Page 112 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

“No. It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m gonna be right here to raise this baby with you.”

She wraps me up tight in those arms, her sob so painful it’s almost a scream.

I rub my hand over her back, desperate to calm her down. I stand between her and the others when I see them moving the body in the corner of my eye, but she notices anyway, watching with those cold, emotionless eyes as they haul his limp corpse off. I can’t believe she managed to overpower him, to even be able to stab him that many times.

“I told you I’d use a knife,” she says quietly. They shut off the house lights one by one and drag the body away under the cover of darkness.

I kiss the top of her head. “Goddamn little psycho.”

33

Ava

Nico takes me straight to the hospital with so much urgency, I might as well be on death’s door. I’m mostly just battered and bruised, and I could tough that out with just painkillers and sleep, but we’re both worried about the same thing. When I lift up my shirt to find a soft blue bruise growing on my baby bump, I nearly vomit.

I am fussed over by nurses that give Nico nasty looks and who won’t let him enter the room with me. At first, he’s very sweetly oblivious to why everyone is giving him a death glower, but between my bruised face and old bruises, I know exactly what everyone thinks.

A four foot eleven nurse steps between us as I’m led into an exam room.

“You need to wait out here,” she says to him, no-nonsense. I stop, but the hands on my arm and back steer me deeper into the room. They leave Nico on the other side of the door.

“Nico, it’s okay,” I call out, but I don’t think either of them hears me as Nico gets belligerent with her, making everything worse.

“Get the fuck out of my way, my wife and kid are in there!”

“Sir, if you don’t step back, I’m calling security.”

“Nico,” I call again, but the nurses shut the door before I can tell him to calm down.

Once I am isolated and prone on a cold exam table, in nothing but a papery hospital gown, the gentle interrogation begins while they examine me: am I safe? Do I need help? Do I have a place to go? My head throbs dully as I answer their questions, trying to seem earnest, but I’m just so exhausted from all this, and my one lifeline just got snipped away from me.

While they get ready for the ultrasound, I am showered in pamphlets and the numbers for help lines and resources. I try to be grateful for everyone’s consideration and care, but if I get one more sympathetic glance or knowing look, I might raise the night’s body count to two.

A few more nurses are called in, although it feels more like a safety measure than necessity.

“How do you know him?” one of the new nurses asks, all smiles, while fishing for another way to get rid of Nico while she hooks up the ultrasound machine. I glance at the shadow pacing behind the crack under the door, my heart tight.

“He’s my husband.”

Once I give my blessing and assure them, up and down, that he had nothing to do with it—which no one believes anyway—they reluctantly allow Nico into the room with me. His presence is the only thing staving off my panic attack. He curls his hand around mine and refuses to sit. He stands over me and watches every move the hospital staff make, silently kissing my fingertips, my knuckles, the inside of my wrist. He distracts me from all the urgency around us, the beeping machinery and monitors being gently clamped to me one at a time.

The doctor enters, with a high bun and shrewd eyes that have seen too much to be bothered anymore. The woman ignores Nico entirely, but she talks sweetly to me. With cold jelly on my stomach and the press of a wand, I watch the woman’s face, looking for the truth, some reaction in those stern eyebrows. I forget to breathe for a long minute.

“The bruising seems superficial. I don’t see any damage to the placenta, no obvious separation from the uterine wall. Which isn’t to say it won’t happen, but even if it does, sometimes the cases are minor and healable.”

Sometimes.

Nico’s hand tightens on mine.

My eyes linger on the monitor, on the fuzzy image that’s so hard to make heads or tails of, but just knowing that it’stheresomewhere in all that flickering static—I can’t look away.

My arms must have caught the worst of what Thaddeus tried to do, and I don’t think I’ll see the full damage until tomorrow.

“I’m going to have you come back in three days to double check, and right away if you experience any bleeding or cramping before then. From what I can see on the ultrasound, and though it’s a little early to be sure of anything, you still have a healthy, growing baby.”

The relief makes me weepy and exhausted, and when I look at Nico, his eyes are transfixed on the screen. I see the intensity of those eyes, and I know—Nico feels just as strongly for our baby as he does for me.Insane.

He clutches me in his arms and peppers kisses against my head as the relief sets in.

---