The Mafia King's Regret: Chapters 1–5

Layla

“I’m pregnant.” I gripped the thin purple test stick, fingers white against the flimsy plastic. Shaking a little, from shock and another emotion I couldn’t quite name. “Holy shit. I’m pregnant.”

And what a time to find out: twenty minutes before my wedding ceremony. The day my family would officially meet my husband—and the future father of my child, too, I supposed.

Holy shit.

I braced a hand against the bathroom vanity’s granite countertop. My whole body felt a bit … rubbery. Pregnant. I was pregnant with Vasco’s child.

What a trip.

Sure, we’d been legally married exactly a year today. But since we hadn’t yet held the ceremony, my family hadn’t met him, not with how much of a whirlwind it’d all been. Craziest decision of my life by a long shot, eloping with a man I’d met just three weeks prior, then leaving behind my glistening New York City for the wilds of Alaska.

But I’d known, always. From the first moment I’d set eyes on him that night outside the restaurant. He was mine.

Rain running rivulets down his angled cheekbones, clumping dark lashes, slicking black curls against glowing golden skin, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Even before his bowed lips had curved into a soft, white smile.

From that moment, I’d known. He was the one. Maybe that’s why I’d offered him my umbrella. Give him my phone number, too, when he’d asked in that lilting Italian accent. Agreed to a date the very next day.

Mine.

Today, perched in my guest bathroom, the pregnancy test balanced in my fingers, I had no doubt. I’d wanted him then for my husband, and I wanted him now for my future family.

Shit, I was going to be a mother.

I exhaled a shaking breath and lifted my gaze from the little plus sign in my fingers to the sprawling mirror. The face that stared back wasn’t shockingly different from my norm—my white-blond hair nestled in a braided crown sprinkled with white lilies; blue eyes lightly lined in kohl; lips softened to pink. The dress itself was simple: plain white that clung to my lean frame in a flattering sweep, ending above the knees.

Yet the simple, feminine touches rendered my reflection almost unfamiliar. Or maybe it was the glowing radiance of the girl in the glass. I smiled, and she beamed back.

That girl, the one effervescent in white, she looked fit to be Vasco’s queen, and definitely the mother of his child. Hell, she looked like the luckiest damned woman alive.

I exhaled another, surer, breath, letting the shock give way to the other feeling bubbling inside me. One I could now name—joy. Hesitant, uncertain, almost fearful joy, sure. But joy all the same. Vasco’s baby would be as beautiful as its father, I had no doubt.

Vasco himself would be overjoyed. But first, I had to make an appearance at my wedding ceremony. Get the introductions over with. Smile, nod, shake hands. The whole nine.

I smiled at the woman in the mirror again. She looked perfect, just like today would be. “Let’s do this, girl.”

I tucked the test into the top drawer of the bathroom vanity, nestling it under a tissue so it wouldn't be found before I was ready. Then, without further thought, I swept from the bathroom, down the hall, and into the backyard.

Past the French doors, our property sprawled in a breathtaking expanse of rolling lawn and manicured gardens. A white-stone path wound its way through rosebushes and daylilies, brushed alongside oleander and cherry blossoms fringing the edges of our fields. Behind it all, a backdrop of ragged mountains tore through the sky with the elegant violence only nature can achieve.

“She’s here!” A child’s squeaked voice drew my attention from the skyline—so vastly different from my Manhattan—to the small group of people assembled beneath a copse of flowering magnolias. “Layla!”

A smile bloomed over my face at the sight. My feet carried me down the white stone without hesitation towards the waiting group. “Hi! I’m so glad you’re all here!”

All the people I loved most in the world—right here. For me.

There was my childhood best friend, Danielle, with her kids and husband in tow. My older cousins, Nikki and Braden, each with their slew of tagalongs. My grandmother, of course, beaming at me from beneath a wide-brimmed pink hat.

Some of my fellow hospital interns had clearly come straight from work; I couldn’t help but smile at the white coats and colorful scrubs. That they’d made the effort almost had me—of all people—blinking tears from my carefully mascara-ed lashes.

Or maybe it was the thought of who wasn’t here, who’d never get to meet my husband or our child. My throat tightened against a sudden wave of sadness. My late parents would never meet their grandchild.

“Here’s your flowers!” Nikki’s tiny daughter thrust a bouquet of white lilies up over her head. The wispy blonde seven-year-old shared so few similarities with her big-bad-buff mama—nothing like the wild half-dressed hooligans we’d been as kids, tearing through upstate New York on dirt bikes and ATVs.

I wondered what of myself I would see in my own child. How much of me, and how much of Vasco?

“Thank you.” I lifted the bouquet from her fingers to inhale the sweet scent of my favorite bloom. Vasco, I’d no doubt, had picked these specially. “They’re beautiful.”

A bit sobering, however, was the lack of unfamiliar faces. Vasco had never mentioned his family. Never spoke about them or to them. Never so much as mentioned them. Once, I’d unearthed a photo from his wallet—every man dressed in neat black suits, a glowing brunette woman at Vasco’s side—but he’d brushed aside my questions.

I knew nothing of his past, and until this moment it’d never mattered. It was too much to hope, I supposed, that any of them might have showed to celebrate our special day.

But now, even more noticeably absent from the crowd was—

“Where is Vasco?” I leaned in close to Nonna to murmur in her ear. She alone had met my husband—of course she had, she was so much more than my grandmother—and would know his whereabouts. She'd be first to know about the baby, too.

