Page 63 of Silent Vows

I laugh despite the tears gathering in my eyes. “I wasn’t planning on making that a habit anyway.”

“Good.” He kisses me again, softer this time. “Because I need you both safe. Need youallsafe.”

“You’re happy?” My stomach flips but it has nothing to do with morning sickness.

“Terrified,” he corrects, holding me closer. “But yes,piccola. So damn happy.”

We stay like that for a long moment, his hand protective over our child, my head tucked under his chin. Outside, the sun sets over our empire—an empire built on blood and sacrifice, but sustained by choice and love.

“We should tell Bianca first,” I say finally. “Before anyone else knows.”

“Together?”

I smile, remembering all the times that word has saved us. All the times it’s meant the difference between survival and destruction. Between fear and hope. Between duty and love.

“Together.”

Because that’s what we are now—this unlikely family built from violence but bound by choice. Artist and don, daughter and heir, mother and father. Creators and destroyers, lovers and fighters, protectors and protected.

Together.Alwaystogether.

And in eight months, our family will grow by one more choice, one more love, one more chance to prove that blood isn’t what makes a family.

Love is.

27

MATTEO

Ican’t stop touching my wife. Even now, hours after her revelation, my hand keeps finding its way to her still-flat stomach as we lie in our bed. Bella’s curled against my chest, her breathing even but not quite asleep—I can tell by the way her fingers trace absent patterns on my skin, the slight tension in her shoulders that says her mind is still racing.

A baby. The thought hits me again like a physical blow, equal parts terror and joy. My hand spreads wider across her abdomen, as if I could already feel the tiny life we created. Six weeks. Since our wedding night. Since everything changed.

Memories of another pregnancy surface—Sophia, barely seventeen and terrified when she came to me. The circumstances of Bianca’s conception remain a dark shadow in my mind, but from the moment I agreed to marry Sophia, to claim the child as mine, nothing else mattered. Blood, biology, the whispers of others—none of it compared to the fierce love that seized my heart the moment I first held my daughter.

I remember every detail of that day—the weight of her tiny body in my arms, how her fingers wrapped around mine with surprising strength, the way she stopped crying the momentI held her. Sophia had been too drugged to hold her, but I stood guard over that hospital bassinet for three days straight, daring anyone to question my claim on this perfect creature who somehow became my whole world.

Now, seventeen years later, I’ll get to experience it all again. But this time with a woman I truly love, with a marriage built on choice rather than obligation. This time everything is different.

Unless …

The darker thoughts creep in, unbidden. Giuseppe’s voice echoes in my head:“Children are weakness, boy. Something for enemies to use against you.”I remember watching him pace the hospital corridor when Bianca was born, his cold calculation as he studied her features, searching for something I refused to see.

My arm tightens around Bella instinctively. No. This child will never know that kind of fear, that kind of manipulation. This baby will be born into love, into protection, into a family that chooses each other every day.

But still…the image of Bella pregnant and vulnerable makes something cold settle in my gut. A pregnant donna is a prime target—something to be used against a don, a way to bring the mighty to their knees. I’ll need to increase security, maybe move up the timeline on the Tuscany villa. Somewhere safe, somewhere far from New York’s politics and vendettas.

“She’ll be happy,” I murmur against Bella’s temple, breathing in her familiar scent. “Once the shock wears off.”

“Will she?” Bella shifts to look at me, and even in the dim light she takes my breath away. Her dark hair spills across my chest like ink, and those artist’s eyes search my face with their usual perception. “Everything’s changed so fast. Her whole world’s been turned upside down in seven weeks. And now this…”

“Now this is something good.” My hand splays possessively over her stomach again, hoping somehow our child can feel howmuch I already love them. The emotion catches me off guard—this fierce protectiveness, this overwhelming need to keep them both safe. “Something that’s just ours.”

She covers my hand with hers, our wedding rings catching the moonlight. The simple gesture makes my chest tight. “I’m scared,” she admits quietly. “Not of the baby, but of bringing a child into this world. Our world.”

I understand her fear because I share it. Our world is built on violence and vendettas, where a pregnant donna becomes a prime target. The thought of anyone using my child—eitherof my children—as leverage makes something dark and deadly rise in my chest. I’ll need to be careful though, to find the balance between protection and suffocation. Bella’s too strong, too independent to be locked away in a gilded cage.

I’ve also seen what this life can do to children, how it can twist them into something hard and cold. But Bianca somehow escaped that fate—her heart remained open, loving, despite everything. Maybe because she had what I never did: a father who chose her, who loved her without conditions or expectations.

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