Leaving The Don Keeping His Child

My boyfriend took three bullets for me on our anniversary. And now he will die because of me. "Alessio! Alessio, please don't close your eyes!" My white dress is soaked in his blood. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely hold his face. The restaurant we booked for our anniversary is now a crime scene. Tables flipped. Glasses shattered. The sound of gunfire still ringing in my ears. Alessio De Luca — the most feared Don in Sicily, the man who made the entire city kneel — is lying in my lap, bleeding out. And he is smiling at me. "Sei... sei al sicuro?" Are you safe? His voice is a whisper. His grey eyes, the same eyes I fell in love with two years ago, are fading. He used his body as a shield. When the Bratva men opened fire, he didn't duck. He didn't fight. He just wrapped me in his tattooed arms and took every bullet meant for me. One in the chest. Two in the abdomen. "I'm safe! I'm safe, don't you dare leave me!" I scream as the sirens get closer. "You promised me 80 years, Alessio! You promised!" His big, tattooed hand — the hand covered in roses and barbed wire that kills people — weakly touches my flat stomach. "Il nostro... anniversario..." Our anniversary... He passes out.  12 HOURS LATER - POLICLINICO HOSPITAL, PALERMO The doctor's face tells me everything before he speaks. " Miss Moretti, sit down." I can't sit. I've been standing outside the ICU for 12 hours in the same bloody dress. Alessio's men are everywhere in black suits. His mother is crying in the corner. Everyone is looking at me like I am the reason he is dying. "How is he?" My voice is gone. "He survived the surgery. We removed the bullets. But..." Doctor Greco looks at the chart. "Both his kidneys were destroyed. Completely shattered by the bullets. He has acute renal failure. Without a transplant in 14 days, he will die." My knees give out. One of his guards catches me. "Test us," his mother, Mama De Luca, begs the doctor, grabbing his arm. "Test the whole famiglia! Money is no object! Take mine!" "We already did. We tested 43 family members and staff. No match. His blood type is AB negative. Extremely rare." AB negative. The room spins. I know that blood type. I know it because I have it. The same rare blood type that made Alessio laugh two years ago when I told him on our first date. He said, "So we are both rare, principessa. Me, a mafia Don who loves a waitress. You, the only girl in Sicily with my blood." "Test me," I whisper. Everyone turns. "Test me, Doctor. Now." Doctor Greco frowns. " Miss Moretti, you are traumatized and —" "TEST ME! I AM AB NEGATIVE TOO!" The silence is deafening. Mama De Luca stares at me, her eyes red. Ten minutes later, my blood is drawn. The lab runs. I sit on the cold floor, praying to a God I never believed in. The doctor comes back, running. His face is pale. "Perfect match. 100% match. Six antigens. I have never seen such a perfect match outside identical twins." A sob rips out of me. "Then take it! Take my kidney! Take it now! I don't care!" But before he can answer, a nurse runs in with another paper in her hand. Her face is strange. "Doctor Greco, we did the mandatory pre-transplant screening for Miss Moretti as you ordered. We found... you need to see this." Doctor Greco takes the paper. Reads it. Then looks at me with horror and pity. " Miss Moretti】... did you know you are pregnant?" The world stops. What? "Six weeks pregnant. Your hCG levels are very high." I'm pregnant. I am pregnant with Alessio's child. My hand flies to my flat stomach — the same stomach he touched while bleeding. A child. We made a child. A tiny life inside me that has his grey eyes already. Doctor Greco's voice is suddenly very soft, very serious. "Miss Moretti, you cannot donate a kidney while pregnant. Especially in your first trimester. The anesthesia, the surgery, the blood loss... you will almost certainly lose the baby. You could hemorrhage and die yourself. Medically, I cannot allow it. It's two lives." Two lives. My boyfriend's life. And my baby's life. His baby. Alessio will die in 14 days without me. My baby will die today if I save him. I look through the ICU window. Alessio is lying there, pale, machines beeping, a tube down his throat. My beautiful, tattooed, possessive Don who took three bullets for me because he loves me more than his own life. And I make my choice. I grab Doctor Greco's coat, tears streaming down my bloody face. "Doctor, please. Don't tell him. Don't tell anyone I'm pregnant. And don't tell anyone it was me." "What?" "Give him my kidney. Tell him it was an anonymous donor. Tell him it was paid for. Tell him anything. But save him. Save him first." "Miss Moretti, you will lose your child!" Tears burn my eyes, but my voice is steel. "If my child dies so his father can live... then my child died a hero. But if Alessio dies because I was scared... then I will never forgive myself. And our child will never forgive me either." I kneel. "Please. Save the father of my child." Behind me, the ICU door opens. Alessio's Consigliere, Marco, heard everything. His face is dark. "Lina," he says coldly, "if you do this and survive, you must leave him. Forever. The Bratva thinks you made him weak. If you stay, they will come back and finish him. If you love him, disappear after the surgery." I close my eyes. I feel my baby, the size of a pea, inside me. I am losing everything today. My kidney. My love. My life here. But he will live. "Okay," I whisper to the floor. "I'll leave. Just save him."