Page 164 of Broken Mafia Prince
“Uh, Isa?—”
“Does he know?”
“I haven’t told him yet,” I say. “I wouldn’t even know how to reach him. We haven’t spoken since the incident at the docks. He hasn’t reached out. And even if he does, I’m not sure I want to tell him about the baby right now. He already has so much on his plate, I’d hate to add one more thing to it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” She glares at me, planting her hands on her hips. “Don’t be stupid. You both made this baby, and it’s his responsibility, too. He should know about it and plan accordingly.”
I press my mouth into a thin line and finally admit the truth that I haven’t even yet admitted to myself. “I’m scared, terrified, in fact. I don’t know, but it feels like everything between us so far has happened inside a kind of bubble. We’ve always knownwhat to expect, how things are. I’m afraid that a baby will make us realize that this is very real, and?—”
“Giulia, I love you with all my heart, but for the love of god, shut up,” Isa cuts in sternly. “You’ve been going on and on about how much he loves you, and how he wants a life with you.”
She points a finger at my stomach. “That is what a life with you entails.”
I open my mouth to respond, but just then, my ringtone blares out from inside the room. “I need to get that.”
I jump to my feet and hurry inside the room, heart thudding. These past few days, each time my phone rings, I’ve dived for it, hoping it’s him, only to be disappointed. My hands shake as I swipe the answer button and press it to my ear.
There’s silence on the other end of the line, and I clear my throat. “H-hello?”
“Giulia.”
Heat washes through me, along with relief, and to my embarrassment, tears well up in my eyes. When I turn to the balcony, I see Isa giving me a look.
“Are you going to tell him?” she mouths.
“Not yet,” I mouth back. She just shakes her head and turns away.
“I haven’t heard from you in days.” I try not to sound accusing, but I’m not sure I succeed.
“I know,” he says quietly. “I miss you, too, baby. I miss you so much.”
My lower lip trembles, and I bite down on it, trying to compose myself. It feels like I haven’t truly breathed in all this time without him, and now the air comes rushing in, filling my lungs.
“So much has happened,” he continues, sounding exhausted. I have the overwhelming urge to draw him into my arms and hold him, tell him that we’re going to get through this.
“Is it over?”
“Can it ever truly be over? Years and years of hate, rooted so deep that even they don’t know what depths the roots have reached.”
I dropped down to the edge of my bed and lick my lips. “Now what?”
“Now we admit that we’ve done the best we can. This morning, I’ve put a decent dent in my father’s forces, stopping their planned attack on the Montanaris. I don’t think he has the manpower to launch another assault on your family soon,” he tells me.
“But this only halted his plans temporarily. I heard from one of his men that he’s already making arrangements with even more powerful Russian families, and he won’t stop until he sees all the Montanaris dead. And what’s worse, we won’t have the strength to stop them.”
I swallow. “What’s the plan, then, when he recoups?”
The sigh he lets out tells me everything I need to know. Raffaele can’t put up even more of a fight against his father. Eduardo has endless connections, and I won’t be surprised to find out that he has aces up his sleeve.
“He knows about you,” he suddenly says, breaking me out of my reverie. “I don’t want you to panic, baby, but my father is desperate enough to come after you as things stand now.”
Terror slices through me. Not for myself, though. I cup a protective hand over my stomach. “Remember what you said when you asked me to marry you, about how we’re not going to let ourselves be the martyrs of this story?”
“I remember.”
“I’m sick of trying to save people that don’t want to be saved.”
The life growing in my womb can barely be referred to as a child right now, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll even carry it to full term. I know a good percentage of women lose theirpregnancies in the early stages. Even knowing all of that, I’ve never felt such love and fierce protection. It makes me wonder how my father can be so nonchalant toward me.
