I gripped his sleeve, terror swallowing every ounce of pride I had left.
“My baby,” I gasped. “My baby is coming.”
For half a second, Dante Moretti froze.
Then the man who ran Boston’s most dangerous criminal empire vanished, and something older, deeper, and more terrifying took his place.
A father before he even knew how to be one.
“Your water broke,” he said, already lifting me into his arms. “How far apart are the contractions?”
“I don’t know,” I cried. “That was the first real one. I thought I had three weeks.”
“You’re going to St. Catherine’s.”
“I can’t afford—”
“I don’t care what it costs.”
He carried me to the Mercedes like I weighed nothing, opened the passenger door, and lowered me inside with a gentleness that made my heart ache worse than the pain.
Another contraction hit before he could buckle the seat belt.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed.
“Breathe,” he ordered, but his voice trembled. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Look at me, Lena.”
“I hate you,” I whimpered.
“I know.”
“It hurts.”
“I know, baby.”
The old word slipped out.
Baby.
He used to call me that when he thought I was asleep. Softly. Like the word scared him.
He shut my door, ran around the car, and slid behind the wheel. The engine roared to life.
With one hand on the wheel, he dialed.
“Clear the route to St. Catherine’s,” he snapped. “Now. I don’t care who you have to call. Lights, intersections, cops, everybody moves.”
He hung up and called someone else.
“Dr. Mitchell? It’s Moretti. Labor and delivery. St. Catherine’s. Fifteen minutes. The mother of my child is in labor.”
My head turned toward him.
“The mother of your what?”
His eyes stayed on the road. “You’re thirty-seven weeks pregnant. I left nine months ago. Look me in the eyes and tell me he isn’t mine.”
I opened my mouth.
No lie came out.
His hand tightened on the steering wheel.
“Lena.”
Tears slid down my face. “You left.”
His face twisted like I had struck him.
“I know.”
“You disappeared.”
“I know.”
“I went to your building two weeks after you left. I went to your club. I called every number I had. Nobody would tell me where you were.”
The Mercedes shot through a yellow light as if the city had parted for him.
“I was in Chicago,” he said. “At first.”
“At first?”
He swallowed. “Six weeks. Then I came back.”
Pain, rage, and disbelief cut through me sharper than the contraction.
“You came back?”
“Lena—”
“You came back and never called me?”
His silence answered.
Another contraction rose, brutal and fast. I screamed, grabbing the door handle with one hand and my belly with the other.
Dante cursed under his breath. “Three minutes. They’re three minutes apart.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not!” I sobbed. “I don’t have the bassinet finished. I haven’t packed the right bag. I don’t know how to be a mother. I don’t know how to do this alone.”
“You’re not alone anymore.”
I turned on him with every broken piece of me.
“You don’t get to say that.”
He looked like he wanted to argue.
Instead he said, “You’re right.”
St. Catherine’s Medical Center appeared ahead, glowing white against the rain. Dante pulled up to the emergency entrance where two nurses and a doctor were already waiting with a wheelchair.
He was out of the car before anyone could open his door.
“Lena Harper,” he said. “Thirty-seven weeks. Water broke about twelve minutes ago. Contractions three minutes apart.”
The nurse looked at him. “Are you the father?”
The world slowed.
Dante looked at me.
For one wild, ridiculous second, I thought he would hesitate.
He didn’t.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m the father.”
They wheeled me through bright hallways that smelled like antiseptic and fear. Dante walked beside me, still holding my hand.
“Don’t leave,” I whispered.
His eyes broke open.
“I’m not leaving.”
“You said that before.”
He leaned down and pressed his forehead briefly against mine.
“Then I’ll spend the rest of my life proving I mean it this time.”
Labor was not beautiful.
It was fluorescent lights, ugly hospital gowns, sweat in my hair, nurses checking monitors, and pain that made me forget every dignified thing I had ever been.
Dante stayed.
When a nurse asked him to step out while they helped me change, I snapped, “No.”
Dante said the same word at the same time.
The nurse gave us a look, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
He turned around while they changed me, but he never left the room. When the contractions came harder, he counted my breathing. When I cried, he wiped my face. When I cursed him so creatively that one nurse coughed to hide a laugh, he accepted every word like he deserved them.
Maybe he did.
Between contractions, the truth came out in broken pieces.
“I tried to find you,” I said, exhausted. “I wanted to tell you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t know what it was like. Every doctor appointment alone. Every bill alone. Every night wondering if my baby would ask one day why his father didn’t want him.”
Dante’s face went pale.
“I never stopped wanting you.”
“Then why did you leave?”
His hand covered mine on the hospital sheet.
“Because someone sent a man to your apartment.”
The machines beeped steadily beside me.
“What?”
“His name was Julian Voss. He wanted my position. Vanessa Cortez helped him. She worked inside my organization, close enough to poison every room she entered. She knew about you. She convinced half my people that loving you made me weak.”
I stared at him. “Vanessa?”
“A woman I trusted too much.”
“Were you with her?”
“No.”
The answer came fast. Hard. Absolute.
“She wanted that. I didn’t.”
A contraction began to build, but I forced the question out first.
“What did Julian do?”
Dante’s eyes dropped.
“He ordered someone to scare you. Maybe worse. I found out before it happened. Stopped it. But the message was clear. If I stayed with you, they would keep coming.”
“So you decided for me?”
His silence was unbearable.
“You decided I wasn’t strong enough to choose?”
“No,” he said, voice breaking. “I decided I wasn’t strong enough to watch you die because of me.”
The contraction hit, and I screamed through it, furious that pain could interrupt rage.
When it passed, Dr. Mitchell checked me and said, “Seven centimeters. This baby isn’t waiting long.”
After he left, Dante leaned close.
“I wrote you a note because I was a coward. I thought if I made you hate me, you’d be safer.”
“It worked,” I whispered. “I hated you every day.”
His thumb brushed my knuckles.
“And loved me?”
I closed my eyes.
“That too.”
For a while, the room softened.
He asked about the baby. I told him our son kicked whenever I ate spicy food and got quiet when I played old Motown songs. I told him his heartbeat sounded like thunder. I told him I had planned to name him Mateo because Dante once told me his grandfather Mateo was the only good man in his family.
Dante’s eyes filled.
“You remembered that?”
“I remember everything,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
Then the pressure changed.
Deep. Terrifying. Unstoppable.
I grabbed his wrist. “Dante.”
He stood immediately. “What?”
“I need to push.”
The room exploded into motion.
Nurses came in. Dr. Mitchell returned. Someone lifted my knees. Someone told me to breathe. Someone told me not yet.
“I can’t,” I sobbed.
Dante’s face came close to mine. “You can.”
“No, I can’t.”
“You rebuilt your life with nothing. You carried our son alone. You worked double shifts while pregnant because nobody was there to catch you. Lena Harper, you can do anything.”
The next contraction rose like fire.
I pushed.
The pain tore a scream from my throat.
Again.
Then again.
“His head is out,” Dr. Mitchell said. “One more big push.”
“I’m tired,” I cried.
“I know,” Dante said. “Give him one more, baby.”