Because some moments are too large to approach carelessly.
I hold it out.
He looks at it. Then at me. Then at it again.
"Without our baby," I breathe.
The silence that follows is a different kind of silence than any we have had before. Not tense. Not calculating. Not the silence of a man building a strategy or a man holding a wall in place. It is the silence of a man who has been completely, entirely, for possibly the first time in his life, caught off guard.
"Our baby," he repeats.
"Yes. That's what I came to tell you." I hold his gaze across the space between us, across the six months and everything in them. "I'm pregnant, Salvatore."
He doesn't move.
Then he closes the distance.
He takes the test from my hand and sets it very carefully on the edge of the desk, like it is something that deserves to be treated gently, and then he cups my face in both hands.
"Salvatore?"
"Don't," he says. "Give me a moment."
I give him the moment.
I watch it move through him, the man who controlled every room he ever walked into, who built an empire on patience andstrategy, who told me once that sentiment does not rewrite strategy. I watch sentiment rewrite him entirely. Right in front of me. Without apology.
His thumb traces along my cheekbone.
"I choose you," I tell him. Quietly. Clearly. Every word landing where I intend it to. "Today. Tomorrow. Every day for the rest of my life." I cover his hands with mine. "I choose you, Salvatore Vitale. I choose all of it. I choose us."
He exhales.
Long and slow and complete, like a man releasing something he has been holding since long before this morning.
Then he pulls me in, both arms around him, face against his chest, his heartbeat steady under my ear, and he holds on the way he always holds on when it counts.
Like he’s never letting go.
Like he made that decision long before he ever said it out loud.
I used to dream of a different life. Something simple and safe. I thought that was the dream.
But I never imagined this. Never imagined becominghis.
Never imagined I’d be standing here…
a queen in the middle of the Mafia King’s Reign.
Salvatore
When I finally pull back, I keep one hand at her waist, anchoring her to me.
"Come," She says. "I made breakfast."
I blink. "Breakfast?"
“Yes.”
