Page 57 of The Mafia Bloodline
“I had a right to know!”
He sat up too, grabbing my hands, forcing me to look at him. His eyes burned, fierce and haunted. “You’re carrying our child. You think I’m going to risk that? Risk you? You don’t understand what I saw, Runa. He’s not the man you remember.”
My breath caught on a sob. “Then let me see him.”
“Not yet,” he said softly. “Not until we can fix him. Not until I know it’s safe.”
The tears I’d been holding back finally broke. I turned my face away, but he caught my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes.
“I swear to you,” he said, voice trembling but unyielding. “I’ll save him. For you. For our family. But I won’t let that darkness touch you again. Not ever.”
And despite the fury, despite the heartbreak, I could feel the truth in his voice. Volken wasn’t lying out of betrayal. He was lying out of love.
So, I nodded, just once, as the tears rolled silently down my cheeks. He pulled me into his arms, his lips brushing my temple. “I’ll make this right, little one,” he whispered. “Even if it kills me.”
And deep down, I knew he meant it.
Chapter 19
It had been six months since Runa told me she was pregnant. Six months since my world narrowed to one truth, to protect her, to protect our child, and still, somehow, I kept finding new ways to fail at that promise.
I stood outside the reinforced door that led to the containment wing of our mansion a place no one but Draugr, Lucien, and I entered anymore. Beyond it, the air was colder, the scent of ash and holy oil sharp in my nose.
Colm…Runa’s father, had been here since the night I found him. The doctor and Draugr had worked for months to purge the demon’s residue from his blood. The process had been brutal: silver injections, blood transfusions, binding rituals that left the walls trembling. He was better now, mostly lucid, mostly whole. But not entirely. The corruption had left scars deeper than any blade.
Still, every day Runa asked about him.
Every day she looked at me with those honey eyes full of hope, full of a love I couldn’t lie to anymore.
And every day the doctor warned me that her heart rate was too high, that the baby was reacting to her stress.
So, here I was. Doing the one thing I swore I wouldn’t. Bringing Colm home.
He looked up when I entered looking older, worn thin, but more human than he’d been months ago. The black veins were gone from his temples. His hands were steady now, though his eyesstill carried that haunted flicker, like something still whispered at the edges of his mind.
“Volken,” he rasped, his voice gravelly from disuse. “You said you’d let me see her.”
“I did,” I said flatly. “But you need to listen carefully.”
He gave a slow nod, and I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “She doesn’t know what you’ve been through. She doesn’t need to. You tell her you were hurt; you tell her you’re healing…that’s it. You so much as hint at what happened in that warehouse, and I will end you. Do you understand me?”
His eyes narrowed faintly, some ghost of defiance sparking in them. “You think I’d hurt my daughter?”
I took another step, close enough that he could see the flash of my fangs, the predator behind the civility. “I think you already did. Maybe not by choice, maybe not by your hand, but I won’t risk her again. She’s fragile now. Too much excitement could…”
“I get it,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll be careful.”
I studied him a long moment, then finally nodded. “Let’s go.”
When we reached our room, Runa was already awake, her nurse had texted me earlier saying she refused to rest until I came back.
She was sitting up in bed when we entered, propped against pillows, the swell of her stomach more pronounced than I’d ever seen. Her hair was loose, her cheeks pale but glowing. And when she saw who walked in behind me…
She froze.
“Dad?”
Colm’s face crumpled. “Hey, sweetheart.”
