Chapter 1 - Eight Months
Emma Bennett gripped her stomach and whispered, “Please don’t come any closer.”
Adrian Moretti entered the clinic holding a black leather appointment card.
A handwritten number was circled on the back.
Thirty-two weeks.
Adrian suddenly realized the baby could be his.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The women’s clinic had been quiet only a moment earlier. A nurse had been typing behind the reception counter. Somewhere beyond the closed examination-room doors, a printer hummed. Emma had been trying to control the ache in her lower back while waiting for her doctor to call her name.
Then Adrian Moretti had stepped through the glass doors.
And eight months of carefully constructed distance collapsed.
Emma had imagined this moment in nightmares.
Never like this.
Adrian stood twenty feet away in a black suit and black shirt, his dark hair swept neatly from his face. He looked almost exactly as he had the day she left him—controlled, dangerous, impossible to read.
Except for his eyes.
His eyes were fixed on her stomach.
Emma’s first instinct was ridiculous.
She tried to cover it.
Both hands moved over the enormous curve beneath her gray maternity dress as though two palms could conceal thirty-two weeks of pregnancy.
Adrian noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He noticed everything.
“Emma?”
His voice was low.
Not angry.
That was worse.
She swallowed.
The nurse behind the desk looked from one of them to the other.
Emma’s obstetrician, Dr. Claire Monroe, stood near the hallway with a clipboard tucked against her chest.
“Mr. Moretti,” Emma said.
The formality landed between them like broken glass.
His jaw tightened.
Nobody had called him Mr. Moretti during their marriage.
Not her.
Never her.
His eyes dropped again.
“You’re pregnant.”
Emma felt the baby move.
A hard roll beneath her ribs.
She placed a hand there automatically.
Adrian saw that too.
His gaze followed the motion.
Something changed in his face.
It was almost imperceptible.
A calculation.
Emma knew Adrian’s mind. She had watched him calculate business deals, threats, distances, timing, exits.
Now he was calculating months.
She saw the exact second he reached the answer.
His shoulders went still.
“How far?”
“Adrian.”
“How far, Emma?”
She looked toward Dr. Monroe.
The doctor understood immediately.
“This is a private medical facility,” she said calmly. “If Ms. Bennett wants you to leave—”
“Thirty-two weeks.”
Emma closed her eyes.
The words had escaped before she could stop them.
Silence.
Adrian stared at her.
“Thirty-two.”
She said nothing.
His lips moved slightly.
Eight months.
Their divorce papers had been finalized seven months earlier.
But Emma had left their home eight months and six days ago.
Adrian stepped toward her.
Emma stepped back.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
For a man whose name could silence a restaurant simply by entering it, Adrian looked strangely lost.
“When did you find out?”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“That isn’t your concern.”
His expression hardened for one second.
Then softened again.
“Is it mine?”
The receptionist stopped typing.
Dr. Monroe lowered her clipboard.
Emma heard the distant squeak of a cart wheel.
Anything but Adrian’s voice.
Anything but that question.
“Emma.”
She looked at him.
He had been feared in Chicago long before she met him.
The newspapers never called him a mafia boss outright because newspapers employed lawyers.
They called him a businessman.
An alleged underworld figure.
A man with extensive interests in shipping, construction, security, and hospitality.
Emma had called him Adrian.
She had seen him barefoot in their kitchen at midnight.
She had watched him burn pancakes.
She had heard him laugh until tears came when she accidentally dyed one of his white shirts pink.
And she had also watched men lower their voices when he entered a room.
She had learned there were doors in his life he never opened for her.
She had left because eventually she became afraid of what stood behind them.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
“And I don’t owe you an answer.”
Pain flashed across his face.
Real pain.
She hated herself for noticing.
The baby kicked again.
Adrian’s eyes dropped.
“Eight months,” he murmured.
Emma looked away.
He took another step.
Then another.
His hands hung loose at his sides.
No anger.
No command.
No intimidation.
