I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. What do I say? How do I put into words this overwhelming tide of emotion that’s threatening to drown me? Terror and joy and love so intense it physically hurts, all tangled together until I can’t separate one from the other.
My hand moves to her stomach, feeling nothing but the soft warmth of her skin beneath the hospital gown. But knowing what’s there—what’s growing—changes everything.
“I-I’m going to be a father,” I manage finally, and my voice sounds wrecked and raw. “Gigi, I’m going to be afather.”
“Yes.” She’s crying and laughing at once. “We’re going to have a baby, Luca. You’re going to be a father.”
The reality of it slaps me across the face. Achild.Mychild. Someone who will look up at me with Gigi’s eyes or my own, who will depend on me for everything, who will need me to be better than I’ve ever been.
Someone I could fail. Someone I could damage. Someone who deserves so much more than a father with blood on his hands and violence in his past.
“What if I’m terrible at it?” The words spill out before I can stop them. “What if I don’t know how to be a father? What if I fuck them up the way my father fucked me up?”
She looks pained. “Luca?—”
“No, listen to me.” I need her to understand. “I’ve spent my entire adult life being a weapon. Breaking things, destroying people. That’s what I’m good at.” I clench my fists, my stomach flip flopping. “What if that’s all I know how to be?”
Gigi takes my face in her hands, forcing me to look at her. Her brown eyes are full of love. “You are so much more than that,” she says firmly. “You’re the man who spared my father when you had every right to kill him. The man who was with me when I released Bambi.” Her thumbs brush away tears I didn’t realize were falling. “That’s the father our baby is going to have. Not the weapon. The man.”
I want to believe her. God, I want to believe that I can be the father this child deserves.
“I’m terrified,” I admit, the confession torn from somewhere deep inside. “I’m absolutely fucking terrified, Gigi.”
“Good.” She smiles through her tears. “That means you care. That means you’re already thinking about how to protect them, and to keep them safe. That’s what good fathers do.”
Ourbaby. The concept is still so abstract and impossible to grasp. But one thing keeps ringing through my head: life. We created life together.
“Seven weeks,” I say, doing the math. “That means?—”
“Conception was probably the first time we had sex.” Gigi’s cheeks flush slightly. “Remember? In my room?”
“I remember.” How could I forget? I remember every detail of that night. The fight she and I had. How I was so angry at her, how I wanted her to hurt and feel pain. “I remember exactly.”
I press my forehead to hers, my hand still splayed across her stomach. “I love you,” I tell her, the words inadequate but all I have. “I love you so fucking much, Gigi. And I already love this baby. Our baby.”
“Yeah?” Her voice is small and hopeful.
“Yeah.” I pull back enough to see her face, wiping away tears. “The second you told me, I loved them. Completely. Irrevocably. The way I love you.”
Then I’m kissing her—fierce, desperate, pouring every emotion I can’t articulate into the press of our lips. She responds immediately, her hands fisting in my hospital gown, pulling me closer despite my injuries.
This is it. This is everything. Gigi and our baby and our life. Not perfect, not without scars, but ours. Real and messy and beautiful.
The heart monitor beside my bed starts beeping frantically, the steady rhythm accelerating into something that sounds like an alarm. My pulse is racing, my blood pressure probably through the roof, but I don’t care. I just keep kissing my wife, tasting salt from both our tears.
The door bursts open and a nurse rushes in, her eyes going wide when she sees us. “Mr. Marchetti!” she yells. “You need to calm down, your vitals are?—”
“Get out,” I growl against Gigi’s lips.
The nurse blanches. “But your heart rate?—”
“I said get out.” I finally pull back from Gigi just enough to glare at the nurse. “My wife just told me we’re having a baby. My heart rate is fine. Everything is fine. Now leave us alone.”
The nurse looks torn between professional concern and self-preservation. Self-preservation wins. “I’ll check back in fifteen minutes,” she says, backing toward the door.
The moment she’s gone, Gigi bursts into laughter. Real, genuine laughter that makes her eyes crinkle and her whole face light up. “Oh my God, Luca. That poor nurse.”
“She interrupted,” I say, mock-serious, but I’m grinning too. “Important moment. Baby announcement. She should have known better.”
