Bought By The Mafia CEO

Heartbeat

The penthouse was quiet at 6 a.m.

Too quiet for a house that had burned a pier overnight.

Elena woke up because she couldn't breathe. Not panic. Weight. Alessandro was still wrapped around her exactly like he'd fallen asleep - one arm locked around her waist, his big palm flat over her stomach, over his t-shirt. His forehead pressed to her temple. His stitches had bled through the thin gauze in the night, a small rust-colored spot right over the M.

He hadn't moved. Like if he let go, she'd disappear.

She touched his hair. Black, soft, damp with sweat.

"Alessandro."

He woke instantly. Not groggy. Mafia-wake. Grey eyes snapping open, hand going to where his gun should be on the nightstand, then remembering. Then seeing her. His hand relaxed. Came back to her belly.

"Did you sleep?"

"You drooled on me," she whispered, lying.

He didn't smile. He looked down at her feet - the white bandages had a faint pink dot where glass had been deep. At her split lip, already less swollen.

"Does it hurt?"

"Everything hurts less when you're squeezing the life out of me."

He loosened his grip one inch, guilty. "Scusa, principessa."

Then his eyes dropped to the nightstand. The pregnancy test was still there, face up. That faint second line had dried darker overnight.

He stared at it like it was a loaded gun.

Luca knocked once. Then opened the door without waiting.

"Boss. Car is downstairs. Dr. Moretti can see you both at eight before his clinic opens. Private entrance. I told him it's for your chest, not —" Luca's eyes flicked to Elena, to the test. To Alessandro's hand still on her flat stomach. Luca, who never showed emotion, swallowed. "Congratulations?"

"Don't say it out loud yet," Alessandro snapped, too fast. "It's faint. Could be wrong."

Elena looked at him. Since when did Alessandro De Luca sound scared?

Luca nodded and left the box on the dresser. A small black velvet box. Not jewelry. Luca knew better.

Alessandro picked it up before Elena could ask. Inside, folded, was the contract. Their blood contract. $2 million, 12 months, annulment clause, NDA, her father's debt paid.

He had actually burned the corner. Charred black.

"I told you I burned it," he said to her.

"You kept the ashes?"

"I keep everything that is yours."

He carried her to the bathroom. He wouldn't let her walk on bandaged feet. In the white marble bathroom, he unwrapped her feet himself, wincing every time she winced, washing the cuts with water so gentle it made her chest ache.

"You don't have to —"

"I have to." He pressed a kiss to her ankle, above the bandage. "Doctor said no stress. So I do it."

He dressed her. His sweats cut off at the knees, his shirt again. He put his own coat around her shoulders for the garage cold.



Dr. Moretti's private office smelled like the penthouse - antiseptic and money.

He looked at Alessandro's chest first. "You tore one stitch sleeping like that. You were told no stress."

Alessandro didn't even look at him. "Do her first."

Elena lay back on the paper-covered table, Alessandro's hand crushing hers. The cold gel on her belly made her gasp.

Dr. Moretti was quiet, moving the probe. Too quiet.

Elena's heart was beating in her ears. Two weeks late could be stress. The faint line could be evaporation. She had told herself that all night.

Then - a flicker. On the black and white screen.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Fast, impossibly fast.

"There," Moretti said softly. "Six weeks, maybe five and a half. See that flicker? That's heartbeat."

Elena couldn't see through tears.

Alessandro went completely still. The hand holding hers started to shake.

"That's...?" His voice broke. The CEO who ordered dock burnings live on feed.

"Your baby," Moretti said. "Strong heartbeat. Very strong, like father."

Alessandro made a sound. Not a word. He bent over, pressed his face into Elena's neck, his shoulders shaking again. For the second time in seven years.

He was crying against her neck in a doctor's office, his fresh stitches bleeding again, whispering in Italian so fast she only caught one word.

Mia. Mia. Mia.

Mine.

He kissed her belly, gel and all, right there in front of the doctor.

"Did you hear that, Matteo?" he whispered to his chest, to his tattoo, to his brother. "You have nephew."

Elena was laughing and crying, her hand in his hair. "Alessandro, we have to - my mother -"

"Your mother is already being moved to the main house. Nurse stays. Your father - Elena, your father's name will be cleared publicly today. I have press release ready."

He looked at her, grey eyes wet, obsessive, wrecked, in love.

"You thought I bought you for revenge, principessa. But you were already my family. That night in red dress. You just didn't know."

He helped her sit up, wiped gel off her belly himself with paper, like she was made of glass.

On the way out, Dr. Moretti stopped him. "Mr. De Luca, your chest -"

"Give me pills. I have a wife to carry and a city to burn for her. I don't have time to bleed."

In the elevator down, alone, Elena touched his tattoo, over the bloody gauze.

"Alessandro, what do we do now? I'm pregnant with a Mafia heir and I still don't know how to be a wife."

He caged her against elevator wall, careful of her feet, careful of her belly, his forehead to hers. That blood, rain, cologne smell she now knew was home.

"Now?" he whispered, hand sliding down to cover her belly again, possessive, absolute. "Now you let me show you how De Luca men love their wives. Obsessively. Forever. No contract can hold it."

The elevator doors opened to Luca and two more guards.

Luca saw Alessandro's face, saw Elena's tears, saw the ultrasound photo clutched in Alessandro's bloody hand like it was a weapon.

Luca smiled for real this time.

"Welcome to family, Mrs. De Luca."