed my biggest secret to him.

It feels liberating to not be hiding anymore. I know the syndicate will be on our backs; I know the world will gasp when it’s clear I’ve returned. But the biggest load of all was keeping all this from my family and then from Leo. Hana is also off the hook, no longer needing to lie to her husband. Mattia took this harder than me disappearing, I think, and I hope the woman who has become my closest friend will find absolution for her selfless sacrifice.

“You’re right,” I tell him. “We shouldn’t jump into anything.”

He shrugs. “If it had been just us…”

I agree with what he’s saying. It’s not just us in the picture anymore. We both have to think of Enzo, of how to protect him in all this. I know I’m not going back to Tokyo again, which means we’re back here, where my son will now grow up. I did think of the logistics when we were traveling. I’ll find a French-speaking daycare for the time being, then slowly ease him into a bilingual setting before he has to start preschool in a couple of years. By this point, he should be more at ease with speaking English. The Japanese, it can be something we keep at home—it helps for a child to be multi-lingual.

A thought strikes me.

“Do you want him to learn Italian?” I ask.

“Make him learn another language?” Leo asks with a small laugh. “He speaks French with you.”

A chuckle escapes me. “And Japanese with Hana and Hiro.”

“So he’s bilingual?” Leo gasps.

“Tri-lingual. He also speaks English.”

“And you want him to speak Italian, as well?”

I shrug. “Kids are like little sponges at this age. Plus he’s shown he takes to languages very well.”

“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I think you’d know best.”

His words hit me right in the heart. I don’t like this feeling, the fact he’s clueless about his own son.

“It’s not you I was keeping him from,” I say softly. “I never would’ve hidden your child from you if I’d had a choice.”

His inhale is a sharp gasp. “I recall asking you to marry me before you left. I believed we could when I said it, but time has shown me what a clusterfuck we would’ve gotten embroiled in. To bring a child into that…”

His hand finds mine, and I take some comfort from his touch as his words shred at my hope. Mattia said Leo wanted to marry me, and now he himself is saying it would’ve been a bad decision. Where do we stand now?

I swallow hard and steel my spine. I didn’t come here to get married, to earn the security of a husband. I came for my son to get the protection of his father, and ultimately, his rightful family name.

“You did the right thing,” he says, squeezing my hand.

This brings me a small dose of comfort, and I smile, though I’m sure it’s not brightly.

“So all this time, you were pretending to be French,” he says.

I welcome the topic change, laughing softly. “I lived in Paris for five years, remember?”

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