I wake clear-headed and alert for the first time in ages, so when nausea hits me as I sit up, I scramble over Fiero’s massive body and make it to the toilet before I lose the contents of my stomach. The band around my stomach only tightens as memories of Narciso’s final moments flash through my mind.
I murdered someone. It’s not the same as losing a patient. Now I’m no better than all the other criminals I’ve fought so hard to escape over the years.
Except as Fiero gathers my hair into his fist and rubs my shoulder, my regrets vanish.
I am not the same as Seppi Capito or my father. Neither is my husband.
I won’t fool myself and say Fiero hasn’t done some horrific things in his life, but his purpose sets him apart. He has his own moral code. Hell, just the way Tristan acts like a normal kid around him proves he isn’t the monster his brother is.
I spit, wipe my mouth with toilet paper, and accept Fiero’s help to the sink. After rinsing out my mouth and loading my toothbrush with toothpaste, I meet my husband’s eyes through our reflections. The concern on his face awakens butterflies in my stomach.
I scowl, tell him I’m fine, and pop my toothbrush into my mouth to scrub my teeth and tongue with way too much vigor.
He offers me a crooked smirk and kisses me on the top of the head before reaching around me to brush his teeth, too.
Emotions hit me. I don’t have names for them all, but tears flood my eyes. I hide my face in the sink as I rinse out my mouth. When the emotions only grow, I blindly drop my toothbrush back into the holder and splash water on my face.
I want to see his toothbrush next to mine every morning. I need him in my bed every night. I can’t imagine dinner without him there to feed me. I never want to walk the city streets without his protective arm around my shoulders.
I love Fiero Capito.
The realization should terrify me, but it doesn’t.
He passes me the towel when I finally turn off the water. I squeak as he turns me around by my hips and pins me against the sink. In the blink of an eye, he surrounds and overwhelms me. I lower the towel just enough to peek at him over the terrycloth.
He quirks a brow. I scowl and swat his uninjured arm with the towel.
“You’re such an ass. I just vomited my lungs out and you’re spinning me around like a top? Real smooth, mafia man,” I grumble with much less heat than I intend.
He doesn’t take the bait.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Worry shines from his eyes as he searches my expression.
“Is it morning sickness?”
The hope he tries to hide behind his tough exterior destroys my initial reaction to scoff and smack him. My heart hurts as I shake my head. The chemical imbalance of depression makes for some strange side effects, but my menses are still on track. I’ll probably start bleeding in the next day or two. I dread seeing the look on his face when I tell him.
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“Then why’d you throw up?”
I shrug.
“Not good enough, mia caramellina. Use your words.”
I roll my eyes and push his shoulders, but he doesn’t budge. Not even an inch.
“Death isn’t new to me, but killing someone is, so give me a break,” I snarl.
His gaze dips to my lips before he grabs my nape and pulls me tighter against him.
“You looked like a Viking goddess, Emma. I wanted nothing more than to bury my face between your thighs and let you ride me to my death.”
“That would have defeated the entire purpose, though.”
Embarrassment heats my cheeks as I hear my breathy voice bounce off the tiles.
“So, you admit you killed him for me?”
The intensity shining from his eyes drops the floor out from under me. I nod.
“Mio Dio, kiss me before I decide to taste more than just your lips,” he snarls.
Although I close the distance between our mouths, he takes over the moment our lips touch, licking and stroking in a rhythm as old as time and dominating me so thoroughly my brain leaks out of my toes. When he pulls back, I grab his shoulders, avoiding the deep purple bruise on his right side, and rise onto tiptoes.
“You might be okay with just one taste, but I’m not,” I whisper against his lips before dropping to my knees and tugging his shorts down. His massive cock springs free and bobs against my forehead. I push him back by his hips and wrap my fist around the base of his shaft.
He growls, cups the base of my skull, snags our towels off the rack, and tosses them down, demanding I kneel on them. Awe and wonder soar through me, and as soon as I shove the towels underneath my shins, I thank him with a teasing kiss on his flange. His thighs bunch and his hand tightens in my hair.
I meet his eyes and brush my closed lips over his sensitive tip just to enjoy his reaction. His cock jerks in my grip as molten desire shines from his rich brown orbs. I smirk and add my other hand around his base before pulling away so my breath ghosts over him.
“Let me go,” I whisper.
His expression darkens, but before he can respond with his normal never, I tilt my head, indicating his hand in my hair, and offer him a look full of every wicked thought and yearning I possess.
