Dark Mafia Heir: Chapter 25

“Nope.”

Lifting a bowl of raisins and oats to my nose, my stomach churns in response, and I nearly gag. I shake my head and push it away. “Nope.”

The young maid, with short dark hair, blue eyes, and oversized grey shirt, sighs, and her eyes bulge when she realizes it is loud enough for the entire room to hear. Offering her an apologetic smile, I shift the large tray with six different meals towards her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but everything is making me nauseous. Could be something I ate, maybe?”

Varya’s cheeks glow a bright shade of red, and she ducks her head while retrieving the platters. “Oh, ma’am, please don’t apologize. You have every right to select your preferred choice of breakfast. It’s just. . .”

She trails off, chewing the insides of her cheeks while staring regrettably at the apple pie I persuaded her to bake. Varya doesn’t have to say more; I know the exact thought that crosses her mind, because it crosses mine too.

I cross my legs on the high stool, leaning forward on the kitchen island with one elbow propped up and one hand under my chin.

Varya and I had gone through a long list of things I could have for breakfast and still, I’d chosen nothing. The pancakes, waffles, beef stew, apple pie—they looked delicious but suddenly developed a strange disturbing aroma that made me feel queasy.

Varya doesn’t have an idea of what could be wrong; I don’t either. In addition to this mystery, my body temperature rises and falls at will. It goes from hot to cold and reverts.

I rub the crease between my brows. This phenomenon had been an occurrence for a couple of weeks, and I let it slip by at first, not thinking much of the nagging exhaustion or the twists in my stomach. I always chalked it up to stress, maybe something I ate; the unease lingered.

“Ma’am, it can’t be something you ate, because you haven’t exactly eaten properly these past few days. The only reason I haven’t informed Agatha, who would definitely inform the master, is because you’ve asked me not to.”

The only reason I made that request was to purposefully keep Antonio from finding out and having to worry. He is away on business, and I don’t intend to cause anymore distractions without unimportant domestic issues, than he already has to handle.

I know Antonio; he definitely would go apeshit on somebody.

No. I don’t want any innocent person’s blood on my conscience.

“It might be a stomach bug,” I say to the retreating back of Varya, who starts to put all the untouched meals in plastic containers.

Her chuckle is very light and girly. “I am not a nurse, ma’am. Honestly, I wouldn’t know. It might or might not be a stomach bug.” Her hands hover above the apple pie, hesitating to pick it up and store it someplace else.

“Take it.”

Surprised blue eyes snap to mine. Her jaw drops. “What?”

“The apple pie? You can take it. I wouldn’t eat it anyway, and Antonio’s not a big apple pie fan.”

“Wow! Thank you, ma’am. You’re so. . you’re so kind.” I think I see tears well up in her eyes, and her cheeks are an even brighter shade of red now, tilting more to the shade of pink. “You’ll surely be a great mother.”

Her sincere joy and child-like happiness force a smile on my face.

And after a fleeting second . . .

After her voice echoes somewhere at the back of my head, the smile falls, and I jump of the stool.

Shit!

My heart starts racing and Varya calls out after me as I make a beeline out of the kitchen, heading to the room. Slamming the door shut, I grab my phone and scroll straight to the calendar.

Diligently, I’d been tracking it, until I lost track of the goddamn thing.

The reality lands like a stone in the pit of my stomach, heavy and undeniable. My heart skips a beat, then races, my pulse thrumming in my ears as I replay the days in my mind, counting backward, trying to pinpoint when last I bled, and if somehow, perhaps, my calendar was wrong.

Shit!

Shit!

Double shit!

The numbers don’t add up in my favor. My period is officially late.

Panic swerves around the corner like a fucking crook, launching a surprise attack on me. I sit on the edge of the bed, and my hands tremble slightly as they press against my thigh. The world around me is suddenly too quiet, and the voices in my head only grow louder.

My stomach twists into knots so tight I can barely breathe. My mind races, each thought more chaotic than the last when it replays the signs I’ve been ignoring—the fatigue, the nausea . . .

Oh, my God!

My chest tightens even more, and I dig my nails into my thighs, trying to ground myself, but it doesn’t work. This is real. This is happening!

And then, like a freight train, the next thought crashes into me.

Antonio.

Everything slows down rather dangerously, and I feel myself teetering on the edge of uncertainty. In the end, it’s not only me in this, is it? He’s as much a party in this situation as I am. But I can’t tell if he’ll receive this news with joy. Joy as sincere as the one on Varya’s face earlier.

I can’t tell if my husband is ready to become a father. The topic has never been one for discussion before, and, now, it is hard to tell Antonio’s stance towards fatherhood and children.

Prickly tears sting the back of my eyes, but I catch myself before I cry.

Is Antonio ever going to be ready for this?

Am I?

I can picture his face now, but in my mind, his expression falters, and cracks. What if he doesn’t want this? What if the weight pushes him away?

My breath comes out in shallow gasps, and I grip the sheets for support.

There’s a soft knock at the door before the handle rattles, and Varya pokes her head through. “Ma’am?” She’s worried. “Is everything okay? You sort of left⁠—”

“Varya?”