Nonna didn’t have to answer; the faint lines drawn in alongside the deep grooves of permanently etched concern told me enough.

He’d left.

Sudden unease clenched my stomach in a tight fist. I didn’t bother to excuse myself, just turned and hurried back towards the house. Twice as fast as I’d left it. Vasco’s Italian heritage lent him no shortage of romantic notions and grand gestures, so for him to be absent at his own wedding …

Something was wrong.

My stomach clenched tighter. Something was wrong.

I slipped back through the French doors, into the sprawling living room. Could his family have something to do with this? Maybe he missed them, wanted them here. Wished they could be.

Just inside the living room, I paused. Handcrafted peach tile, vast picture windows framed in dark wood, and soft white walls leant the room a Tuscan ambiance. The fireplace on the far side of the room, however, brought in a sense of warmth—critical on cold, dark Alaskan winter nights.

Beside that fireplace, my husband leaned against the carved mahogany mantle. His back to me. A tailored navy suit highlighted the breadth of his muscular shoulders, contrasted it beautifully with the sharp V-cut of his waist.

Beautiful. Just like that night in the rain.

But this time, I couldn’t help but notice the hard-edged bump in the back of his fitted suit jacket. A gun, stuffed into the waistband of his dress pants. A reminder of his ceaseless caution.

He always had one in reach, like danger could strike at any moment. As a gun-owner myself, it’d never bothered me. Plenty of people had guns; maybe he’d been in the service before turning to business.

But today?

Today was us. Family. Friends. Not danger. Not here, in the home where we'd raise our child.

It struck me—suddenly and sharply—that I didn’t truly know Vasco. My husband, the man I’d chosen, married, the future father of my unborn child, was a mystery. Maybe there was a good reason for his family’s absence.

Still, I crossed the room to him. Wrapped my arms around his waist. Burrowed my face into his hard shoulder. Mine.

If my sudden presence surprised him, he didn't let it show.

I melted into his warmth. Strength. Into the hardness of his muscled body and his familiar smells of sandalwood and cinnamon. Everything would be all right, as long as I had him. “The wedding’s about to start, my love. We need to—”

Without warning, he turned in my embrace.

Pushed me suddenly and forcefully away.

The face that looked down on me—the face I so loved, had loved every day since I’d first seen it scrawled in the tears of the heavens like an avenging angel—that face was a cold, empty mask of emotionless lines. Unrecognizable.

Foreign. Unfamiliar.

A stranger’s face.

His words, a lance. “We should get a divorce.”

The bouquet tumbled from my fingers, scattering white lilies across the peach tile.

Layla

I froze. Unable to move, unable to fully process the words. Unable to recognize the cold, unfeeling man towering above me. He wore my Vasco’s face and yet, he spoke as a stranger. “We should get a divorce.”

No, this couldn’t be my love. When Vasco smiled, he was the sun itself. But this man … It was like all the happiness in Vasco’s heart had vanished overnight, leaving him empty and cold. A shell of the man I’d once called husband.

Like he didn’t even recognize me.

“I don’t understand.” My words drifted through numb lips. Soft at first, but when they failed to crack this hardened new facade, anger surged through my chest. Hard and hot and sharp.

So my words came out the same—hard. Hot. Sharp. “Explain.”

Still, his face didn’t change. Seeing me shocked, saddened, hadn’t broken through the stranger’s visage, but it seemed my anger wouldn’t be strong enough to, either.

“We married too hastily.” The man who’d been my husband reclined against the mantle. His dark eyes stared back, emotionless as his voice. “I realized how … incompatible … we are.”

“Incompatible!” I could no more comprehend that word than any of the others he’d spoken. My hands found my hips, the stupid fake nails I’d put on for this wedding like claws in the lace of my dress. “We’ve never even argued before!”

No, from the start, we’d been a match made in heaven. After that first physical pull that had dragged us together beneath a rain-slicked sky, we’d discovered our bond reached so much deeper than the flesh.

Conversations that never so much as paused, let alone ended.

Laughter that could fill rooms.

Heartfelt confessions.

Passionate lovemaking, too, yes. But so much more than that. Our love had always been more than physical. So much more. Connection. It’d been connection, down to the very soul.

And yet …

“Divorce,” Vasco said in that same deep, toneless voice. “Is the rational choice for both of us.”

He said it like he was serious. Like he meant it.

“Rational?” My anger was quickly turning to panic—hysteria. I couldn’t crack through that mask, why couldn’t I crack through to the man I knew was underneath? Surely, this couldn’t be real—it was an excuse. Something else was going on here, and I needed to find out what it was. I needed to reach him—

Vasco stepped forward, halving the distance between himself and me. For one moment, I thought maybe he would reach for me. Touch me. Embrace me.

A flimsy stack of papers appeared in his hand. Extended in the narrow space between us. White and bold and there, like a peace offering in reverse. “Sign this, and the house is yours.”

I could only stare at those clean white pages. White, printed in black. White and black, like he seemed to find our situation—in love, and then not. White and black.

No shades of grey.

I shook my head. “No. I’m not signing anything.”

“Layla.” For the first time since I’d walked into the room, his voice almost softened. “Please. For your own sake. Just … sign it. We don’t need to bring lawyers in.”

Or maybe it was the sound of my name on his lips, softening me. God, how many times had those two little syllables melted me down to the core?