“We wouldn’t want you to pop your stitches, would we?” I say.
His eyes widen as I quirk a brow suggestively.
He returns my lascivious stare through half-lidded eyes, and when he smirks, molten lava pulses low in my abdomen. He twists his wrist, pulling my hair, and caresses my jaw with his thumb.
“Don’t tease me, mia caramellina, unless you want to spend all day writhing on my tongue.”
In the boldest, sexiest move of my life, I run the flat of my tongue along the underside of his shaft before sneaking a flick through his slit and humming at his salty, musky taste. He drops his head back and curses.
“Fuck, Emma, what are you doing to me? Give me more, amore mio. Give me everything.” I swirl my tongue around his flange. “Mio Dio, more,” he demands.
Despite the tension coiling through him, he allows me a few minutes to tease and explore his cock, but when I take him into my mouth and swallow, he snarls and loses control. I stack my fists, but he still chokes me with every thrust.
I relish his unraveling. He makes me feel understood and cherished. On my knees with his cock in my mouth, I experience a power I thought could only exist in fiction.
My shirt chafes my hard nipples and liquid desire floods my panties as he loses his rhythm and spurts his release against the back of my throat. I swallow every drop and rub my thighs together, desperate for more friction on my clit.
My husband gentles his hands in my hair and strokes his fingers over my scalp until I curl my tongue around the underside of his cock. He hisses and yanks his hips away before bending down and tossing me over his shoulder. I yelp as his hard muscles dig into my belly. Stars burst along the edges of my vision. It hurts. At my strangled sound, he slips me off his shoulder and cradles me to his chest.
I wriggle and check his bandages for signs of blood, but he drops his lips to my temple and murmurs an apology as he tucks his cock into his shorts and opens the bathroom door.
Katherine stands wide-eyed at the end of the hall with a clean change of clothes draped over her shoulder, her phone in one hand, and her travel hygiene bag in the other. Mortification thickens my tongue as she studies my face.
She slaps her palms over her ears and clenches her eyes closed.
“Dannazione, I know I’m an adult, but how about you don’t flaunt your sexcapades around the apartment while I’m here? I’m glad you’re happy, but holy hell, that’s mia sorella you’re tossing around half naked,” she says.
Without waiting for a response, she turns on her heel and stomps back toward her room, but the small smile tilting her lips as she shuts her door soothes the turmoil in my soul. She’s not mad. If anything, she’s relieved and happy.
Fiero strides into our bedroom, kicks the door shut, and locks it before pinning me across the mattress with his bulk.
“If she’s smart, she’ll wear headphones, because nothing will stop me from feasting on you now,” he murmurs against my lips.
Alternating between teasingly gentle and painfully rough, he uses his mouth and hands to bring me to orgasm so many times I lose count, and when he finally sinks his cock into my pussy, I sob at the perfect stretch and fly apart before he’s fully seated.
When my alarm rings, he swipes ignore without missing a beat.
I orgasm again.
He’s too sexy. Too powerful. Too trustworthy.
We lie wrapped in each other’s arms for a while, but before I fall into a deep sleep, he rouses me. I grumble but follow him to the shower.
After a quick shower and donning fresh scrubs, I realize how late I am to work, but Fiero refuses to let me skip breakfast.
When he points out how punctual I’ve been ever since he met me, I relent and call the front desk. The on-call nurse forgives me and reworks the schedule without fussing at me or asking questions, and when I arrive, no one gives me grief.
Even as I dive into work—which proves more chaotic than ever, since my coworkers continue to gossip about last night’s power outage—doubts plague me. My nausea never goes away, and without the fog of depression, I can’t stop my mind from replaying Fiero’s hopeful expression when he asked about morning sickness. Whether it’s hopeful thinking or rightful suspicion, I keep wondering if there’s more to my symptoms than I assumed.
Halfway through the day, I can’t stand my circling thoughts, and since buying a pregnancy test will rouse too much suspicion from Fiero, I ask a female coworker if she’d test the ultrasound machine on me.
My heart pounds in my throat as I lie with my belly exposed. She squirts cold goop onto my lower abdominals and lowers the wand to my stomach. I almost push her hand away, wanting to flee as a spike of anxiety hits me, but I clench my fingers in my bunched-up shirt and stare at the monitor.
She presses around, identifying my liver, gallbladder, and kidneys before locating my ovaries and shifting slightly toward my uterus.
