Page 71 of Ruined By the Mafia Kings (Alpha Mafia Kings #1)

But the damage was done. First Megan, now Mrs. Patel. Two people who had no reason to suspect, both seeing the same thing. It was like the universe was holding up a neon sign flashing PREGNANT while I desperately pretended I couldn’t read.

“I should go,” I said, standing abruptly. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Tyberius,” she called as I reached the door. “If you were… in a delicate condition… you would have support. You know that, yes? Your friends, they would want to know.”

Friends. The word made me pause with my hand on the doorknob. “What friends, Mrs. Patel?”

“The ones who care for you,” she said vaguely, suddenly fascinated by a loose thread on her sleeve. “The ones who make sure you’re provided for.”

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with my possible morning sickness. “Who have you been talking to?”

“No one, dear. Just an old woman’s ramblings.” She shooed me toward the door like I was an overstaying houseguest. “Go rest. You look exhausted.”

I fled to my apartment and locked the door behind me, a hollow gesture of security that wouldn’t stop anyone who really wanted in. Especially not them. Whoever they were—these mysterious “friends” Mrs. Patel seemed to know more about than I did.

The pregnancy test box felt radioactive in my pocket. I pulled it out, holding it at arm’s length with trepidation.

“This is what rock bottom looks like,” I said, examining the cheerful pink packaging with its nauseating promises of ‘accuracy’ and ‘early detection.’ “Standing in your bathroom contemplating peeing on a stick because your coworker thinks your morning puking schedule is suspicious.”

My reflection looked back at me from the bathroom mirror, pale and hollow-eyed. Not exactly the “glowing” Mrs. Patel had mentioned.

“You’re not pregnant,” I told my reflection firmly. “Your body’s just being dramatic.”

The instructions were simple enough that even panic-brain could follow them. I managed the sample collection without incident, set the test on the counter, and backed away with apprehension.

Timer set for three minutes, I sat on the edge of the bathtub, knee bouncing uncontrollably.

Three minutes. One hundred eighty seconds to contemplate how spectacularly I’d fucked up my life. I tried to focus on practical matters, always my fallback when emotions threatened to overwhelm me.

If positive: I’d need prenatal care. Money. A better job than dishwashing. A safer apartment.

If negative: I’d celebrate by never having sex again. Maybe become a monk. Did they accept omegas in monasteries? Probably not.

The timer chimed. I stared at my phone, unable to move.

“Just look at it,” I ordered myself. “It’s negative. It has to be negative. The universe can’t possibly hate you enough to make you pregnant with a mafia alpha’s baby.”

I stood on legs that felt disconnected from my body and forced myself to look down at the plastic stick.

Two pink lines stared back at me. Unmistakable. Undeniable.

I grabbed the box, frantically scanning the instructions again. One line: not pregnant. Two lines: pregnant.

Two fucking lines.

“No,” I whispered, the word barely audible even to my own ears. “No fucking way.”

I blinked hard, hoping the second line might disappear. It didn’t. It sat there, pink and accusatory, a permanent record of the most catastrophic consequence possible.

My knees buckled. The cold tile floor rushed up to meet me as I slid down the bathroom wall, test still clutched in my hand like a lottery ticket for the world’s worst prize.

“This can’t be happening,” I said to the empty bathroom. “I can’t be pregnant. It was one heat cycle. The odds are?—”

The odds. Right. Because I’d always been so lucky.

A laugh bubbled up, sharp and hysterical, before morphing into a sob that felt like it was being torn from somewhere deep inside me. Then another. And another. Until I was curled around myself on the bathroom floor, crying with an intensity that frightened even me.

Pregnant. With a mafia alpha’s baby. Possibly three different alphas’ baby, if that was even biologically possible.

A child that would forever tie me to men who had seen me at my most vulnerable, who had claimed me in ways I still couldn’t think about without blushing, who had promised to hunt me down.

Men whose scent still made me ache with want. Whose touch I still dreamed about. Whose child was now growing inside me.

The practical part of my brain tried desperately to regain control, to assess the situation with something resembling rationality. I had no money. No support system beyond a well-meaning landlady. No way to provide for a child on my own.

“What am I going to do?” I asked the empty bathroom, my voice breaking. “What the actual fuck am I going to do?”

I scrambled to my feet, suddenly desperate for something familiar, something safe.

My body moved on autopilot, carrying me to the bedroom where I collapsed onto my bed.

My hands trembled as they reached for the pillows that had appeared mysteriously over the past month—the ones that smelled of cedar and winter pine, cinnamon and warm vanilla, fresh rain and cedar.

The ones that haunted my dreams with memories of ice-blue, vivid green, and stormy gray eyes.

I buried my face in them before my brain could override the impulse.

The effect was immediate and devastating—my racing heart slowed, my skin prickled with recognition, something primal inside me responding instantly.

Their scents wrapped around me completely, holding me captive even in their absence.

“Traitor,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I glared down at my body. My fingers dug into the fabric, knuckles white with the effort not to inhale deeper. “This isn’t real. It’s just biology. Stupid, vicious, omega biology.”

