One word. One truth. The word “child” explodes in my mind like a bullet to the brain, shattering all other thoughts.
Time crawls to a near standstill.
The objects around me catch the light in suspended animation. Suddenly I can’t feel my fingers or toes, only the rapid hammering of my heart against my ribs.
“You’re pregnant,” I whisper, looking right at her. Her eyes—those hazel depths I’ve drowned in countless times—watch me with a mixture of defiance and vulnerability.
The silence drags, loud with everything we’re pretending not to feel. For just a second, the mask slips. I’m not the ruthless heir or the man she hates. I’m just the one who used to touch her like she was made of glass. Who used to say her name like it was the only thing that mattered.
A child. My child. Our child. The knowledge burns through me, melting everything else away until only this truth remains. My gaze drops to her stomach, then back up.
Around us, the gala continues in slow motion. I try to form words, but my tongue feels weighted with lead.
A father.
I’m going to be a father.
In my mind, I see a hand—small, impossibly small—curling around my finger with instinctive trust. A heartbeat I’ve never met but already feel tethered to. A life shaped from both of us, breathing somewhere just beyond my reach.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice comes out low, tight—the kind of quiet that brews just before everything breaks.
She let it slip—not as a celebration, not even intentionally. A weapon she hurled to make a point.
My hands move before I can think, reaching for her belly.
She stiffens, spine straightening, chin lifting in defiance as she steps back.
I freeze mid-motion, fingers suspended in the space between us—a space that suddenly feels as wide and unreachable as an ocean.
She opens her mouth, then shuts it again. Hesitates. That pause cuts deeper than I expect.
“Because you would’ve used it to own me,” she says.
My jaw clenches hard enough to ache. My hands curl into fists before I can stop them. Not out of anger. Not this time.
I take a step closer—not to intimidate her. To understand.
“Do you really think that’s what I would’ve done?”
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. The silence is louder than any accusation.
My breath stumbles. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt… off-balance. The first time she’s seen me without the armor.
In this moment, I would give everything I own, everyone I know, every drop of blood in my veins to bridge that gap. To show her how wrong she is.
An heir to two warring dynasties. Bianchi and DeLuca blood mingling in innocent veins.
My father’s grandchild. The thought sends ice water through my system as the implications cascade through my mind.
My father, who ordered the execution of this child’s maternal grandparents.
My father, who would kill Aria without hesitation if he knew who she truly was.
The threat to them both coalesces into something solid and terrible in my chest.
I open my mouth—to explain, to beg, I don’t even know—
“Boss!”
The voice cuts through the tension like a blade.
Nicolo’s face appears at my side, pinched with urgency.
“We need to go. We’ve been hit.” His voice is low, urgent.
I shake my head, unable to look away from her. There’s still a battlefield of words between us, truths buried beneath rage and silence. But one thing burns through all of it—I would die for her. For both of them. War or not. Hate or not. Nothing will touch what’s mine. Not while I still draw breath.
Nicolo lowers his voice, glances at Aria, then leans in to speak close to my ear.
“Marco, listen to me. We’ve been hacked. Someone’s draining our offshore account in the Bahamas clean as we speak. Please, we must go—now.”
His eyes flicker to Aria, who takes a step back.
The message is clear—she’s claiming our child as hers alone.
“We’ll finish this later,” I tell her, voice like steel.
The distance between us expands as Nicolo tries to pull me away. I resist, feet planted, eyes locked on her but she turns and walks away.
I let Nicolo walk me back, my eyes still on her retreating form, but then she gives me one last glance over her shoulder. For one moment—a heartbeat, a breath—Aria’s mask slips and I see something like sorrow, which she quickly buries by looking away.
Nicolo nearly drags me toward the exit, telling me we’re losing hundreds of thousands in this breach. But I am barely listening. My mind remains with Aria, her words still pounding in my head.
She’s carrying my child. The war between us has just become infinitely more complicated, the stakes raised beyond measure.
It’s only once in the car that I turn to Nicolo. “How could this breach happen?”
“Someone from your finance team sold the codes to our security network,” he grimaces.
“Sold them to who?”
Nicolo hesitates. “We initially thought it was the Volkovs.”
“Initially?”
“We now think it was her,” Nicolo whispers, looking me dead in the eye.
Her.
“Aria?” I feel the blood rush to my head.
Nicolo nods. “I think she funded the breach in collaboration with her allies. Masked the payments through one of the dormant DeLuca trusts. Your wife just gutted our biggest offshore account.”
I can’t move. I can’t think. We’re meant to be together. We’re meant to raise that child as a family. And here she is, ripping the clothes off my back. My breath catches in my throat, and my chest constricts.
“She’s not afraid of you anymore, and she’s coming for us,” Nicolo says quietly. “And she’s not doing it alone.”
He’s talking about my wife. The woman who just told me she is carrying my child. That she just struck a blade through the spine of my empire.
I clench my jaw and stare out the window as the car takes a turn.
“Aria is pregnant, Nicolo, and she didn’t tell me,” I mutter, almost to myself.
Nicolo meets my gaze. “Would it have changed anything if she did?”
I don’t answer because I don’t know. I’ve been trying so hard to control this game, but now? Now I know that the more I fight back, the more defiant she’ll get.
She could put all of us in danger, especially herself. Especially her child. She doesn’t know this world. She needs an ally who cares about her. Who loves her.
And right now? She might be surrounded by sharks.
“She’s coming for me with everything,” I murmur.
“She still loves you,” Nicolo adds carefully. “Even if she’s trying to hate you, to burn your empire to ashes.”
My jaw tightens. “She doesn’t get to hate me. Not after everything I’ve done to keep her alive.”
“Yeah?” Nicolo smirks quietly. “Then maybe try telling her that before you go full Bianchi and start setting cities on fire.”
We pull into the underground level of my operations hub—steel-reinforced, off-grid, untouchable.
As I step inside, my men straighten. The tension in the air is electric, sharp enough to cut.
One of my techs approaches, pale and nervous. “Sir, we’ve contained the breach—but not before they hit three offshore accounts. They were surgical. Took what they needed and left. No trace.”
My voice comes out like ice. “Then burn the channels they used. I want them screaming.”
The tech nods and bolts.
I stalk toward my office. Nicolo trails behind.
“She’s not just going to sit and wait for you to come back,” he says behind me. “You know that, right?”
I push open the heavy steel door and step inside, alone now.
The second the lock clicks shut, I exhale. Didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath.
The room is quiet. Too quiet.
My eyes land on the wall, but it isn’t the wall I see. It’s her. The ultrasound she hadn’t shown me. A future I might never be allowed to reach.
My fist slams into the wall. Once. Twice.
I will take back my empire. I will drag every traitor into the light. I will survive this war.
But more than anything—I will get her back. Because she’s mine. And so is our child.
I’m not walking in as Marco Bianchi, king of the underground. Not as a don. Not as a boss. But as a man chasing the woman who holds my heart—and now carries my future.
I drag a hand through my hair, breath ragged. The words come out low, cracked, like something pulled from my chest.
“I can’t let that happen. I can’t let her take me away from my child. But I need to move carefully. Tactically. Gain her trust—slowly.”
I push open the door to the garage.
No guards. No strategy. No armor.
Just instinct.
I’m already gone before anyone can stop me, the engine screaming down the private drive.
Not toward war.
But toward the woman who just declared it.
Because nothing—no betrayal, no blood, no legacy—will stop me from getting her back.
