Chapter 15 - The Unworthy Visitor|
An hour passed in a gentle haze. The newborn had been weighed, wrapped snugly in a white fleece blanket, fed, and officially declared perfect by every woman in the room.
Marion smoothed Lucia’s damp hair away from her forehead and asked softly, "Do you want him to know?"
Lucia turned her head toward the heavy wooden door. She had spent the last six months asking herself what Nico deserved from her. Pain? Absolute exile? Endless legal consequences? He deserved all of those things.
But the breathing child resting against her shoulder was not a weapon to hurt him with. She was not a prize to be won, nor a legacy marker to be placed on a mafia Don's chessboard. She was a human being.
"Yes," Lucia said quietly. "Tell him."
Marion walked to the door and pulled it open. Nico stood up instantly, his body rigid.
He looked worse than Lucia had ever seen him, though not in a physical sense. The cut along his temple from the warehouse fire had healed into a thin pale line. His tailored suit was immaculate. His dark hair was combed back. But his eyes betrayed him—they were wide, bloodshot, and raw with pure terror.
Marion stepped aside, holding the door. "You may come in," she instructed firmly. "Quietly."
Nico stepped into the room like a man walking toward an altar he knew he had no sacred right to touch. He stopped four feet from the edge of the bed.
For the first time since Lucia had known him, his eyes didn't look at her first. He looked straight down at the pink bundle in her arms. Everything in his composed, dangerous face fractured into pieces.
"She’s beautiful," he whispered, his voice catching in his throat.
"She is," Lucia agreed.
His dark eyes slowly lifted to meet hers. "Are you all right, Lucia?"
"I am alive."
"The delivery?"
"It was long."
"I’m sorry," Nico said softly.
May you like
Lucia raised an eyebrow. "For the delivery?"
"For not being the kind of husband who deserved to stand beside you while you endured it."
