Page 68 of Modern Romance September 2026 Books 5-8

“Because. I’m the father of your baby.”

CHAPTER TWO

Lindsay

MY HEART NEARLY leaps out of my chest, and for the first time, I’m not actively trying to kill him.

“No,” I say. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. I’m afraid.”

“My roommate, Vittoria… She’s the one that arranged the surrogacy. I don’t have anything to do with some…criminal gangster or the Corretti family.”

“Vittoria is my sister. She’s a Corretti.”

And I’ve never seen the name Corretti. It wasn’t on the surrogacy agreement, the lease agreement. And it makes me want to tell him even less, because if this man is the father of the baby…

“What happened to Vittoria?” I ask, because I have been worried for her. Genuinely. Even now I am.

“Another problem that needs to be solved, I fear,” he says.

“Don’t hurt her. She’s a lovely girl and she—”

“Silence. I have no interest in hurting my sister. I need to rescue her. My father was killed two weeks ago.”

I blink. “That’s when Vittoria disappeared.”

“Yes. In his absence, his enemies are attempting to make a name for themselves. One of those enemies is determined to marry my sister to join the families together. I will kill him first.”

Fear trickles down my spine. I knew he was a killer. The first moment I saw him.

I believe him.

“Where do I fit into all this? What about your wife?”

He arches a dark brow. “I don’t have a wife. Is that what they told you?”

“They… Vittoria arranged everything. And…”

“I believe Vittoria was being manipulated by my father. I did not discover anything about you, the baby or the surrogacy until after my father died. And then I found correspondence between him and a fertility doctor. Found all the information on you, and the fact that you are carrying my heir.”

“Your heir… Are you…a king? King of your own asshole, perhaps? Because I’ve never heard of you.”

I find myself turned away from him, released. “You don’t know the Corretti family?”

“As you’ve observed, I’m American. I don’t.”

“Lindsay,” he says. “The Corretti family is one of the most infamous crime families in the world. If it’s dangerous or illegal, you can usually find a Corretti somewhere in the middle of it.”

Oh God. It’s the Mafia. I am pregnant with a Mafia baby.

What am I going to do? It suddenly seems painfully foolish that I tried to fight him. But I tried to kill him. He’s a killer. A murderer. Dangerous, and with no scruples. The only thing he cares about is the life inside of me, and I know for a fact it’s the only reason that I’m not dead.

“But Vittoria… She was my friend.”

“And my father was a violent, cruel man. Vittoria was only just allowed to have a year away from home. To spend some time being independent, and of course there were strings attached to that. You were the string.”

“But why…why would they do that?”