Part 2: The Mafia Boss Came to End His Marriage, but the Midwife Said She Was Only Twenty-Nine Weeks Pregnant

The corridor outside the NICU grew freezing cold. Lucian knelt beside Kate’s wheelchair, his presence instantly commanding, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper.

“Say that again.”

Kate pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders, shivering despite the hospital heating. “Three weeks after I moved to Hawthorne Ridge, a delivery van arrived. Two men claimed they had furniture forwarded from the city townhouse. Miriam happened to be visiting for a checkup. She recognized the driver—a man who worked for the Moretti docks.”

Lucian’s jaw set like iron. The Morettis were his family’s oldest allies—and his sharpest rivals. Their alliance had been sealed decades ago, but tension had been mounting over shipping territories in New Jersey.

“They didn't just want to talk, Lucian,” Kate continued, her eyes fixed on his. “Miriam pulled her shotgun from behind the pantry door and fired into the porch ceiling before they could cross the threshold. When they scrambled back into the van, I saw the ring on the passenger’s hand. The silver signet with the split serpent. The one your uncle Vincent wears.”

Lucian felt a cold fury settle into his marrow. Uncle Vincent. The traditionalist who had openly opposed Lucian’s marriage to Kate, calling her an outsider with no blood ties to the syndicate, an unnecessary vulnerability.

“Why didn't you call me?” Lucian asked, his voice strained with disbelief. “I would have torn New York apart brick by brick.”

“And what would you have done with me?” Kate challenged, tears spilling over her eyelashes. “Locked me in a gilded penthouse with twenty armed guards? Used our unborn child as a bargaining chip in your territorial wars? I wanted peace, Lucian. I wanted my baby to breathe clean air, away from blood and extortion.”

She turned to face him fully, her gaze cutting straight through his armor.

“I didn't answer your calls because every time I heard your voice, I remembered what you said at our wedding dinner. You told your captains that a wife was an ornament, and love was an illness that got men killed.”

Lucian winced as if struck. He remembered that night. He had said those words to protect her—to project ruthless indifference so none of his enemies would see Kate as his pressure point. He had spent years wearing the mask of an unfeeling predator, never realizing that the poison of his own reputation would choke the only person he loved.

Before Lucian could speak, his phone vibrated against his hip. It was Marco.

Lucian rose slowly, pressing the phone to his ear. “Speak.”

“Boss, we swept the Hawthorne Ridge property,” Marco said, his tone urgent and grim. “We found tire tracks half a mile down the ridge. Professional surveillance setup. They’ve been tapping the phone lines and logging every vehicle arriving at the house.”

“Whose signatures on the tech?”

“Vincent’s crew,” Marco replied. “And Boss... there’s more. Vincent just called an emergency council meeting at the Manhattan club. He claims you’ve abandoned your post upstate for a woman who signed over her rights.”

Lucian looked through the glass at tiny Leo, then down at Kate, whose hand trembled against her lap.