That was the dichotomy of Gio versus John—two very different men, trapped within a single body. Even havingwitnessed both sides of his personality firsthand, it was still hard to wrap my mind around the striking contrast.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” his deep voice rumbled. “Dr. Corsi said you need to rest so your body can heal.”
Pouting, I replied, “I woke up alone.”
Gio dipped his chin toward Luca. “Heard him whimpering through the baby monitor. Figured he was hungry and was going to bring him to you, but the minute I picked him up, he passed out again. Now I can’t get up for fear of waking him.”
I stepped closer. “You look good nap trapped.”
His lips brushed against the baby’s jet-black hair. “Can’t say I’m too mad about it.”
Pressing against the sides of my tender breasts, I was—with deep regret—forced to put an end to this tender moment. “I need to feed him. With the roads impassable, blocking our access to phototherapy, that’s the only way to combat his jaundice.”
As if it wasn’t bad enough that the nightmare of his birth replayed on an endless loop every time I closed my eyes, my anxiety shot through the roof after receiving that diagnosis from our current live-in physician. Only to be further compounded by then going down the rabbit hole on the internet, uncovering all the severe complications my sweet baby boy could potentially suffer if the condition went untreated.
“You’re right,” Gio agreed, rising to his feet. “Why don’t you sit while I try to rouse him with a diaper change?”
If you’d have told me that the big bad mafia man I married would insist on changing every dirty diaper, I would have never believed it. But there had been a noticeable shift in him the moment we became parents, and I welcomed the change.
It was almost as if my prayers had been answered, and bit by bit, John was slowly coming back to me.
But I wasn’t naïve enough to believe this could last. Right now, we were living in a bubble, shielded from the rest of the world byvirtue of a snowstorm that had brought the city to a standstill. With that isolation came the freedom for Gio to explore that other part of himself, but soon, the threat to our survival would demand his attention again, and he’d be forced to revert back to the ruthless mafia don he was born to be.
A freshly diapered Luca was placed in my arms, and as he latched, I couldn’t stop staring at the bruises that marred his perfect face, courtesy of the forceps delivery.
In a way, it felt like foreshadowing. How many times would I see my baby boy come home battered and broken because of the life—the family—he’d been born into? Would he be fortunate to live long enough to graduate high school, to get married, to have children of his own? No matter what happened with the coup staged by Gio’s uncle, new enemies would constantly make themselves known, and there would always be a target on my son’s back.
How was a mother expected to carry on, knowing that within minutes of birth, their child’s life expectancy had been significantly shortened, through no fault of their own?
“Hey.” Gio knelt beside me, his thumb stroking my cheek. “Why are you crying?”
Shoving my fears deep down, I put on a brave face. “My hormones are all over the place. I swear it’s even worse now than when I was pregnant.”
He eyed me skeptically. “You sure that’s all it is?”
The man was a bloodhound when it came to lies; he could sniff one out from over a mile away.
I nodded. “I’m fine, really.”
His hum told me he wasn’t overly convinced, but he let it drop, content to sit by my side as I fed our baby.
If only the three of us could stay like this forever.
“No one warned me how freaking hungry I’d be all the time.” The words were said around a mouthful of pasta as I lifted my bowl for a refill. This was already my sixth full meal today!
Gio chuckled, wasting no time in scooping another heaping helping from the pot on the stove. “You’re burning a lot of calories making food for our little man.”
“I sure hope that’s what it is, or else I won’t be able to fit through the front door by the time this storm is through.”
We were four days into Luca’s birthday blizzard, and while the snow had stopped, the high winds were still going strong, making it difficult for the road crews to see well enough to clear the several feet of frozen precipitation on the ground.
Slurping the last noodle through my lips, I rested a palm over my now-full stomach, and a sigh of bliss rushed past my lips. “Delicious.”
“Glad you enjoyed it.” He reached above his head to place his clean bowl back in the cupboard.
My eyes widened as I tracked the move. “Oh my God, Gio! Did I eat it all?”
He waved me off. “You needed it more than me. I’ll just grab some cereal.”
