“Look at them,” I find myself choking out in amazement. “They’re here. They’re so real. Hello. Hello. I’m your mama. Hi baby, hi. This is your papa.”
Leon turns back to me. He brushes a damp strand of hair from my face, his eyes shimmering. “This is our family.”
I can feel my face crumpling under his gaze. “God, Leon. I want that so badly. Can you just…pretend for a moment? Please, I need you so much.”
My hands reach up to wipe at my face, only to be captured gently by my wrists.
“Why would I pretend?” he says so softly. “I want this too. Mia, I’ve been in love with you for months. This isitfor me.”
My breath catches. “Stop it. Don’t be cruel.”
“My entire world is here on this bed. I don’t want anything else.”
My heart shatters and rebuilds in the same breath. Tears stream down my face as I reach for him, pulling him close.
“I can’t lose you again,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “Please, just stay.”
“I will,” he promises, his lips pressing softly to mine. “I will. Mia, please. Tell me, what are their names?”
I swallow back more tears as I gaze down at my two beautiful children.
“This is Elizabeth Rose,” I kiss her forehead before turning to my son. “And this is Luca Marco.”
24
LEON
In the aftermath of the attack on the Cartel warehouse and the birth of my children, things become…oddly gentle.
The war simmers rather than burns. Amos Rubio’s retreat leaves cracks in the Cartel’s operations that we quickly exploit. Closing in, one day after another, toward our final stand.
But it’s work I’ve already planned ahead for. Teo continues to keep our territory secure as Rocco leads the push. Both have threatened me with grievous bodily harm if I decide to return to the field.
Allowing my focus to remain firmly on Mia and the babies.
Every day, I wake with a single purpose: to ensure my family is safe and thriving. The twins sleep soundly in their cribs—tiny, perfect reminders of a future beyond this chaos—and Mia, my Mia, is slowly recovering.
I hover over her constantly.
At first, she was too weak to protest, and I took full advantage, bringing her meals, fluffing pillows, sitting beside her as she fed Liza and Luca.
If she frowned at me for being too attentive, I didn’t care. I’m making up for lost time, for every moment I wasn’t there when she needed me.
She’s always been so strong, so fiercely independent. Watching her lean on me, even a little, is humbling. She claims to hate it, but I want desperately to earn back what I lost, to be worthy of her trust again.
To prove that this time, we canbothstay.
“You’re looking at me funny,” she bemoans from her perch on the couch. She’s not even looking at me, her nose firmly between the pages of a book while the twins sleep soundly in the next room.
I smirk to myself as I continue to breathe her in. She’s pale, still recovering, but there’s a light in her eyes that sings of that foreign concept: happiness.
The babies are eleven days old. Eleven days since my love confession was wrenched out of me in a moment of beautiful vulnerability that I don’t regret for a second.
Only, we haven’t talked about it since, dancing around each other with gentle words and touches, holding on to each other during those rare moments of peace when the two newborns aren’t demanding our attention.
There’s an understanding between us now, an acknowledgment that there is something so very important between us. But it alsofeels like we’re in the endgame of a relationship we never really properly started.
It’s all backward; marriage and kids came first.
