Page 129 of Vicious Little Princess

Nico took an unsteady step back and scrubbed his hand over his face.

He was usually the best at taking in information and processing it rapidly, then taking action.

But this wasn’t just information.

This was… something else entirely.

“A baby,” I uttered.

“That’s what pregnancy entails, the special little gift at the end,” Julian spoke, pushing off the bed with a bit of a struggle.

Yeah, he’d overdone it tonight. Another example of him trying to move along at light speed with everything.Goddammit, Sunshine.

He winced to himself, then tried to fake it, like he could simply shake off the ache he was obviously feeling. “Take those damn painkillers in the nightstand there,” I told him.

“I’m all good.”

The hell he was.

I gritted my teeth and looked away, focusing back on Caterina.

As she looked out at us, nervously awaiting our reactions, she was more emotional and unsettled than I’d ever seen from her before.

As much as I didn’t want her feeling that way, I was glad that she was putting it out there now, trusting in us, connecting with us, even when it was difficult.

The fact she’d actually told Nico and me rightbeforethe strikes tomorrow was a big deal, too. It must have crossed her mind that we’d try to pull her from the front lines of it all the moment she put the revelation out there. Yet, here she was, trusting us again.

“Legacy,” Nico rasped, at last. “That’s what you meant before.”

“Yeah,” she responded uneasily.

Julian wrapped his arm around her. “Just give them a moment. I promise you it will be okay,” he said quietly, doing his best to comfort her.

I frowned. She thought we wouldn’t be happy about it? No, that wasn’t it at all.

And it wasn’t why Nico was struggling to absorb the news. I knew him better than anyone, and because I did, I understood what was at the root of his shock where this came into play.

He reacted badly enough when one of us was hurt, but with a baby in the picture—our baby—it would be another fucking level where that protective intensity was concerned.

And then there was hisferalside and where that was all rooted, connected to his intense compartmentalization of the guilt for all the fucked-up things he’d done both as Capo for the Marchetti Syndicate and from losing control too. Caterina had accepted that about him. More than that, she got off on it, she loved it. But with a baby, that just wouldn’t fly anymore. He was clearly worried it would change things, changethem, and also whether he could actually keep it in check when the time came, when the baby arrived and we became fathers.

It was a lot to absorb.

I saw him reach into the pocket of his robe where he’d put his lighter and smoke, but he stopped himself at the last second. She was pregnant, no smoking around her.

On my end, I was also coming at it from a protective angle, trying to figure out how to react when the inevitable would soon follow and she asked how this news would impact her contribution to this war.

Majorly, if I had anything to do with it.

Nico would be with me.

But I needed to get a grip and focus on the immediate and taking all this concern and upset away for her.

I stepped up to her and stroked the fluffy arms of her robe. “This is a little miracle.”

“Yeah?” she asked with a tentative smile.

It was so strange seeing her this way. So… unsure.

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