Page 104 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

It appears I took three bullets that night. Two in my abdominal region, one in a lung that ended up collapsing. It’s a miracle I didn’t die from that itself, let alone the blood loss on top of the internal bleeding in my abdominal cavity.

I didn’t die because I’m a bullheaded asshole who doesn’t know when to quit. I hung on for Bianca, for Enzo, for our family.

I spent hours in surgery, they tell me, and it took quite a few pints of blood to get me back to normal. Since Bianca isn’t legally my wife and my son isn’t eighteen, my twin brothers were ropedin as my next of kin. Sergio and Emilio however deferred to Bianca andNonnaValeria, who agreed with the doctors to put me in an induced coma so my collapsed lung could heal.

I thus spent close to six days under, waking up with a tube in my throat and not able to breathe. In this struggle as I came to, Bianca’s voice remained a constant. She stayed by my side as much as she could, popping in morning and evening to Lenox Hill to see Enzo and spend some time with him. As soon as I found this out, I sent her back home, even though everything in me yearned to have her with me. But our son needed her more, and she came back twice a day for visiting hours.

Still, I want all my hours to be spent with her. Bianca shouldn’t have to split her time between me and our boy. We should all be together, and this, I plan to make happen as soon as possible. Right away, if I could. I also want to see my boy so much, to hold him to me. The last time I held him, it was when I came to Mattia’s house after Bianca was taken. I want my boy laughing with me, telling me about Godzilla, and I’ll introduce him to Pokémon, which I loved when I was younger. Bianca hasn’t brought him to the hospital to not upset him, and I agreed with her. He’s too young to understand—seeing me in a hospital might scar him.

Plus there were men filing in and out all day when I was awake. My work as a Don didn’t stop because I was out of it, and little kids shouldn’t be exposed to such violent business. The Abrashi family, despite having been taken in by their own council, were clamoring for war again. But Daku stood his ground, stating I was fully in my rights to take down their son this time for this unwarranted attack on my family.

So at least that’s over and done with. We don’t have theshadow of another war looming on us anymore. The other Dons are happy, and a few have even visited during my stay here. Needless to say, none of these visitors were Dons Salvatore and Vespucci. They’re lying low now, knowing their power has been all but stripped from them when I outed their secrets.

“Hey, my love,” Bianca sing-songs from the doorway.

I lift my head and smile at her. She’s a ray of sunshine in a sleeveless yellow sundress that brushes her knees.

“Can I finally get out of here?” I growl.

She laughs as she comes over to me, as if she’s floating in her strappy sandals.

“You turn into a grumpy bear when cooped up,” she says, laughing.

I grab her hand and tug her to me, tipping her into my lap.

“I turn into a feral animal when you’re not with me,” I say, then press a long kiss to her mouth.

She moans against my lips and returns the kiss, her body going soft in my arms as she burrows into my chest. I wince at the sudden pain in my side. Those damn stitches may have been removed, but the incision sites still smart like hell.

Bianca breaks away from my kiss and extricates herself from my arms to stand. “Best be careful.”

“Fuck careful,” I mutter. These injuries aren’t gonna make a pussy out of me.

“Leo,” she chides, tone patient as if she’s dealing with a littlechild.

As I glance up at her, my gaze snags on her exposed shoulder. Just below the rounded curve is an ugly red line. It’s not a stark contrast against her dusky skin, but I can see it, and rage boils over in me.

I tug her hand again, and with my other hand, brush the raised scar gently. A bullet whizzed past her arm back in that church. Thank goodness it only grazed her skin and didn’t hurt her any more, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She sighs and comes to sit next to me on the edge of the bed.

“We’ve been over this, Leo,” she says, running her free hand over my hair in a gentle caress.

“It was all my fault. If I’d manned up from the very first day, nothing of this—”

She stops me with her fingers on my lips. “Hush. All that is over now.”

I press a kiss to those fingers before clasping my hand over them and bringing them down onto my lap. “Still, I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She sighs again, then dips her head to press her forehead to mine.

“You know you can’t promise this. Not in your line of business. Danger is the name of the world you live in.”

Something in the way she says this triggers me. It’s a deep-seated fear lodged in the pits of my being, one I can’t shake no matter how much I try. Does she think she doesn’t belong with me? I can’t be in this world and live this life without her. Is she denying me this chance? I won’t be able to do this without her. Being a Don, a Mafia man, it means nothing if she’s not here with me. She’s my life, my world, my family as my children will come from her and only her.

She has a place in my existence—the prime spot, even.

---