Page 53 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

She shrugs. “No, but…”

“But what?”

“I like it here.” She pauses. “With Koji.”

So that’s it. These past few weeks, I’ve loved the reprieve she’s brought where my parenting duties are concerned. It’s not easy being a single mother. Hana loves feeding Enzo, even on those days when it feels like achieving world peace would be easier than getting a piece of broccoli into him. She enjoys bathtime, especially ending up covered in suds with all her clothes drenched. She has infinite patience with him when they lie on the rug discussing his horde of dinosaur figures.

She wants to be a mother so badly.

“Have you thought about IVF again?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t know. I think we might have to.”

“Aww, honey.”

All I want is to hug her. But Hana’s a very private person, not liberal with her affections, except where Enzo is concerned.

“I wish you could come home with me,” she says, voice small and barely audible.

I open my mouth, though no words come out at first.

“I can’t.”

Her silence sets a pregnant pause in the room. It gets to me, this quiet, scrambling my mind.

“Wait,” I say. “I can?”

She nods slowly.

“How?”

“Bianca’s not been declared dead. There was only a memorial, not a funeral. Legally, she’s still alive.”

I wave a hand in the air. “I know this. But the other thing…”

She looks the other way, biting her lip.

I frown at her. “What are you not telling me?”

Hana’s good with secrets—look at me here, all these years living under another name. Her own husband has no clue about it.

My mind is churning, all sorts of ideas feeding it. When this happens, I know it’s best I get the facts or I’ll dig myself an extra-deep hole and then plunge head first into it in my quest for answers.

“You say there’s peace now,” I tell her. “How did it happen?”

She swallows, hard, and looks out the floor-to-ceiling panes behind me.

“Han…” I warn.

She can’t start opening a can of worms and stop after just hinting at it.

“Fine,” she mutters. “Don Eduardo Pellegrini was killed last month, in retaliation for the death of Ardian Abrashi which happened at the hands of Leo Pellegrini.”

I gasp. “Leo killed Ardian?”

“Sounds like it. It was brushed off as an accident, a bad fall.”

I remember when it happened. Less than a fortnight after I’d landed in Tokyo. Hana called Hiro’s landline to tell me I was safe, that the marriage deal was off.

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