Page 118 of The Don’s Omega

She addresses Elio as she moves to the door. “In the meantime, keep doing what you’re doing. Eating well, resting, managing stress.” She gives me the same pointed look she gave last time. “Both of you. If the alpha is stressed then the omega is stressed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say docilely.

She smiles and leaves the room.

Elio kisses the photo and grins at me. “I’m going to start an album and put all the sonogram photos in it. Then our kid can look at himself before he was even born.”

“Uh, yeah.” I smirk and ruffle his hair. “That won’t be weird at all.”

****

In the evenings after dinner, Elio joins me in my study while I work. This has become our little domestic ritual. While I work at my desk, he settles on the leather sofa. He looks over blueprints of restaurants I’m opening, trying to head off issues ahead of time. He has a sharp eye, and I trust his instincts. We’ve gone to a few of my restaurants in person too, so he can give me tips on how the management is doing, but the pregnancy makes him tire easily. We’ll probably do more of those in-person visits once the baby is born.

The most surprising part of it all is how much I love having Elio around me. I never saw myself as this type of alpha, the doting, clingy kind, but I’m learning all sorts of things about myself from being in love with Elio. Sometimes an hour passes without either of us speaking, but it’s a comfortable silence. Occasionally I look up and find him watching me. He doesn’t look away when I catch him. He just smiles, and I grin back at him like a sap. I can’t help it. He just makes me so damn happy. I’m changing because of Elio. Softening.

Hopefully, it doesn’t get me killed.

I’m deep in a shipping manifest when Carlo knocks on the doorjamb. “Can I come in?” he asks.

“Of course.” I nod, setting down my pen. “What’s up?”

“Mind if I pour myself a drink?”

I incline my head. “Help yourself.”

He crosses to my bar, pours himself a bourbon, and drops into the chair across from my desk. He nods a greeting at Elio on the sofa, unsurprised to find him there.

“Wanted you to know Velasco finished the warehouse transfers today, boss. We’re fully operational.”

“Good,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “But you could have called me with that info. Is there a reason you felt the need to come drink my bourbon?”

He laughs and swirls his glass. “You have better booze than I have at home.”

“Come on, Carlo,” I rumble. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“Okay.” He takes a big gulp of the amber liquid and then sets the glass on the edge of my desk. “I’ve heard some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” I frown.

“Three of the families are talking. They’re uneasy.”

“Which three?”

He ticks them off on his fingers. “Moretti, Ferrante, and DiMaggio.”

I rub my jaw, frowning, because those three families aren’t usually a problem. “What’s bothering them?”

“It concerns the Lucchese ports,” he says softly. “They want to know why you stripped Valentina’s operation without explanation.”

I huff. “The explanation is that I’m the head of this syndicate and I don’t answer to them.”

“I know that. They know that too, technically. But the optics are bad, Marcello. You seized a third of a family’s income in a single night. No tribunal. No public cause. From the outside it looks arbitrary. It looks like you did it because you could. Or at least, that’s what the families I mentioned are saying.”

“I did it because Valentina Lucchese tried to murder my omega.”

Elio shifts on the sofa and I notice he’s not reading anymore. He’s sitting very still, listening. I wouldn’t usually talk about this stuff in front of him. Not because I don’t trust him, but because I don’t want to stress him out. But it’s too late now because he heard what Carlo said already.

“It’s not for them to question me,” I say harshly.