“I’m not signing anything, Vasco.” I wouldn’t let him hear my weakness. No, I’d built my life on being strong, and that wouldn’t stop now. “Until you tell me what the hell is going on. The truth. For once, the truth.”

“The truth.” Any softness lingering in his voice vanished in a trace. Maybe he did know me after all—knew me well enough to know that soft pleading wouldn't work. “You want the truth?”

“Always. The truth.”

No matter how hard it hurt, the truth was alway better than a lie. I’d believed that since I was a child, since the news of my parents’ death had forever rocked my world.

“Remember, you wanted this,” Vasco murmured, but I barely heard the words as the door to our bedroom opened behind him. A woman stepped through, and for a moment, my head cleared of thought.

Beautiful.

She was beautiful. Possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, glowing in the pale afternoon sun. Her soft, olive skin, dark eyes, and glossy black hair spoke of clear Mediterranean heritage, but her beauty spoke for itself.

And she was standing in the doorway to our bedroom.

“Vasco …” The name died on my tongue before I could form a coherent thought. Because another one had taken root in my mind.

I recognized this woman. I’d seen her before—in the photograph I’d discovered in Vasco’s wallet. Him, a suit-clad cadre of handsome Italian men, and this breathtaking Italian beauty.

“Vasco.” My voice shook slightly, my earlier composure nowhere to be found. “Who is this?”

Who was this woman, in my bedroom, more beautiful than me, taller than me. Far, far more regal and queenly than even that woman I’d smiled at in the mirror not twenty minutes ago.

But it wasn’t Vasco who answered. He merely regarded me with that same cold stare as the woman stepped to his side.

“Aurora Falcone.” She didn’t bother to extend her hand in greeting. “Vasco’s childhood friend. And fiancée.”

The word echoed in my head like a shout through a hollow cave. Because that’s what I’d become—a hollow shell, empty of thought, reason, emotion.

A dream. This had to be a dream. Right? There could be no other explanation for my Vasco’s empty stare, for the breathtaking woman beside him, our opened bedroom door behind her—them.

Vasco’s fiancée.

A dream. No, a joke. It had to be. A cruel, sick joke, and I’d had enough of being the butt of it.

“Fiancée.” Finally, finally, I found my damn tongue. And when I tilted my gaze up to fix on hers, I couldn’t help but think how the delicate curl of her lip—the most dainty of sneers—made her brutally ugly. “How can Vasco have a fiancée when he’s married to me?”

“A pathetic country bumpkin like you?” The sneer turning her lip deepened, and her words spit like venom from between them. “As if you’d ever deserve someone like Vasco. And that’s why he’s chosen to come home to me.”

Come home. More words to echo to my big, empty skull. Home. Where was home for Vasco? Not New York, where we’d met. Not Alaska, where we’d run to.

But maybe we’d never run to here. Maybe it had always been about what we were running from.

Home.

I pried my gaze from Aurora to meet Vasco’s dark stare. I didn’t need words to ask the question; he knew me well enough to read the accusation in my stare. Say it’s not true, Vasco.

But his silence spoke so much louder than words ever could.

Truth.

His silence spoke truth. And in the wake of such cold betrayal, my heart shattered to shards. Like the flowers still cast over the peach tile, the pieces of my heart sprawled across the floor between our feet.

Truth.

So clear, now it was laid in front of me.

“I was just a toy, wasn’t I?” The words escaped my clenched teeth in a snarl. “A plaything. Something pretty to look at for a while.”

My fingers snagged the papers still extended in his large hands. Half crumpling them, but what did I care? What did it matter anymore, whether they were wrinkled or crinkled, as long as my signature was on them, where he wanted it.

“You never told me anything because you were always planning to return to your true match.” Vitriol spewed from my mouth, but I didn’t care.

The pulverized pieces of my heart—so willingly, so freely, given!—didn’t care. Not anymore. Not when he’d so cruelly, so coldly, taken my offering and smashed it to smithereens.

I tossed the papers down on the coffee table, slammed my knees onto the tile beside it. Didn’t even feel enough to know if they’d bruised. The pen nearly tore through the page as I signed it.

My signature looked like the cut of a knife—black on white—but it didn’t matter. I stood. Hands shaking, legs shaking, as I closed the space between us.

I pressed the pages to his chest, feeling the warmth and hardness of his body even though those cold, crumpled pages. With my free hand, I pointed towards the door.

That door still opened to our breathtaking backyard, where our wedding party still awaited us, silhouettes in the afternoon sun against the ragged backdrop of cruel, unforgiving mountains.

“Go.” My words didn’t shake, even as my knees did, as that pointed finger trembled in the air. “Go now. Take your fucking pet, and never come back.”

He had no parting words for me.

He strode towards that door without a backwards glance for me, the woman he’d wooed, married, impregnated, and just as easily, as swiftly, abandoned. His gorgeous new plaything clung to his arm like maybe she wasn’t capable of walking under her own volition.

Bile burned the back of my throat.

Vasco and his new wife—the one that was not me—walked through the door and into the wedding that was meant to be mine. In plain sight of everyone I knew. Everyone I loved. Everyone who’d ever meant something to me.

It was all I could do to keep breathing. Keep standing. Keep the shattered shards of my heart beating when all I wanted to do was lie down on the cold tile and let them stop.

Danielle reached me first. “Layla? What’s going on?”

