Page 138 of The Viper's Wife

When he finally drags himself away, he blinks heavily like he’s coming out of a trance. “What the fuck?” He glances down at my belly—at our baby. “Tell me it’s okay.”

My heart leaps into my throat. “They’re okay. I think. I haven’t seen a doctor yet, but your sister brought me a pregnancy test. It was positive, Nico.”

He walks us to the center of the room, away from the door, and drops his forehead to mine. “I should’ve been there for that.”

“You’ll be there for the next thing.”

He stiffens, squeezing his arms around me like the muscles of a boa constrictor. “You know I can’t.”

“Alessia said your dad would change his mind. I have the pregnancy test in my coat. We can show him that I’mcarrying his grandchild. He’ll have to let us get married. Alessia said?—”

“Alessia’s wrong,” Nico says bitterly. “She believes in a version of our family that doesn’t exist. You know what that’s like, right? Not realizing how low your family can go? Val, there is no one I know who can go lower than my father.”

Nausea rolls in my belly. “What if you’re wrong?”

“What if I’m right? What if he makes you get an abortion? Makes you leave the country? Kills you?”

I swallow hard. “Nico?—”

“Tortures you, Val. Makesmetorture you. Makes you torture someone else. You think he’d stop at your dad? Years ago, he celebrated the death of his own son for being a traitor to him. A grandchild is nothing. You are nothing.”

I try to jerk back from his hands, my heart shredding to pieces, but Nico holds me steady in his palms.

“Not to me,” he murmurs. “Val, you areeverythingto me.”

Breath by breath, I melt back into his hands. My defenses gone, always crumbling for him, exposing all of me for him to want, to need, to love.

“I can’t leave you,” I say.

“You have to.”

“And after your dad dies?”

“Then someone else will take his place.”

“But then you’ll be the don.” I slip my hand inside his suit jacket, slide my palm against his chest to measure his heartbeat. “You’ll have everything you could need then. You’ll have the entire Family at your back. You could protect us.”

“And if it takes years? Decades?” His amber eyes burn in the lamplight. “How long will you wait?”

A lifetime, I think. But I rub my thumb over his heart while my own pounds and tell him instead, “A year.”

His eyes widen. “What’re you…” I see the moment it clicks. Once he understands what I’m asking.

That he becomes don within the year—his dad would need to be removed in that time.

Would it be a tragedy? An evil man replaced by Nico, a man with a hard exterior but a soft heart?

The world could be a better place for it.

He folds me into his arms, wrapping them around my back. His exhale ruffles against my hair. My heart races.

“You need to leave Chicago tonight,” he whispers against my neck.

I hold myself very, very still, scared that I’ve misjudged him, miscalculated our bond.

He draws back slowly to place a gentle kiss on my mouth. “Go wherever you want.” Another kiss. “In a year, I’m coming for you, and I’ll bring you back. Both of you.”

My chest swells, filling with a lightness that spreads through my body. “I love you.”