Harper collapses onto the floor in front of me. I only just manage to grab her before she hits her head.
“Harper? What’s wrong?” I mutter, but she’s unresponsive, and her eyes have rolled into the back of her head.
I listen for a breath, which is there, but it’s faint.
I shake her a little. “Harper? Wake up.”
Did I fuck her so hard she fainted?
She groans, and my heart does a double jump. She blinks a couple of times, and her hand rises to swipe along her forehead. “What happened?”
“You fell suddenly,” I reply. “Looks like you fainted.”
“Oh … my head,” she groans, squinting.
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask, and I direct her to my chair. “Sit down.”
She’s breathing heavily, and I don’t trust this one bit. She hunches over and reaches between her legs. When her hand comes out, there’s blood.
My eyes widen. “I’m getting my doctor.”
But before I can even run to the door, she’s already fainted again at the sight of her own blood.
I grab her body and put her down on the floor, face left, so she won’t choke on anything. Then I zip back up as I hadn’t even had time for that before I rush to the door and throw it open, yelling, “Doctor! I need a doctor!”
My guards immediately yell at each other through the walkie-talkies until the doctor is alerted. I’ve been smart enough to keep one on hand in my ranks because we have enough gunfights to cause a whole bloodbath. One doctor might not be enough to take care of all the wounded after an ambush, but I can pray it will be enough for my Kitten.
“She’s in here,” I say when he’s finally come downstairs.
“What happened?” he asks as I walk him inside.
“She fainted, and there’s blood between her legs,” I reply.
He kneels beside her on the floor. She’s already groaning again, so I assume she’s come back from the dead. “Ugh …”
“Shh … don’t strain yourself,” the doctor says as he opens his briefcase and takes out a stethoscope, listening to her heart and lungs. “Let me check on you.”
“I was bleeding,” she mutters.
“Between her legs,” I add.
He checks her out and frowns, which concerns me a great deal.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” I ask.
“Without further investigation, no, but she seems fine. No abnormal pulse, lungs sound fine.” He turns his head to look at Harper. “What were you doing before you started bleeding?”
Her cheeks flush with heat as her lips part, but no sound comes out.
“Just some cuddling and kissing, nothing more,” I interject.
I don’t want her to feel embarrassed about something natural. Especially not when it comes to something I enjoy doing with her. Besides, no one has any business knowing what we do behind closed doors.
The doctor clears his throat. “Was there penetration involved?”
“Oh, no, no. None of that.” She giggles, still a little woozy from the spell.
“I think it’s best if you rest a little. I can do a thorough checkup while you’re in bed,” the doctor says, and he looks at me. “Help me out a little.”
I nod and approach Harper, grabbing her arm so I can lift her.
“I’m fine. I can walk,” she says.
But when she tries, she stumbles, and I’m right there to catch her before she falls again.
“Let me help you,” I say, shoving my shoulder under her arm for support.
“Let’s get her to a bed quickly,” the doctor says.
We go upstairs and into her bedroom, where she lies down on the bed, clutching her stomach.
“Does it hurt?” the doctor asks.
She nods, frowning and groaning heavily, and it hurts to see. I care too much about her to see her in this much pain. What is going on? Was it something I did?
The doctor turns to me. “Marcello, I think you should leave.”
My brows furrow, rage boiling to the surface. How dare he tell me to leave my Kitten?
But then I see the frantic look in her eyes like she’s afraid to roar out loud because of what it could do to me if I heard. And I realize that he isn’t just asking this to shoo me away but to give her time to heal.
I sigh and nod. “But if you need me, call, and I’ll be right there.”
She nods and lies back down on the bed, shivering and soaked through with sweat.
I don’t know what’s going on, but leaving may be the better option. That doctor is one of the best there is, and I trust him to cure her of whatever illness she has.
So I step out of the door and take a deep breath before I sit on a chair in the hallway, waiting patiently for the doctor to come out again. It takes a couple of minutes of staring at my own damn watch as time ticks away. But when he finally does come out, I immediately stand and say, “How is she?”
“She’ll need some rest,” he says.
“What was it? Did you find out why she fainted?” I ask. “And what about the blood?”
I sound like a madman asking this many questions, but I’m more concerned about her than about my own image right now.