“Layla?” Nikki jogged in behind her. “Are you all right?”

I ran shaking fingers through my hair, dislodging my braid, my flowers. My dress had rumpled when I’d knelt. Those fake fingernails had torn the fabric. I already looked a disheveled wreck, and all I’d done was stand here.

I was never meant to be a beautiful bride, a pretty plaything.

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. “The wedding is off.”

“What!” Nonna nudged Danielle and Nikki out of the way as she barreled into the room like a train come off the tracks. Always a force of nature, my Nonna.

But when I held up a hand—steady—she stopped. She was a force of nature, but I was, too. I’d learned, after all, from the best. “I want to be alone.”

I turned away from them. Left them at the door as I slipped soundlessly through the one Aurora had only moments before vacated.

Our bedroom.

A sprawling expanse of wide windows, soft white walls, more pale tile. A vast bed, cushioned with pillows and throw blankets. So much comfort and luxury—a room of love.

The room in which I’d shared so many memories with my Vasco—no. With Aurora’s Vasco. And now, the photos I’d pinned to the walls seemed to laugh at me. How could I sleep in this room, in this bed, with all those happy faces smiling down at me?

Vasco’s smile was a lie.

My fingers curled around the first frame, and I tore it from the wall. Hurled it to the floor so the glass shattered against the stupid impractical Mediterranean tile.

I should have known when he wanted to build a Mediterranean house in the middle of Alaska that he was dragging pieces of his stupid, secret past with him. I should have asked more questions. Pressed harder for information.

I slammed another picture against the floor.

Another.

It wasn’t until the fourth that the tears welled behind my eyes. And a scream tore free of my throat. Pain, so much pain, tearing my chest in two. Tearing my body. Diving down into my gut—

My scream deepened as the pain reached lower. Consuming me from the inside out—real pain. Physical pain.

Darkness crawled around the edges of my vision, and the last thing I saw was the floor hurtling towards me.

Vasco

The wheel turned soft as butter beneath my callused hands. Of course it did. The Bentley hadn’t come cheap, but I’d settle for nothing less for my Layla.

Music hummed from the speakers, soothing and subtle. Jazz, for driving mountain roads, Layla had said when she’d picked the station, and I hadn’t had a reason to protest. I’d never had a reason to argue with her.

The landscape unfolded around the winding mountain road in a breathtaking wash of green and brown and gold. Gorgeous, awe-inspiring natural beauty for the woman who’d inspired me at every turn, with every word.

Pines sailed up over the car as I guided it down, down, down into the city. Towards the plane that would carry me away from the life I’d crafted from nothing.

Me—and the other woman currently seated beside me. The wrong woman. The woman who’d ruined everything.

I’d made this life for us, for me and Layla. Painstakingly and lovingly. So willingly. And yet, one phone call had left me unraveling all the threads of the beautiful tapestry I’d woven.

Your father has been killed … My mother’s voice played on repeat in my head, like a broken record. Your father has been killed. We don’t know where your brother is … You have to come home.

You have to come home

She didn’t realize I already was home. That I was driving away from my home.

“You know.” Aurora’s voice tore me away from my wandering thoughts and slammed me back down to earth. She gazed at me from the passenger seat. “I never expected you to fall for such an … innocent … woman.”

My teeth gritted together so hard I thought they might crack. I opted not to answer. I wasn’t sure I could, without saying something I might later regret. I couldn’t so much as look at her, kept my eyes fixed on the road.

“But now that you’re free …” Her fingers slid across my knee. Soft and warm and sweet. Inviting. “We can be together again. Like we were meant to.”

If I were any more of a dog, I might have snapped. “Take your hand off me, Aurora.”

Those fingers paused halfway up my thigh. They burned like fire—wrong. Unwelcome. A brand that might leave a permanent mark on my skin. “I told you to take your hand off.”

She sighed, but lifted her fingers away. Turned her face away, too, to stare through the side window at the passing landscape.

My skin felt cold in the absence of her warmth.

When she spoke, it was to the glass. “I might not be from a Mafia family, but I know how it works. You don’t get to choose, Vasco. Not like normal people.”

My fingers tightened on the wheel, but I couldn’t even hate her for those words. For the truth of them. It wasn’t her fault I was born into one of the most powerful Mafia families in New York.

It wasn’t her fault that even after I’d cut ties, walked away, crafted a new life for myself, the past had still come calling.

Your father is dead.

The godfather of the Marcello family was gone.

Your brother is missing.

His heir was unaccounted for.

You need to come home.

The family was in shambles. Weakened. At risk of falling prey to the infighting and attacks of other families, should anyone catch wind of that weakness. And though I’d walked away, turned my back, left it behind …

One never, truly, left their family behind.

Not when that family was the Marcello family. Not when my mother and sister needed someone to protect them. Save them. Not when I still had more to lose.

You need to come home. And I was. With the wheel under my hands and the road twisting out in front of me, I was leaving behind the lie of the life I’d made. I was heading back to where I belonged—willing or not.

“Did she know?” Aurora’s question was little more than a whisper, almost lost to the soft jazz beneath. “About who you really are?”

And for the first time in a long, long time, I opted for truth. “No. I never told her anything.”

“And you thought you loved her,” Aurora snorted softly. “You couldn’t even tell her the truth.”

But how could I, how could I, after she’d told me her truth?

