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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Dario

I wanted to punch something. Hard. I wanted to pummel the walls until my fingers bled.

I looked over at Mya, looking tired and frail as she lay in the hospital bed. She was monitored by machines that drove me crazy with their constant noises. All I felt was rage.

Rage that I couldn’t help her. Rage that I was the cause of her distress.

I’d set all these events in motion by making her marry me. Perhaps she would have been better off without me.

No, I couldn’t think that way. This was Matteo’s fault. He had shown his true colors.

I had thought I could control him, appease him so that he could move on. But his hatred for me had colored his logic. I didn’t think reasoning with him would help now.

He’d tried to have me killed, and he had been tracking me somehow. I still hadn’t figured out how. Either he had eyes on me from the inside, or he managed to bug something of mine.

I wasn’t sure which one it was. At the moment I couldn’t worry about it.

He would pay. I would kill him myself and watch him bleed out, and then I would walk away because the pain he had caused Mya was unforgivable.

I took in a deep breath, trying to keep the rage at bay. I had to maintain control. It was the only way to figure out my next move without getting Mya hurt in the process.

My eyes darted around the room. My entire body was tense. Restlessness wasn’t a feeling I was accustomed to.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and forced myself not to pace, but it was hard to stay still. I was scared for her. For the baby. Fear was unwelcome.

It normally wasn’t an emotion I entertained. My hatred for Matteo grew. He’d betrayed me. He did this to Mya.

He had done something no one else in the history of my adulthood had been able to do. He had made me feel afraid, not for myself, but for the family that I had created unknowingly by tying my life to Mya’s.

I swore to myself then and there that I wouldn’t give Matteo the opportunity to hurt us again.

When we had arrived at the hospital, she had been breathing but not responding when I had called her name.

As they had been taking her back to an exam room, her eyes had fluttered open and she had looked at me.

Her hazel eyes, usually sharp and observant, were unfocused, yet weary, and then she had closed them and sighed.

That sigh made me feel a mixture of relief and anger, which had given way to rage.

“Dario?”

Her soft voice caught me off-guard, shaking me out of my restless thoughts. She sounded vulnerable, tired, and so weak.

Without hesitation, I moved to her side and took her hand. It felt cold.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital.”

She moved to sit up.

“No, no, it’s okay. Lie back down. You’re fine.”

Immediately, she reached for her belly and placed a hand there, her eyes wild with a question she couldn’t speak out loud because she feared the answer. A question I understood. It was one that I had asked immediately.

“Yes, the baby’s okay.”

Her tense body visibly relaxed upon hearing my words. The baby was fine. Better than fine, the doctors had said. Our baby girl was doing great.

The doctors hadn’t known that I didn’t know the sex of the baby until then. Hearing it had made the world slow down and become unfocused. I was going to be a father, a father to a baby girl. I wondered if Mya knew yet.

I focused on her face but realized she had turned away from me. I figured she just didn’t have the strength to talk, but then I looked over at her closely and noticed the rise and fall of her chest. She was asleep.

Good. She needed her rest.

It was the most peaceful rest she’d had in a long time. I understood now. She had been worried about being killed, and she had had to keep the secret of her pregnancy. Guilt washed over me. How could I not have noticed?

She was showing now, but not much. It wasn’t like it was on television, I realized. That was my only frame of reference for pregnancy.

Her belly hadn’t grown much, and her eating habits hadn’t changed much. As I studied her now, I noticed that her breasts seemed larger, but I had assumed that was my mind playing tricks on me.

She shifted in the hospital bed and turned toward me, then.

Her eyes opened and she blinked. Then, to my surprise, she reached for my hand as she fell asleep again.

That one simple gesture did something deep inside me. It was like a switch had flipped. I held her hand in mine, just massaging it, memorizing the feel of her soft, warm palm.

Her skin felt delicate, and her fragility this time didn’t feel beautiful. It felt brutal.

It made me feel like a monster. I remembered how I had shoved her to the ground when we were trying to escape from the house. The memory played over and over in my mind, and without thinking, my hand tightened around hers.

