Page 89 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

“What about IVF?” I ask, trying to bring in a semblance of hope.

“Dead end.”

“Why?”

“I had myself checked in Tokyo. I went to their best clinic, and they told me in no uncertain terms I have very few eggs to even extract for the procedure.”

I’m shaking myself from disbelief. “But you’re not yet thirty.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t win the lottery in that department.”

Silence settles between us, until Hana makes a small squeak that sounds like a sob.

“Mattia won’t have a child who’s not his blood, B, and I can’t see myself letting some doctor fertilize some donor woman’s egg with his sperm so I’ll then carry this baby in my uterus. I wantmychild with him,” she says, breaking down with those last words.

As I pull her into my arms, my heart goes out to her. I can try to comfort her. I can talk to my brother. But ultimately, what will all of that do? Hana and I, we’re both in predicaments we neverthought we’d ever find ourselves into, and this is breaking our hearts.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she mutters as she clenches me tight. “I don’t know what I’ll do when…” She can’t finish, the sentence ending in a hiccup.

When we move out. When Enzo won’t be inside these walls anymore.

“There’s always a solution,” I croon softly to calm her.

But as I’m holding her, I’m pondering my own words. Is that true? Will we, Leo and me, find a solution to our situation? Is another war coming between him and the syndicate now that I’ve returned and it’s known that I was never dead, that Leo and I have a son, that I was never going to marry Ardian Abrashi?

If it didn’t dawn on me before, it does now: in coming to New York from Tokyo, I jumped from the frying pan into the fire. We wouldn’t have been safe there, but neither are we here. I don’t feel safe, and it’s a truth I’ll have to live with now, at least until Leo comes up with a solution for us.

The other alternative, a war? I can’t contemplate it. Not now. Not ever.

Fingers crossed, I pray Leo can get us out of this disaster.

Chapter 26

Leo

It’s been a few days since that fateful meeting when Don Vespucci drew a gun and pointed it at me.

My grandmother called it what it is: a clusterfuck. There’s no denying this. And as much as I don’t want to resort to blackmail, I may have to stoop this low, in the end. Nothing will stick with those bastards at the syndicate’s table otherwise.

My days and nights are consumed with trying to find a solution. Mattia and I are looking at every angle. In the evenings, I’m with my twin brothers as they update me about what they manage to find after chasing the white rabbits I gave them. Somehow, it seems they do their best work in the dark—I can never get hold of them during the day. Little vampires, I scoff. They’re proving their worth right now, though. They’re great snoops, and I’m glad I have them in my corner and not working against me.

All this, however, means I am utterly busy. My body and mind need sleep so my brain can stay level and rational, so all my free hours at night, they’re spent in my bed, alone while I wished Bianca was in my arms, that she was under me with my cock buried inside her. I wanted to see her with her hair spread out over the pillow on the other side of my bed. I’m picturing the baby monitor on my bedside table, our son sleeping in his room next door.

But alas, this is not to be. I haven’t managed even a glimpse of them in the past few days, and I need to tamp down my impatience and frustration.

I’m doing all this for Bianca and Enzo, for my family. Being away, it will all be worth it when I’ve cleared up this mess.

My new enforcer, Luigi, has been on the phone with me constantly. It’s his job to carry out the unsavory tasks I might need done, like getting rid of someone, but he’s also my ear to the ground. And Luigi, he’s good at this—he hears things. He’s got a wife and two teenage daughters who are very active and popular in the Italian-American Mafia circuit of the tri-state area around New York, making him a strong vein of intel.

The Dons have been letting it rip about me. Rumors, threats, dissent—Luigi hears all about them and reports back to me. Thanks to him, I’m one step ahead of those cunning old foxes, but I don’t just want to be ahead; I want to put a stop to this. A meeting has been called, where I’m sure I’ll be the butt of all their recriminations. I just may have to pull something from my figurative hat to shut them up.

I’m the last Don to file into the room. There are no outsiders today, and it’s just us and our seconds orconsiglieres. Good—nothing will leave this space. We’re all bound by our own version ofOmertàwhich is like a top-secret level clearance regarding information.

The accusations fuse out as soon as I sit down and the door is closed, soundproofing the room. They harp on about war, peace, men they’ve lost, how it’s all my fault, etc. The same litany as last time.

Until Don Salvatore makes the mistake of saying somethingwhich seals his fate.

“You’ll pay for this,” he seethes.

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