I blinked against the memory that crawled at the corners of my mind. Layla, clad in a fitted black sweater that brought out the blue of her eyes, the white-blonde of her hair. Leaning over the table to meet my gaze. Earnest.

My parents were killed when I was five, she’d told me. They said it was a car accident, but I know the truth. Everybody knows the truth. Nobody will admit it.

The truth is a dangerous thing, I’d warned her. You should be careful who you tell.

But she’d trusted me with it. That night, the soft mood lights of the five-star restaurant setting her smile aglow. She’d trusted me with her truth. Her family’s truth.

My father refused to treat a Mafia drug lord, she’d said, and my heart had ceased its beat inside my chest. Crawled up into my throat and sat there, like a rock, forbidding me from speaking my own truths.

The bastard needed surgery, and my father said no. Her mouth hardened into a firm line. Three days later, my parents’ car went off a bridge.

No tears ran down her cheeks as she told that story. The wounds were old, scarred over, harened. But her hands curled into fists, and the hate in her eyes burned clear as day. She didn’t need to voice the words for me to hear them.

I swallowed my own truth that night.

It wouldn’t matter, I told myself—lied to myself until even I’d believed it. I was never going back. Never.

Except, it had always been a lie, hadn’t it?

I should have known I could never run from who I was. From my true family.If my brother couldn’t claim his position as heir, that meant I would have to. For the sake of my mother, my sister, my family.

“You’re right,” I murmured. “She never really knew me, did she?”

She hadn’t known who I was. Nobody had—but if they’d found out … Hell. If they’d found out, would that have put Layla’s life in danger? Now that I was heir to the Marcello family, it would.

So I was leaving.

Once again.

Leaving.

Running.

From family, to family.

“It’s for the best, Vasco,” said Aurora, turning to flash me a smile. “You’ll be back where you belong.”

Those words sat in my gut like cold, heavy rocks—until the sudden wail of a siren pulled both our attention to the driver’s side of the car. An ambulance tore around a curve in the mountain, nearly veering off the road in its haste.

Layla

White.

White all around. I blinked, trying to push away all that damn white, but even as my vision started to clear, to focus, the white didn’t retreat. Oh.

It was because I was literally in a white room. Ceiling, walls, the blind pulled down over the little window. Tile floor … Even the narrow bed—

Shit.

The bed. The blanket. My hand laid atop it, stuck with a needle and bound in a hospital bracelet. I traced the line from the needle to the blinking machine over my left shoulder.

I was in the hospital.

Slowly, my memory returned pieces of itself.

The pain, the darkening vision. The beautiful woman. Vasco.

My fingers clutched at my stomach, like I could possibly feel that microscopic baby inside. Panic clawed its way through me. Had something happened to my baby?

“Layla.” The door—also white—flew open and a man in a—surprise!—white coat sailed in like Superman come to save the day. Except, it wasn’t Superman. It was Adam Springer, my colleague, friend, and a very welcome face.

“Adam. What’s—why am I here?” Surely, Adam, calm, stoic Adam, would assuage my fears. Save the day in his own, very un-Superman-like, way. He was the calmest, kindest person I knew.

Adam pulled the rolling chair to my bedside. “Layla. I’m going to talk you through what happened, and I need to to keep breathing and stay calm for me, okay?”

“What?” Sudden panic spiked in my chest. “Adam,what happened? What aren't you telling me? Did I lose the baby?"

He huffed out a soft, ironic laugh. “No, you didn't.”

Relief coursed through me in a heady wash, like a warm waterfall. Until—

“But that doesn't mean you should keep it.”

That warm bath turned suddenly icy. “What do you mean? What does that mean?”

“Layla …” Adam dragged his fingers through his unruly red curls. “The pregnancy is tenuous at best. Your uterine lining is very thin. And a miscarriage could further damage your uterus.”

“What does that mean?” The words clawed from my throat, too high. Panicky. I should know—I was a damned doctor for Christ’s sake—but I couldn’t think through the panic.

“It could make future pregnancies … difficult.”

His meaning sank down though my thick skull and into my brain. “You're saying I might not be able to get pregnant again, if I try to keep this baby.”

He nodded, somber. Grim, almost. “Without this child, your chances of getting pregnant could improve.”

My chances of getting pregnant—with another man. A future husband. A potential family.

More pain, clawing at what was left of my heart.

He was telling me that I had to choose between this baby and my future family. This baby, whose father was nothing short of a scumbag. Who'd literally left me at the altar.

Why should I carry that man’s child?

Still, there was no hesitation in my words. “I'm keeping the baby.”

Layla

Eight years later

Sunlight streamed through the wide plate-glass window, glinting silver off the city skyscrapers, as I stripped bloody blue gloves from my hands. Like a celebration of yet another successful surgery—an emergency bypass this time.

I gave myself only a moment to bask in that celebratory sunshine. Wouldn’t be long before someone else rushed in, needing me; there was hardly a dull moment in a New York City emergency room surgery.

So in that spare moment between crises, I lifted my phone to my cheek to call home.

“He’s fine, Layla.” Nonna didn’t bother with a greeting. She knew why I was calling. Still, relief washed through me in a wave.

“Can you put him on? I only have a minute.”

Nonna grumbled. “And every time, I’m hoping you want to talk to me.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. Always a character, my Nonna. A damned force of nature, just like her granddaughter.

My smile only widened when a small voice purred, “Mommy?”

“Hey, Eli.” My heart clenched painfully behind my ribs at the sound of my son’s voice. “Is Nonna being nice to you today?”