She falls silent as I stare in shock. For several seconds, neither of us moves. She breaks the silence by reaching forward and turning on the Doppler. The rapid lug-lug of my baby’s heart breaks my stupor. I sob. Tears stream down my temples, but I can’t peel my eyes away from the screen.
If ever there was a time to cry, now would be it. My inner voice doesn’t dare lift her head. I’m so fucking allowed to sob right now.
My nausea wasn’t only stress. Work wasn’t the only reason I was exhausted. What I thought was my menstrual cycle was early pregnancy spotting, which was why the severity and duration were so mild.
I’m about nine weeks pregnant. The bean on the screen jerks and flails tiny little limbs, but I don’t feel the movement. Yet.
Fucking hell, I should freak out, but I can’t. Joy, wonder, and love pour through me.
I’m carrying Fiero Capito’s baby.
After assuring my coworker my tears are happy ones, I ask her to print the sonograms and tuck them into my pocket the moment I finish wiping the goop from my belly. She offers me a few minutes alone. I thank her and accept.
I lean over the sink and splash water on my face, dab dry using the cardboard-like paper towels, and stare at my reflection in the metal backsplash.
With my heart in my throat, I pull out my phone and open my contacts. I pause with my finger hovering over Fiero’s name.
Other than responding to a few of his texts, I’ve never reached out to him before. I’ve never begun a conversation. Never called him.
I hit the button and lift it to my ear. He answers before the first ring ends.
“What’s wrong, mia caramellina? Where are you?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m still at work, but I need to tell you something in person. Can you come pick me up now?”
“Of course, amore mio. Give me ten minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”
I agree and end the call. After pacing the room a few times, I decide to jump back into work while I wait for him, but as I wrap my fingers around the door handle, my phone buzzes.
An unknown number sent me a text. The blood drains from my head when I open it. The three little dots dance before the five most damning words I’ve ever read appear.
Come alone. Tell no one.
I lean my head against the door and fight to regulate my breathing as my worst nightmare comes true.
Seppi Capito found us. In the picture, he stands mere feet away from Katherine as she descends into the subway. The street signs in the background tell me her location.
With my throat tight and my vision blurry, I twist the door handle and rush to the nurse’s station.
“Hey, I have a family emergency and need to leave. Right now,” I say.
Dr. Taylor steps forward as though he means to argue with me, but I ignore him and grab the pad of sticky notes and a pen. I write as hard as I can and leave an impression on as many sticky notes as possible and rip them off as I toss the pen onto the desk.
“I’m not asking. If my husband comes looking for me, give him this,” I say as I press the top note into the hand of the nurse who just performed my ultrasound. Belatedly realizing they’ve never met Fiero before, I call out over my shoulder as I sprint out the door. “Big guy. Lots of tattoos. Handsome. Deadly. You’ll know him when you see him.”
Without a clear plan and still in my scrubs with my stethoscope around my neck, the sonograms in my pocket, sticky notes in one hand, and my phone in the other—which I refuse to use for fear of Seppi somehow knowing and hurting Katherine—I crumple up each sticky note before systematically dropping them in Fiero’s normal skulking locations.
My lungs burn and the few people on the streets look at me like I’m crazy, but I run as fast as I can until I reach where my sister was in the photo. My phone chimes with another picture.
When I search the pockets of my scrubs, hoping to find a strip of paper or something useful amidst the odds and ends I accrued throughout the day, I realize the only thing I can write on are the sonograms. Stuffing the extra pens and bigger items in my hip pockets and the smaller things—a hairpin, several safety pins, and a single dime—into the pocket on my chest, I pull the photos of my pregnancy out of my back pocket.
Cursing Seppi with every breath, I scan the area, ensuring no one is watching, and tear the first picture off the strip before clicking my pen and writing Katherine’s new location on the back.
My heart aches as I weave the paper into the slats of the nearest trash can. I hang my stethoscope on the rim, hoping it’s enough to catch Fiero’s attention. Regret and sorrow nearly bring me to my knees as I imagine my husband finding my trail of clues, but for Katherine’s sake, I firm my spine and start down the stairs.
There’s no point in glancing over my shoulder. I can’t look back or I’ll falter.
My sister needs me. I can’t fail her.
And I need Fiero.
Only the certainty that nothing will stop him from finding and protecting me gives me the strength to continue deeper into the subway.
