Page 89 of Debt to the Mafia King

“I can be both men. I can be the feared one to everyone else, but to you and our child, I can be softer. I refuse to be the type of man my father was.”

Sadness flickered into her eyes. Reaching up, she ran her gloved hands down my cheek. “You are nothing like your father,” she said quietly.

“I hope not, but back to what we need to decide. Do we find out the sex of the baby or not?”

Leah’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re asking me?”

“Yeah, well, you are a pretty important part of this, Leah. Of course, I am asking you.” I chuckled.

“I just presumed you would want to find out if you were having a son.”

I did a double-take. “I don’t care whether we have a boy or a girl, Leah, as long as they are fit and healthy. Even if they aren’t, I will cherish them.”

She beamed up at me. “Do you want to find out the sex?”

Did I? Did I want to know? Part of me screamed yes because under everything I was a control freak, but under it all I wanted the excitement and the surprise as well.

“Vikor?” Ivan’s voice called out from the house. “Your father is on the phone and wants to talk to you. He says you are blocking his calls.”

I grumbled under my breath. Of course, I was screening his calls. I had nothing to say to the old man, not after what he had asked Leah to do or the way he had left her, but I knew I had to speak to him.

I might be in charge now, but he was still too well respected to cut off completely. At least yet.

“I’m sorry.”

Leah nodded in understanding and looped her arm through mine. “Let’s go inside, Viktor. I’m not feeling the greatest anyway.”

I glanced at her as we walked back. She did look pale. Maybe a little green.

Her morning sickness.

Which was actually all day sickness seemed to hit her at a different time every day.

“And then you rest. I don’t want you to do anything for the rest of the day, ok?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m just a little nauseous, Viktor. I’m not dying. Millions of pregnant women work through their pregnancies.”

“None of those women is my wife. So you will rest, and if it’s ok with you, I would like to not find out what we are having. I would like it to be a surprise.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Leah

The screen was in a weird sort of orange-red, and I couldn’t make out a single thing on it. Frowning, I squinted at the screen as the doctor did another pass of the wand across the stomach. The gel was cold against my skin and felt gross. I wanted to wipe it away, but I knew we needed it to help see the baby.

Next to me, my hand grasped in his, Viktor let out a rattling breath and said something in excited rapid-fire Russian. Lifting my eyes to him, I found him looking at the screen with actual tears forming in his eyes.

I had seen Viktor look upset before, I had seen him angry, I had even seen him happy, but I had never seen that look on his face before. He looked, hell, I didn’t know how he looked.

It wasn’t quite happy. It was astounded. He said something again that I didn’t understand, and his eyes flicked down to me.

“What?” I whispered.

“Our baby,” he said again in English.

I looked back at the screen, but I couldn’t see it. Tears rushed upin my eyes, and a lump formed in my throat. Why couldn’t I see what they could?

What was wrong with me?