It started three weeks after the siege, a subtle but persistent nausea that greeted me each morning. At first, I dismissed it as nerves, the lingering stress of the violence we had endured. But as the days passed and a bone-deep fatigue settled over me, a new, terrifying, and exhilarating possibility began to take root. I sat on the cool tile of our bathroom floor, breathing through another wave of sickness, when Dante appeared in the doorway, his face etched with concern.
"You okay?" he asked, his voice still rough with sleep.
"Yeah," I lied, forcing a weak smile. "Just a stomach thing."
"You've been tired lately, too," he observed, his perceptive gaze missing nothing.
My mind raced. *Could I be? Is it possible?* I counted the days in my head. My period was due next week. It was too early to know for sure, but the signs were there: the nausea, the exhaustion, the faint tenderness in my breasts. "I'm fine," I insisted. "Probably just a bug."
The secret thought followed me to the hospital that day. I went through the motions of reading to Tommy and playing games with the other children, but my mind was a million miles away. I was distracted, my hand drifting unconsciously to my stomach.
"You're a million miles away today," Grace, my volunteer friend, noted during our lunch break. "Good thoughts or bad?"
"I don't know yet," I admitted, the uncertainty a heavy weight.
On the way home, I had Marco stop at a pharmacy. My heart pounded a frantic rhythm against my ribs as I bought a pregnancy test, hiding it amongst a basket of toiletries. Back at the mansion, I tucked the box away in a bathroom drawer, deciding to wait until the morning when the result would be more accurate. The warring emotions of hope and fear were a dizzying cocktail, and I didn't know which was stronger.
While I was wrestling with the possibility of a new life, Dante was fighting to keep his own from unraveling. The federal investigation he'd mentioned was intensifying.
"The Feds questioned two of Antonio's top men this morning," Marco reported in Dante's office. "They're building a case around that weapons shipment from two years ago. Someone is giving them details only an insider would know."
"Who's talking?" Dante's voice was cold steel.
"We think it's Antonio himself," Marco said grimly. "Making a deal to save his own skin."
Dante's fist slammed onto his desk. "That bastard." Antonio had been his partner for over a decade. He knew everything. Every deal, every crime, every body. If he testified, Dante was facing decades in prison.
"What do we do, boss?"
"Find him," Dante ordered. "Bring him to me before he can testify." The dark intent was clear.
Marco hesitated. "Boss… if we touch him now, while he's talking to the Feds, it's obstruction of justice. They'll come down on you with everything they have."
Dante knew he was right. He was trapped.
He came home late that night, the stress of the day etched onto his face, but he tried to hide it from me. He forced a smile as I met him at the door, his kiss warm but distracted.
"You're late," I said, leading him to the dining room where I'd had the staff keep his favorite meal warm. "Everything okay?"
"Long day," he said evasively. "Business complications."
We ate together, but the easy intimacy we'd found was gone, replaced by a tense silence. His phone buzzed constantly, but he ignored it. "You can answer that if it's important," I said finally.
"You're more important."
I put my fork down. "Dante. What's wrong? And don't you dare say 'nothing.'"
He sighed, the fight going out of him. "There's an investigation. Federal. About some old business."
My stomach dropped. "How serious is it?"
"It could be serious," he admitted. "They're fishing. I just need to make sure they don't catch anything."
"Are you in danger?" I pressed. "Legal danger?"
"Possibly. But I have the best lawyers in the country. It will be fine." He said it with a certainty that didn't quite reach his eyes. I could see the fear lurking beneath the surface.
"What if you go to prison?" I whispered, the words feeling like poison on my tongue. "What if they take you away from me?"
He stood and came around the table, pulling me into his arms. "I will not let that happen," he vowed. "I will protect this. Us. Our future."
I wanted to believe him, but the fear was a cold, gnawing thing inside me. Especially now. I didn't tell him my suspicion about the baby. Not yet. Not while he was carrying this weight. I couldn't add to his burden.
That night, sleep was a stranger to us both. We lay side-by-side in the darkness, pretending to be asleep, each lost in our own private terror.
I woke before dawn, my heart pounding. I snuck into the bathroom, my hands shaking as I opened the test. I followed the instructions, set the timer for three minutes, and paced the cold marble floor. It was the longest three minutes of my life. When the timer finally went off, I took a deep, shuddering breath and looked.
Two lines. Faint, but undeniably there. *Pregnant.*
I sank to the floor, my hand covering my mouth as a sob of pure, unadulterated joy mixed with terror escaped me. I was pregnant. We were having a baby. The thought was a sunburst of happiness in the darkness of my fear. But Dante might be going to prison. I heard him stir in the bedroom and quickly hid the test in a drawer, splashing cold water on my face. I needed to think. I needed a plan.