In the eight years since I’d left behind Alaska, my life had been nothing but hard work. Studying. Work. Interning. More work. Work. Work. It was all for that little voice at the other end of the line.

“Nonna and I went to the park to feed the pigeons!”

Nonna. Not Mommy. All this work to feed him, clothe him, give him the best money could buy—and the tradeoff was that I hardly ever saw him. Nonna cared for him, of course, just like she’d cared for me.

“That’s so good—”

“Dr. Bennett!”

I bit back the sigh of frustration at my intern’s beckoning. Of course, my peace wouldn’t last. This phone call, my few moments of time with Eli—they wouldn’t last. “I have to go now, honey. But I’ll be home later, okay?”

“For dinner?”

My heart clenched harder in my ribs, pain like a vice around it.

“Dr. Bennett! We need you now!” My intern appeared in the doorway of the theater, his eyes concerningly round.

“Maybe,” I lied, yet another empty promise. I wouldn’t be home for dinner. “I love you, Eli.”

“Love you, Mommy.”

“Dr. Bennett!” The intern flapped at me—an uncharacteristically frazzled move, even for him—right before someone shoved him out of the way. He stumbled forward into the room as a small cadre of suit-clad men rushed in behind him.

“What the—” I sprang away from the suddenly full door. “You can’t be in here! This isn’t a public …”

But the words died on my tongue as I caught sight of the guns on their hips and the knives on their thighs. The hard set of their faces. The bloody body on the wheeled hospital bed behind them.

The pieces clicked into place.

These weren’t just men in suits barging into my hospital. They were Mafia. Gangsters. Thugs, just like the bastard who’d fathered my child and left us both without a backward glance.

“He needs treatment.” One of the men bellowed, his face red as he bore down on me. “Now!”

My eyes fell to the man bleeding on the bed. Bullet wound, right through his chest. Probably shattered ribs, pierced lung, might have damaged his heart.

Just like the man my father had refused to treat, twenty-four years ago. My father had let that scumbag die.

How many children had he saved from that man’s drugs?

And he’d left a daughter without parents. Maybe the thug had had kids of his own, rendered fatherless.

“Doctor!” The man snapped his fingers in front of my face, yanking me back to the present. “You gonna treat him, or what?”

I still had the newspaper article about the car tossed over the bridge. Two dead, one daughter left behind. But his words weren’t a threat—not like they should have been. I should have had a gun to my head.

“If this man lives,” somehow, he still wasn’t threatening me, “the Marcello family will reward you handsomely.”

Marcello. I knew that name. Had heard it before, here. Many times over, actually, after some new Godfather had apparently taken over the family. A man who, evidently, fancied himself a magnanimous thug.

That’s why I was being offered a reward rather than threatened. Because the new don had implemented a ban on any disrespect towards medical personnel.

My gaze focused on the bleeding man. I know what my father would have done. What he had done. Why he’d done it.

What it had cost him.

Would the new godfather’s ban on threats to medical personnel extend to me if I failed to save this man?

He needed medical attention. Now. Either I treated him or he died. And in the end, I’d have to reckon with my choice—to save a mobster or usher in the demise of a bad man.

But somehow, all that disappeared as I stared at the stranger on the bed. Because that’s all he was. A stranger. A man, bleeding out, who needed my help. Who I could save.

Now or never, Layla.

I reached for my gloves, met my intern’s eyes. “Cut his clothes off.”

His eyes bubbled into rounded coins of surprise.

“Now!” I barked, scalpel already in hand. The answer was suddenly so clear, as I bent over that body. I was a doctor, not a god, not a jury. My job was life—to save it, to protect it, to promote it.

It was not, had never been, my role to decide if someone deserved to die.

My scalpel cut through his skin. The clock started now, the one counting down the precious minutes of his life, and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—waste any more.

My mind cleared as I worked. There was no right and wrong, no mortal or ethical dilemma. It was just me, my scalpel, the blood on my hands and the body beneath them.

I could save this man.

I don’t know how much time flowed past as I worked. I only know that finally, finally, I was stripping off my gloves again.

At long last, I looked up—to find half the Mafia members still positioned around the room. The man who’d snapped at me, then offered me a reward, straightened off the wall to approach.

“Will he live?”

“He’ll live.” I wiped sweat from my brow with the back of my forearm. Exhaustion clawed at my eyes, dragged my bones down. “But he needs rest now.”

“You saved him,” the man murmured. “Thank you.”

“I did.” I turned away to lean over the sink. I had enough blood on my hands for one day. “But not because of who he is. I saved him because I’m a doctor—no other reason.”

“Marcello will—”

“I don’t want Marcello’s money.” I brushed past the man without waiting for an answer. I didn’t want their money, their reward, their respect. I wanted them all out of my hospital so I could move on with my life.

Why did the Mafia keep popping back up?

Outside the operating room, I paced the long, white hall towards the exit. Towards my car. Towards home and my son and my goddamned bed. So close …

A man in a suit hurried past me—more Mafia. Another trailed at his back. I was so tired it took me a moment to realize they weren’t headed towards the room I’d just vacated, but away from it.

My steps slowed, faltered, as two more men hurried past.

A third rushed by, his right hand pointedly hovering at his hip. Like he was preparing to whip out a gun. In my hospital! What the hell was going on?