When he reached her, he looked down at her stomach and seemed to forget that anyone else existed.
Then his knees bent.
Emma froze.
Adrian Moretti dropped to one knee on the polished clinic floor.
The nurse behind the counter stared openly now.
Emma’s breath caught.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer.
His eyes remained on her stomach.
Slowly, he lifted one hand.
Then stopped before touching her.
Permission.
The gesture almost broke her.
This was the same man who could walk into a boardroom and take control before sitting down.
Now he was kneeling before her, afraid to place his hand on his own unborn child.
If it was his child.
“Emma,” he whispered.
She could hear the strain in his voice.
“Tell me.”
She should have stepped away.
Instead, something inside her surrendered.
Perhaps exhaustion.
Perhaps memory.
Perhaps the child moving beneath her heart.
She took Adrian’s hand.
His fingers were warm.
She placed his palm against the right side of her belly.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then the baby kicked hard.
Adrian stopped breathing.
Emma watched his expression collapse.
No criminal empire.
No reputation.
No cold calculation.
Only a man feeling a child move beneath his hand.
His eyes lifted slowly.
“Is this my baby?”
Emma’s vision blurred.
“Yes.”
One word.
That was all it took.
Adrian bowed his head.
Emma felt his hand tremble.
She had never seen Adrian tremble.
Not once.
Not even when shots had been fired outside one of his restaurants years ago.
Not when his father died.
Not when their marriage ended.
But now his fingers shook against her stomach.
“How long have you known?”
“Since three weeks after I left.”
His head snapped up.
“You knew before the divorce was final.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
Her sadness turned instantly to anger.
“You don’t get to make that sound simple.”
“Then make it complicated.”
“It already was.”
He stood.
The shift was immediate.
The vulnerable man disappeared behind the controlled exterior, but Emma knew him too well now.
She saw what lived underneath.
“Why?”
She hesitated.
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“Why did you hide my child from me?”
“Because I was scared.”
“Of me?”
Emma said nothing.
That answer hurt him more than yes.
He stepped back.
Dr. Monroe moved subtly closer to Emma.
Adrian noticed.
His expression became unreadable.
“I would never hurt you.”
“You never had to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means people around you do things you never ask them to do.”
He stared at her.
She continued before courage abandoned her.
“People watched me after I left.”
His face sharpened.
“What people?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe them.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“No, Adrian. This is exactly why I ran.”
His hands tightened.
He forced them open again.
“You think I had you followed?”
“I think somebody did.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I had known where you were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation eight months later.”
The answer was frightening precisely because she believed it.
Adrian turned toward the glass entrance.
His eyes scanned the street.
Emma’s stomach tightened.
Not a contraction.
Fear.
“What?”
He didn’t respond.
“Adrian.”
He looked at the receptionist.
“Who came in after me?”
The woman blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“In the last five minutes.”
“Mr. Moretti,” Dr. Monroe warned.
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Please.”
The word sounded unnatural coming from him.
The receptionist glanced toward the security monitor beneath her desk.
“A delivery driver. An older couple. One man who asked for the restroom.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma stared at Adrian.
“What are you thinking?”
He was already moving toward the entrance.
Then his phone vibrated.
Adrian stopped.
He removed it from his jacket.
Read the screen.
His face changed.
Not shock.
Recognition.
Emma had seen that expression before.
It meant danger had acquired a name.
“Who is it?” she asked.
Adrian didn’t answer.
“Adrian.”
He turned the phone toward her.
A photograph filled the screen.
Emma walking into the clinic twenty minutes earlier.
Taken from across the street.
Beneath it were six words.
SHE SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU SOONER.
Emma’s blood went cold.
Another message appeared.
This one contained only an address.
Her address.
The apartment where she had been living secretly for eight months.
Adrian looked toward the clinic doors.
A black sedan had just stopped at the curb.
The rear door opened.
Someone stepped out.
May you like
And Adrian whispered a name Emma had not heard since the night she fled.
“Victor.”
