Fuck me.
She’s pregnant.
Natalya glanced up at me. “You’re going to be a father.”
I smiled despite how her words sent every cord of muscle cringing with anxiety. She buried her face in my chest and I hugged her close, even when there was an overwhelming urge to tear myself away.
I kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, tesoro.”
And as my wife sighed contentedly into my chest, guilt formed like a raised welt on top of the anxiety. But I smashed, stomped, and squeezed them into my end-justifies-the-means compartment.
My eyes met their reflection in the mirror.
There was no joy, and I tried not to flinch at the devious calculation I saw in them.
For three weeks, I played the doting husband. I was so good at it, sometimes I fooled even myself. I’d been saddled with a weak woman controlled by her mother, but her pedigree was everything. My goal was to make my wife fall in love with me and win her loyalty. I’d accomplished that in under a week, and now whenever she looked at me with stars in her eyes, I’d been anxious to accomplish my next goal.
A child would solidify the alliance between the Morettis and the Contes. After Santino wiped out most of Vincenzo’s inner circle, Natalya’s father was desperate to have a direct descendant who could keep his line alive and take over his position. Carmine was acting underboss for his kingdom, but he didn’t have enough support among the different clans. They saw him as an outlier, a bastard son of a soldier of no consequence, but he had the education and the mind of a politician, which was what Vincenzo needed to manage the Galluzo. He tapped me to help Carmine learn the ropes of high-stakes negotiations with other organizations, specifically the Russian mafia. I smothered a groan that I didn’t need that headache, but the ambition of being the most important man in the underworld was too tempting.
“What’s wrong?” Natalya asked. Her luminous eyes radiated adoration and a little apprehension that heightened my guilt.
I struggled for something to say. “I never thought I’d be this overwhelmed.”
She laughed into my shirt. I liked her laughter. Like her hair, it was all sunshine, and it lifted the cloudiness of my moods. That was another thing that pleased me in our union. She didn’t irritate me too much except that time she suggested walking in the rain. I only indulged her romantic notions to get her quickly with child. Now that I’d accomplished the task, it was time to pull back.
After a few seconds, she lifted her eyes again, merriment still etched there. “Just wait until you have sleepless nights with the baby keeping you awake.”
Fuck.
“The horror.” The grin I shot her scourged another welt on my conscience. And once again, I forced my conscience to justify my actions. It was too soon to tell her I didn’t intend to be around to do all the raising. I had no desire to be attached to the baby or the mother. I would take care of them, and I would love them in my own way, but not to the point of weakness. It was okay if they loved me, but I wanted loyalty more than anything else, and with women, to gain loyalty was to first gain their love.
Sera was the perfect example. I had her loyalty until she’d gone and fallen in love with a De Lucci. The only way to get my niece to do my bidding was to threaten the man she loved.
My first duty was to the Moretti crime family.
Natalya, as my wife, would understand this soon enough.