“She …” He pauses to clear his throat and says, “You might want to sit down.”
That sounds bad. Very bad.
I clutch the chair and sit down, bracing myself for whatever he says next.
“The bleeding she experienced only happens to women when the uterus is developing more blood vessels in a particular area, and some straining could’ve caused her to lose some blood. But it’s stopped now, so I don’t think there will be any more problems as long as she takes her rest.”
“Blood vessels?” I mutter. I’ve never heard of this before. “So it’s not a period or anything?”
He sits down beside me and sighs out loud. “Marcello … she’s pregnant.”
I get up from my seat and stand there for a second to catch my bearings.
Pregnant?
Harper is … pregnant?
How did I not know?
My gaze is absent as I stare at the doctor in complete and utter shock, my jaw dropping lower with every passing second. “Wha … how?”
The doctor laughs. “Well, you should know, of course. She’s your … um … girlfriend.”
When I try to step past him, he blocks my way, and I throw him a deadly glare.
“Please don’t,” he says, clearing his throat. “Best not to disturb her. She still needs to rest. The bleeding said enough. If you care about her and the baby, of course.”
My hand, which was tightened into a fist, relaxes again, and I look away, blowing off steam through my nostrils.
“Is it mine?” I ask without looking at the man.
He places a hand on my shoulder. “You should ask her yourself when she’s awake.”
Then he walks off, leaving me seething with anger at my own stupidity and hers. How could I not have seen or known this? She was in my clutches this entire time, yet I didn’t notice a thing. But she didn’t tell me either. Why?
Is it not mine?
Rage overflows at the mere thought that another man had what was mine.
No, I can’t think that way. Harper would never. She fawns over me. She adores me, even if she hates it. She would never cheat.
But what if someone forced his way in?
She was out there all by herself with no one to protect her.
I slam my fist into the wall. “FUCK!”
The outburst leaves a mark, and a few bits of paint chip off when I retract my fist.
If anyone hurt her, I will fucking rip their throat out.
But I can’t fucking ask her now. It’ll have to wait until she’s awake, and who knows how long that will take. Meanwhile, I’m churning with questions that I don’t know the answer to.
Because if that is my child growing inside her, that means I’m going to become a father.
Am I ready for that? Would I even make a good father? And how do I bring a child into this violent world?
After glancing one more time at the door behind which she lies asleep, I march off and go downstairs. Only one place can calm down the turmoil in my body and the storm raging in my head.
I head straight for the rose garden and pluck one of them, smelling it while I sit down on a bench to catch some much-needed fresh air.
Fuck. There’s so much to deal with. First, I’m ambushed by the very mobsters who want me dead, then lose my consigliere to them, and now I find out Harper is pregnant. What do I focus on first?
I stare at the path behind the house that leads to the shed, and after a while, I get up and saunter toward it. The path has been taken over by weeds, so I remind myself to tell my gardener to clear the area soon. I push the door open, which creaks with age and blows aside a few inches of dust coating the wooden floor.
I haven’t been here in so long that it feels like ages have passed.
I go to my knees in front of the dodgy-looking planks, which, surprisingly, have less dust on them. I push them aside and pull out a small lockbox, fishing the key from my pocket so I can open it.
Inside are dozens of papers of my past, things I never wanted to look at again but knew I had to keep safe in case I would ever need them again. Or have the courage to look at it once more.
Because at the very bottom of that little box is a photograph of the girl I once loved a long time ago. The one who perished in a shoot-out. The one I once thought I would marry … and who would give me an heir. Alannah.
How times have changed.
I pick it up and put down the lockbox, staring at the photograph. This girl used to bring me so much pain that I wanted to conceal her very existence and pretend she never existed. This photo is proof of that … it’s the only image I kept of her.
I cannot change the past, and I cannot bring her back from the dead.
She is gone, along with the love I once felt, because when I stare at this picture, I feel nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I sigh.
Maybe it’s for the best.
I bring the picture with me and walk up to the firepit at the edge of the garden where I haven’t sat in ages, and I light a fire with a match, throwing the picture on top without giving it a second thought.
If Harper is truly pregnant with my child, then it’s time to move on.
The past is over. I have a new future now.
And a new family is waiting for me inside that house.