I’m seeing her, watching her brows crinkle with greater anxiety, but my mind is still fixed on running through the possibilities of uncertainty. I close my eyes, but that only makes it worse.

“Varya, I’m . . .” I lick my lips, trying to gather strength. “I’m fine. It’s nothing too serious. Which one of Antonio’s men is on watch today.”

Slipping in through the door, she edges closer into the room. “Luca. Lorenzo’s away with the boss. Himself, Giovanni, and Dario.”

Mild relief settles in my chest, and I ask again to make sure. “Luca’s here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Great.” I summon strength and push myself to my feet. Eyeing her, I pad over to the closet. “I need to change first. Send a message across and tell him to wait for me downstairs.”

“Your fingernails might disappear before we get there.”

Turning to the side, I look over my shoulder at Luca, who’d been strangely quiet throughout the ride to the hospital. He has his eyes pinned on the road and his jaw set in a stubborn clamp. I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves.

Convincing him to take me without Antonio’s knowledge and permission had been a tedious drag. The man was as stubborn as a mule. Thank God, I managed to succeed after several attempts at emotionally blackmailing him. I deserved an award for my efforts.

Sighing, I drop my fingers from my mouth and sink deeper into the car seat. The nerves wracking in my stomach and chest are threatening to kill me before I have the opportunity to carry out the test.

“You don’t understand.”

Luca gives me an unreadable side-eye before his jaw flexes, and he looks back at the road. “Maybe you should take a look in the mirror. You literally look like a ghost, Vivienne. I don’t need to understand; what I see is enough. That’s the reason I’m doing this.”

Antonio and his men are not exactly vocal about their emotions, but I can identify care and concern when I see one.

Before I can respond, the hospital comes into view.

Luca presses down on the gas, and my heart lurches as he swerves sharply into the lot, tires screeching louder on the pavement than they should in the quiet midday sun. When he cuts the engine, there’s an abrupt silence that follows. It’s deafening, and, at the same time, it makes everything louder—my heartbeat, my ragged breathing.

“You don’t. . .” I take a deep breath. “You don’t have to come in with me. I can do this on my own.”

“Sure, and have Nio slice my dick off when he hears I left his pretty wife without protection,” he says dryly.

His seatbelt whirs when he unbuckles it, and the car seat dips under his weight when he turns to face me. “Look,” his face is hard, unsmiling. “I’m going to tell you a short story. You can’t tell anyone I told you.”

“Um, okay.”

Luca telling me a story now is the last thing I expect, but I welcome a diversion from the current situation glaring at me in the face.

“When I was a kid, maybe nine or ten, my father took my brothers and me on this family hike—said it’d be a bonding experience. It was supposed to be a simple trail, you know, easy enough for a kid like me. So we get about halfway up this trail, and it’s fine at first—trees everywhere, birds fucking singing, or whatever. But then we hit this ridge, and out of nowhere, the path just . . .disappears. Erosion or something. There’s this steep drop on one side and nothing but loose rocks on the other. My father urges me to move forward, but I’m fucking terrified, convinced that if I move an inch, I’m going to fall.”

Luca’s jaw moves a muscle, and he runs a hand over his hair.

“My father is like, ‘Luca, don’t look at the whole thing. Just look at your next step. That’s all you have to do.”

I hold my breath; his father’s talking to me.

“So I did. I focused on the one rock, then the next. One step, then another. Before I knew it, I was past the ridge, standing on solid ground. And when I turned back to look, it wasn’t as scary as I thought. I realized the hardest part wasn’t the trail—it was getting out of my own head.”

His eyes search mine before he opens his door. “You don’t have to figure it out all at once. Just take the next step. That’s all you need to do.”

The door closes behind him, and the knot loosens in my chest, just a little. Though strange and completely out of the blue, I appreciate Luca for sharing a bit of his past to encourage me.

I stare up through the windshield at the towering hospital. Its glass panels harshly glint under the sun, and my throat feels dry, my palms damp.

Swallowing, I whisper, “Next step,” and step out of the car and into the blinding afternoon.

Inside the hospital, the entire process goes by in a blur. Luca is at my side before I can even steady myself, taking charge. I force my legs to move as we follow a nurse, one shaky step at a time, to the room she leads us.

The seconds drag, feeling more and more like a stretch of eternity, and when the doctor finally exposes his white teeth in a smile, my throat tightens.

Positive.

The office is no less claustrophobic. Shock grips me, and it’s sharp and cold. I guess, I’d known from the moment Varya made the comment about children, but hearing now is . . .surreal.

The shock gives way to something else, and I feel it rise to the brim.

It’s that stubbornness I’d never managed to get rid of. The same one Papa identified one time too many.

Fuck anxiety.

I’m not breaking or running.

I’m pregnant. Pregnant! There is a real seed, a real baby forming inside me, and it doesn’t matter what comes next; I’m going to fight for us if I have to.

Once we leave the doctor’s office and head straight to the car, under the burning rays of sunlight, Luca steps in front of me and blocks my path. His tall shadow looms over me, his dark eyes brimming with more fierceness than when I’d first ambushed and coaxed him to bring me to the hospital.

“Remember the ridge and the rocks? Well, Vivienne, now’s the time to take that step. You’re telling Antonio. End of story.”