My body disagreed completely. As I sat there, clutching pillows that smelled like the three alphas who had branded themselves onto my soul, heat pooled low in my belly, spreading outward rapidly. Not a heat cycle—something deeper, more primal, tied to the life now growing inside me.

“Seriously?” I hissed, pressing my thighs together as my body reacted traitorously, the scent of my own response mingling with theirs in a potent combination.

“Now? You pick now for this? I just found out I’m carrying an alpha mafia lord’s baby, and your response is ‘let’s get horny’? Your timing is fucking criminal.”

But my body had always been the most treacherous part of me.

The more I inhaled their scents, the worse it got—my cock hardening against my stomach, my entrance aching with emptiness, memories of the hands on my skin playing vividly behind my closed eyelids.

I could almost feel Mr. Iceflare’s teeth against my neck, Mr. Enigma’s lips on my chest, Mr. Storm’s hands spreading my thighs.

I tried to resist. God, I tried. I conjured images of unpaid bills. The disappointment in my father’s eyes if he knew. The way they’d threatened to hunt me down, to make me pay. Nothing worked. My resistance crumbled completely.

“Fine,” I growled, shoving my pants down forcefully. “You win. But I’m not happy about it.”

I wrapped a hand around my cock, the first stroke sending electricity crackling up my spine, pulling a gasp from my throat that sounded like surrender. It wasn’t enough. Nowhere close to what I needed.

Keeping my face buried in the scents, I reached behind myself with my other hand, finding my entrance ready. I pushed two fingers inside, the stretch burning intensely. It had been months since I’d been filled, since I’d felt the exquisite agony of being claimed by an alpha. By three alphas.

“Fuck,” I moaned, the sound raw and broken in the quiet room. I stroked my cock in time with the thrust of my fingers, the wet sounds obscene in the silence. Tears of frustration gathered in my eyes as I chased a pleasure that remained just out of reach.

It wasn’t enough. My fingers weren’t long enough, thick enough to reach the spots inside me that throbbed with need. I needed more. Needed them. Needed to be held down and taken apart and put back together in the way only they knew how.

Before I could stop it, my mind conjured Mr. Iceflare above me, his ice-blue eyes boring into mine as he pushed inside me.

I could feel the weight of him, the impossible stretch as he claimed me.

His hands pinning my wrists above my head, his voice rough against my ear as he said, “Made for this. Made for me.”

And behind him, Mr. Enigma and Mr. Storm, their eyes dark with hunger as they watched, waited their turn. The fantasy was so vivid I could taste the salt on Mr. Enigma’s skin, feel the calluses on Mr. Storm’s palms as they mapped my body with possessive intent.

I remembered how it felt when Mr. Iceflare had knotted me—the burning fullness, the way my body had locked around him, keeping us joined as he pulsed inside me.

How I’d sobbed from the intensity, my body taking what my mind refused to admit it craved.

I remembered Mr. Enigma holding me afterward, his arms a sanctuary I’d never expected to find in hell, his lips pressing kisses to my tear-stained cheeks.

Remembered Mr. Storm’s surprising gentleness as he cleaned the evidence of their claiming from my thighs, his touch reverent despite the circumstances.

I added a third finger, fucking myself harder, faster, desperation making my movements erratic. My cock leaked pre-cum, making my strokes smoother, but something vital was missing. Some connection my body recognized even as my mind rejected it.

“Please,” I begged, the word torn from somewhere deep and broken inside me. My voice echoed off the walls of my empty apartment, a prayer with no one to answer it. “Please, I need?—”

What did I need? Them? Their touch? Their claim? The thought should have horrified me, should have killed my desire instantly. Instead, it pushed me closer to the edge, my body tightening around my fingers as if trying to keep them inside.

“Mr. Iceflare,” I gasped, imagining his ice-blue eyes watching me come undone, his strong hands guiding my movements. “Mr. Enigma. Mr. Storm.”

Their names, those ridiculous nicknames I had given them, on my lips was the final trigger.

I came with a broken cry that might have been a sob, spilling over my hand as my body clenched rhythmically around my fingers.

For one perfect moment, I was weightless, thoughtless, existing only in pure sensation.

Then reality crashed back, and with it, shame so intense it burned through me. I’d just masturbated to the thought of the alphas who had been captive with me. Had called their names as I came. Had imagined them claiming me again, making me theirs again.

And worst of all, part of me had wanted it. Still wanted it. Would always want it.

I curled into a ball. Tears leaked from my eyes, hot and humiliating, as the full weight of my situation crushed me beneath it.

I was pregnant. Alone. Craving alphas who had been forced into the same nightmare as me, who had threatened to hunt me down once they escaped. Who had marked me in ways that went beyond the physical, beyond the rational.

“I hate this,” I whispered, my voice breaking on each word. “I hate that I want them. I hate that my body betrays me. I hate that I’m so fucking weak.”

But even as I said it, another part of me, the omega part that I’d spent my life trying to silence, whispered that it wasn’t weakness. It was survival. It was my body recognizing what my mind refused to acknowledge: that I needed them. That my child needed them.

That despite everything, they were the only ones who could protect us now.