Two more suited men rushed up, and I pressed my shoulders to the wall to let them pass. One muttered into a bluetooth, fingers lifted to his ear. The tension in the air hung so thick, I could’ve cut it with a knife.

Unease prickled my skin, lifting the fine hairs on my arms.

I needed to get out of here. Now. No way was I sticking around for whatever the hell was about to go down. No, it was time to go home to my Nonna and Eli.

I set my sights on the elevator at the end of the hall and increased my pace to just short of a jog. So close. The silver doors loomed in front of me.

Almost there—

A gunshot cracked the still air.

I dropped to the ground without thinking, instinct driving me to flatten on the floor. Someone shouted, but I didn’t know where it had come from. Another man in a suit raced past, gun drawn.

He plunged into the elevator.

My heart thudded so loudly, I could barely hear over the sound of my own racing pulse. Panic churned my stomach. My breath came too fast, too shallow, my throat squeezing out air.

What should I do? I couldn’t take the elevator—it was currently occupied by a mobster! I needed to run, or no, hide! I should—

Another gunshot cracked. Too close! Where had that come from? Another shout … more men running past. I curled in on myself, knees to chest, back against the wall.

Praying.

Begging.

Please please please don’t see me. Don’t notice me. Let me live—

A warm hand curled around my arm. Pulling. My mouth opened in a silent scream as that too-large hand dragged me up, to my feet. But I couldn't scream, couldn’t make a sound, not with how the panic clutched my chest in an iron vice.

My back hit something warm. Hard. A firm chest pressed against me, and a heavy arm wrapped around me. Warm. Solid. Safe.

The word popped into my brain even as I registered the acrid burn of gunpowder. The coppery tang of blood. Safe.

I couldn't see the man behind me, holding me hostage—a second man down the hall stole my focus. Racing towards us.

Gun lifted. Ready to shoot.

I squeezed my eyes shut as my captor lifted his own arm. Gun in hand. The arm that held me slid upwards, so warm fingers turned my head into that chest. Covered my ear. Holding me close.

Safe. Close.

Two shots rang out.

Two more.

Silence.

At long last, I dared to lift my head. To look up—but something caught my gaze. The hand wrapped around me bore a ring on the middle finger. A familiar ring.

I’d given that ring to a man eight years ago.

That was my Vasco’s ring.

Aldo

Why was she here?

As silence fell in the wake of the shots, the woman in my arms wrenched away. I let her go, and instantly felt the loss—of her warmth, her softness, the slightly sweet smell of her shampoo. It was the same, the same as she’d always worn.

Her smell.

My Layla.

She wasn’t supposed to be in this city, let alone in this goddamned hospital. I’d changed my name, the day I divorced her, left her. Changed everything about myself to ensure I left her behind.

I should never have seen her again.

But when she lifted clear blue eyes to meet my gaze, I couldn’t find my regret. The years had only made her more beautiful. More fierce and strong and, I’d wager, staunchly independent.

But those eyes, those eyes were the same pure blue—like a cloudless summer sky in the Alaska where we’d forged our life. Except in those long-ago years, her eyes had been filled with love.

Now, she studied me with caution. Fear. Distrust.

I forced down the painfully tight squeeze in my chest. Instead, I assumed the role I’d been born to play. The one I’d been playing for eight long, brutal years.

The one my family needed.

“The fight’s over,” I said, in the same stern, toneless voice I’d perfected over those years. I knew my men would already be clearing up the aftermath. Removing bodies, locating doctors and nurses to patch up wounds.

Digging bullets out of walls.

But Layla still hadn’t moved.

“You can go home now,” I said, and her jaw clenched tight. Lashes fluttered. Was she, too, thinking about our cabin in the mountains?

“The enemy is dead.” In demonstration, I slid my gun back into its holster under my suit jacket.

The enemy was dead, bu the persistence of the Moretti family was nothing if not commendable, I supposed. They’d failed to take out Carlo on the street, so they’d deigned to come after him in a damned hospital.

Her lips parted, and for one beautiful, terrible moment, I thought she might speak. Thank me? Ask me what had happened—why I was here. Who I was …

What would my answer have been?

But she pulled her mouth closed again before the question formed. Shook her head. And finally, in a tight, toneless voice I barely recognized, informed me, “I’m leaving.”

She made it halfway to the elevator before I found the words. “Bruno! Davido! Please, escort this good doctor to her home.”

The two men started forward.

“No.” Layla’s word was a command, as forceful as any I’d ever given. When she turned towards me, her blue eyes flashed. “I won’t be walked around on a leash. Like some plaything of the Mafia.”

Behind her, the elevator doors swooped open, and a young man in plain blue scrubs stepped out. “Layla!”

She spun to face him, and this time, her voice was a gush of warmth, of relief. “Marco! Oh, thank God!”

“Are you all right?” Flecks of blood splattered the man’s blue shirt, but I didn’t know if it was from the altercation or his medical affiliations. I stopped noticing when his arm slid around her shoulders to pull her close.

“I’m all right.” She stiffened in his embrace, like she could feel me watching. “But I think it’s time to leave. Now, please.”

“Right.” His gaze lifted from her, and his dark eyes met mine to give me a full look at his face.

He was younger than me, younger than her, even, but undeniably attractive. Not that I noticed. Or cared. The woman in his arms, the Layla I’d once known, she was nothing to me. Not anymore.