At breakfast, I could barely touch my food. "You're still not feeling well?" Dante asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
"Still that stomach bug," I lied, hating the deception.
His day was worse than he let on. His lawyer called with grim news. "Dante, Antonio is in protective custody. He's cooperating fully, giving them everything. Names, dates, locations. Prepare for an indictment. They'll likely arrest you within the week."
Dante hung up the phone, his world closing in. Marco suggested the old way of solving problems. "There's one way to stop Antonio," he'd said, the meaning clear. Kill him. The old Dante would have done it without a second thought. But he wasn't the old Dante anymore. "I can't go back," he'd told Marco. "Not now. For her."
He came home that evening looking like a man walking to his own execution. I knew I couldn't wait any longer. He needed this. We needed this.
"Bad day?" I asked as he walked in.
"Could be better," he said, his voice heavy.
"Dante, I need to tell you something," I said, my own voice trembling. "And I need to tell you something, too," he replied.
"You first," he offered.
I took a deep breath, my hands shaking. We sat on the couch in the living room, the space feeling too large, too quiet. "This morning," I began, "I took a test."
His eyes widened slightly. "A test?"
I nodded, my heart in my throat. "A pregnancy test." I paused, letting the words hang in the air. "It was positive, Dante. We're having a baby."
He froze, his face a mask of shock. He just stared at me, processing. "You're pregnant?" he finally whispered, the words filled with a sense of wonder.
"Yes."
His expression cycled through a dozen emotions in a heartbeat—shock, disbelief, terror, and then, a slow-dawning, radiant joy that lit him up from the inside. "We're having a baby," he repeated, as if saying it aloud made it real. He pulled me into his arms, holding me so tight I could barely breathe. "We're having a baby!"
"Are you happy?" I asked, my voice muffled against his chest.
He pulled back, his hands framing my face. "Happy? I'm terrified." He laughed, a sound of pure, unadulterated joy. "But yes, Ella. I'm so, so happy." He kissed me, a kiss filled with all the hope and promise of the future we had just created. "We're going to be parents."
"Yes," I smiled through my tears. "We are."
The moment of pure bliss was shattered by the reality of our situation. "But the investigation…" I started.
His face hardened, the joy replaced by a fierce, protective determination. "I'll handle it."
"How? Your lawyer said—"
"I will figure it out," he insisted, his hand coming to rest on my still-flat stomach. "I am not missing this. I am not missing any of this. I will not let them take me from you, or from our baby."
"What if you don't have a choice?"
"There's always a choice," he said, a dark fire in his eyes that worried me. He was considering the old ways again, the violent solutions. We argued then, our first real fight in weeks, my pleas for him to make a deal or disappear into witness protection crashing against his stubborn refusal to betray his code or raise our child in hiding.
The argument was cut short by the sharp, insistent ring of the doorbell. It was 9 PM. We both froze. Marco appeared in the doorway, his face grim. "Boss. There are federal agents at the gate." My blood ran cold. "They have a warrant."
Dante's face went white. "A warrant for what?" I asked, my voice a thin thread.
Marco's eyes were filled with regret. "Your arrest."
They entered our home, three federal agents and two local cops, their presence a violation of the peace we had so carefully built. "Dante Russo, you are under arrest for violations of the RICO Act, including weapons trafficking and conspiracy," the lead agent said, his voice devoid of emotion.
Dante stood tall, his hands held out in front of him, his external calm a stark contrast to the fury I could see blazing in his eyes. He looked at me, at the tears streaming down my face. "It's okay," he said, his voice steady. "Call my lawyer."
"Dante—" I started, reaching for him.
"Ma'am, step back, please," an agent said, moving between us. They cuffed his hands behind his back. They were walking him out of his own home, out of our home. As they led him through the door, he looked back at me, his gaze filled with a love so fierce it was a physical blow.
"I love you," he said, his eyes dropping to my stomach. "Both of you."
And then he was gone. I stood there, watching the flashing red and blue lights disappear down the driveway, my hand pressed instinctively to my belly. Marco was at my side, already on the phone with the lawyer, but his words were a distant buzz. I sank to the floor, the beautiful rug feeling cold and unforgiving beneath me.
They had taken him in handcuffs. The father of my unborn child. Just hours ago, we had been filled with so much hope. And now, he was gone. The agent's words echoed in my mind: *racketeering, conspiracy, weapons trafficking*. Words that meant years. Decades. I sat on the floor of our living room, my hand on my belly where our baby, our secret, was growing, and realized with a crushing, soul-shattering certainty that I might have to raise this child alone. The devil was going to prison. And I was carrying his baby.