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Pain looks beautiful on Riley. I’m such a sick bastard to be thinking that right now, despite all the worrying I’m doing and while she’s trying to bring my child into the world.
“How are we doing?” Sylvia opens the door, bringing with her a tray of food. “I thought you might like something to eat.” She places the tray on the bed, and I nod politely, although there’s not a chance I could eat anything.
“Do you want anything, dear?” Sylvia steps around to Riley, who lifts her head up from between the arms she’s resting over the back of the chair.
“Yes… for this to be over.” She breathes through another contraction, her hands now squeezing the wood as her body shakes. She screams, and it makes the pain in my chest amplify.
“I can’t take the pain anymore,” she sobs, and it all feels too much. The hurt in her voice, combined with the guilt inside me, causes a surge of anger to rush through my blood. I’ve tried being strong, but I need a moment. I need to lose my fucking shit, and I can’t do it in front of her.
“Stay with her.” I nod at Sylvia before getting off my knees and storming down the stairs into the kitchen. Viktor is just finishing off his plate, and he smiles at me calmly when he sees me.
“How is she?” He stands up from the table, casually wiping his mouth with his napkin. The fact he’s acting like this is just another day at the fucking office makes me want to crush his skull. He doesn’t seem to be grasping that I could lose the two most precious things in this world.
Rage and fear drive me forward, and I grab him by the collar of his shirt, forcing him into the wall behind him.
“You need to make her pain stop.” I force the words through my teeth, and Viktor’s eyes bulge out of his head. He looks scared, but it’s only a fraction of the fear I’m feeling right now, and he’s the only person who can fix it.
“We can see how she manages with the gas and air and if that isn’t effective enough, I do carry pethidine.”
“Is that harmful to the child?” I check, my grip on his shirt faltering slightly.
“Not at all. It’s used during labor all the time.”
I nod back at him.
“Why is it taking so long?” I can hear the fret in my own voice, and I know I’ll have to pull myself back together before I return to her.
“Everything is progressing perfectly normally. First-time mothers often take their time to deliver. Believe it or not, Riley is making excellent progress,” he assures me, forging a confident smile, and my fingers crush a little tighter as I force him harder into the wall.
“I swear, if anything happens to them, I will kill you, along with anyone who has ever meant anything to you,” I threaten, making his creepy smile morph back into horror.
“I assure you, Raphael, they will both be okay,” he explains.
It’s nowhere near good enough for me, but I release the man anyway because upstairs is a woman who needs me, and as much as I hate to say it, she needs him too.
It’s time for me to step up and be there for her.
* * *
It’s another four hours before Viktor tells Riley that her body is ready for her to start pushing. There’s hardly any lapse between her contractions now, and her screams are filling my chest with a pain I’ve only ever felt once before in my life. I can’t go back there, not now. Not when Riley is starting to fall apart and needs me at my strongest.
I hold her hand and feel her fingernails embedded into my skin. She wouldn’t believe me if I told her, but I feel her agony, and I swear if I could take her place, I would. I’m so fucking selfish for putting her through this, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her.
“You’re doing really good,” I tell her, wiping away the strands of red hair that cling to her face with sweat. She barely has time to breathe before another pain hits her, and her body shakes with tension as she pushes hard, and Viktor counts down from ten.
She’s exhausted and barely has anything left in her when Viktor tells me the baby’s head is crowning. So I squeeze her hand tighter and wrap my other arm around her shoulders.
“You’re so close now, Riley. You have to get through this for me. I demand it,” I tell her, trying so hard to keep the tension out of my voice.
“Trust you to give me orders while I’m fucking—” Her body tenses again, and she pushes her chin deep into her chest.
“The baby’s head’s been delivered.” Viktor looks up at me, nodding to assure me everything’s okay down there. I don’t look. I can’t look. It will only make my anxieties worse.
“You hear that? This is nearly over,” I encourage Riley, kissing her sweat-soaked forehead and making one final plea to the man upstairs that they’ll be okay.
Riley screams again, her hand shaking in mine as she continues to push, and when her scream turns into a relieved sigh, and the sound of a bleating little cry fills the room, I feel my whole body relax.
“You have a son.” Viktor holds the tiny slippery bundle out in his hands, and I feel the lump in my throat threaten to choke me. Here he is. The next Verretti heir has arrived into the world, and I’m determined to make it a better place for him.