The distance between us—leaving us strangers—it was what I wanted. Needed. So why couldn’t I take my eyes from them as they slid into the elevator together?

Why did my mouth feel dry, throat too tight? Why did my chest ache?

“Follow them down,” I said to the man standing beside me. It was only after he moved I identified him as Bruno. “Make sure she gets home.”

Bruno didn’t question me, but his gaze lingered just a moment too long. A silent question in his eyes. But he didn’t voice it.

No. He obeyed.

I was godfather of the Marcello family. I wasn’t questioned; I was obeyed. Even if I was acting irrationally.

“Aldo,” another voice spoke at my left shoulder, and I turned to face the new arrival. “We killed five. Several escaped. But we took one alive.”

I withheld the sigh building in my chest. Bruno would follow Layla, ensure she reached home safely. I knew that. She wasn’t my concern—wasn’t my business. Not anymore.

My business now was information—finding out what I could from our new prisoner. Protecting my family, always, was my prerogative.

“We’re leaving,” I said, because it was time. I had to move on, forget her. Like I’d been doing every day for eight years. “Make sure someone’s watching Carlo. I won’t have another attack on my second.”

The man at my shoulder bowed, then hurried off to obey.

Always, my men obeyed.

***

The next few days blurred behind the knowledge that she was here. In this city. So close—and yet so far—from the Manhattan penthouse I occupied.

How could I not have known … but of course I hadn’t. I’d shut her out so completely, I’d erased her existence from my life. How would I have known she’d returned?

I could barely concentrate on family matters.

Did my men notice my distraction?

Carlo was released from the hospital four days after the attack, and already, he was back at my side. Cataloging reports of Moretti unrest—drug deals that had gone less than smoothly, a weapons exchange that’d gone bust, a few street tussles here and there. Break-ins. Car thefts. Muggings …

Together we leaned over the map of the city sprawled across my massive mahogany desk. The breathtaking Fifth Avenue view through the floor-to-ceiling windows lay behind us, forgotten, as we studied the marks on the map.

Red flags, everywhere. Attacks, everywhere.

Unrest hung heavy over the family, and yet—

“Want to tell me why we had three men watching a house in the suburbs?” Carlo looked up from the corner of the map to meet my gaze, his dark brows pulled low over soft brown eyes. “For four days?”

Car had been my second since long before I’d ever taken over as head of the family—since long before I’d ever planned to. We’d been best friends longer than I could remember, and there was no one I trusted more than him.

And yet, I’d never told him about Layla. Couldn’t tell him why I’d had three of my best soldiers stationed in her neighborhood, watching her house to ensure there wasn’t any fallout from what had happened at the hospital.

So when I answered, my response was cold, collected. “It’s the home of the doctor who saved my second in command.”

Car’s brows lifted from their deep scowl as he understood my meaning—my men were guarding the doctor who’d saved his life. And for a moment, I thought he might leave it at that.

But his next words made me realize my mistake. “Do you treat every doctor who saves your men this way?”

My body stretched taut as a bowstring as the words struck like barbs.

“Or does the fact that she’s a beautiful woman have something to do with your sudden obsession?”

“Shit.” I dragged a hand down my face, allowing Car to see my distress—because he wasn’t just my second. He was my best friend, my lifelong companion. The only person, aside from my mother, that I trusted.

But he wasn’t the only person who’d know I’d pulled the guard from Layla’s house just this morning. Left her unprotected, now that the fight was over.

“Vas?” Car alone was allowed to call me that—since I’d changed my name. Even my mother adhered to the new title.

“I’ve got to go.” I couldn't bring myself to explain as I hurried from the office.

Car’s feet patted the wood floor behind me. “I’ll drive.”

My fingers clenched and unclenched at my sides as we rode down to the garage. Carlo knew me better than most—might even know what I was thinking now.

Had my protection of Layla done the opposite of what I’d intended? Had the constant presence of three Marcello men put her neighborhood in the spotlight of my enemies?

I had to find out. Now.

The Bentley roared to life with Carlo behind the wheel, and we surged out of the garage and into the crush of downtown Manhattan traffic. My fingers drummed my thighs, anxiety churning my stomach into a froth, as we sat in the gridlock of cars.

Nothing to render us all equals like the unmoving crush of downtown rush hour. No matter how much your car cost, how much you paid your driver … we were all slower than the subway riders beneath us.

Everything would be fine. Nothing had happened in the few short hours since I’d pulled my guard. I repeated the words over and over and over. Everything is fine.

Slowly, we inched through the traffic. The crush of cars. Out of the city and into the tree-lined suburbs. The calm was like a breath of fresh air.

As was the quaint brownstone rowhouse at the end of the street. She had flowers in her garden. Lilies—her favorite. The same I’d picked for her wedding bouquet.

She’d worn them in her hair that day, too.

My chest pulled tight in pain.

Carlo cut the ignition on the curb beside her driveway. I climb from the car, strode up the gravel to the front door. Did I breathe as I rang that bell? I couldn’t be sure. “Layla?”

The door cracked open, and I waited for pale white hair and blue eyes, a soft smile.

I got only emptiness.

“Are you here to see Mommy?” The slight voice dragged my gaze down from the emptiness in front of my face to the tiny figure position in the opened doorway. White hair. Blue eyes. A pointed chin and angled cheekbones.

Layla, but small. Male.

A child.

A child with Layla’s face and Layla’s eyes.

He repeated the question. “Are you here to see Mommy?”