She made a small sound of protest. I instantly released the pressure, feeling angry with myself. I could blame Matteo, but at the end of the day, this was all my fault. I had brought this upon us.

She was lying in a hospital bed, exhausted beyond measure because of me. She had been terrified for weeks because of me.

The doctors said they wanted to monitor her. They were concerned that she was dehydrated. They had said that sometimes women experienced vertigo during pregnancy and that it was normal. However, there was no way they could convince me that she wasn’t here because of me.

Because of my ego. I just assumed that I knew what was best for her, that with me, she would never be in harm’s way. I’d been wrong.

The doctors had instructed me to help her avoid stress for the sake of her health and the baby’s. At first, everything inside of me rejoiced at the idea that I would have more leverage to control her.

I would have a reason to restrict her movements. I would protect her. I would keep her safe. I would do what no one else could do.

And then I realized that controlling her had gotten me nowhere. Giving in to my obsession had only turned into her getting hurt.

My child could have died because of the decisions I had made. I made the decision to bring Mya into my life. I’d gotten her pregnant, and ultimately, it was my fault that I couldn’t keep her safe. It was all my fault.

I should have walked away from my father and his lifestyle as soon as I turned eighteen and stayed away, but I hadn’t.

If I were being honest with myself, I’d built the empire because I wanted to hurt them, all of them. I wanted to do what my father couldn’t.

I needed to feel as if I were better than him, achieving a dream that he could never have accomplished, creating an empire that knew no bounds. He was nothing.

And I wanted him to feel like nothing. And my brothers—I wanted to prove to them that I was better than them, more deserving of everything I had.

In the end, what had I proved? What had I obtained? I was rich, my money and connections stretched far and wide. I was powerful.

And because of all those things, I had to constantly watch my back. I didn’t really know who to trust. I surrounded myself with people who I assumed were loyal, and I tested their loyalty through violence.

They weren’t loyal because I was liked by them. I paid them and made them offers that they probably thought they couldn’t refuse. And they were right…

The weight of her hand was the opposite of the weight I felt in my heart. My heart felt heavy. Each breath I took felt heavy. I’d done this to her. To the woman I was starting to love.

I didn’t know when my obsession had changed to something more. But it had. And it had changed me. I didn’t know what to do about it.

This was new to me, caring about someone so deeply. My mother was the only person I had ever cared about. Her death had taken something from me.

Love, feelings, and emotions—they weren’t part of my life anymore.

Something had changed in me, though. I looked down at Mya’s face and stroked her hair. She had changed me.

This woman, this annoying, stubborn, vengeful woman, had found a place in my heart.

When I married her, it was so that she could be mine. But now I saw that I was hers.

I looked over at her and my eyes came to rest on her stomach. My hand shook as I laid it against the hospital gown, wondering if my little girl could feel my hand resting against her mother’s belly.

I couldn’t remember how far along the doctors had said she was, but it did something to me to know that she was in this state, pregnant with my child.

It was a wonder that I couldn’t really wrap my head around.

I need to do better. I need to be better.

The words echoed in my head, and I knew I believed them.

This kid of ours was going to be my “do-over”. I would create a life for my child, for Mya, that wasn’t full of violence, secrecy, and death.

I didn’t know how, but I would.

“I swear to you, Mya. Things will be different.”

She didn’t say a word. Her face relaxed, but her eyes were still tightly closed. Without thinking, I traced a hand down her cheek. She was something…my Mya.

There was a lot that I needed to do, much that I needed to change.

My eyes rested on her meager belongings that were folded up in a chair. Her bag, her clothes, her underwear, and a crumpled piece of paper.

I frowned. I walked over to where the piece of paper was and picked it up. Instantly, I recognized the number scribbled across it.

Without thinking, I wadded up the paper and reached for my phone. I glanced at Mya and stepped toward the door, not wanting to leave her, but not wanting her to hear what I had to say.

When Joseph picked up, I said, “Find Dr. Kali. He’s interfered too much. I need you to take care of him.”