Dante sucked in his breath. “Is that the reason for this?”
“You think my water broke because I was upset with you?”
“I don’t know.” There was something close to despair on his face. “I’m a fucking bastard, Val. If you lose this child…” He shook his head and focused back on the windshield as we pulled up in front of the hospital entrance. The car with our guards was already there, and so were a doctor and a nurse with a stretcher. Dante jumped out of the car and jogged around the hood to help them get me out of the car. Once I’d lain down on the stretcher, I was rolled into the hospital. Dante never left my side. And he only let go of my hand when he got in the way of the doctors and nurses.
* * *
After hours of ultrasounds, blood work and all kinds of other checkups, I was finally rolled into a room. I was tired and scared, though not as badly as before. Dante settled on the edge of the mattress and brushed a few strands of hair from my face. My eyelids were heavy but I didn’t want to sleep. Dante had talked to the doctors, as I didn’t feel like my brain could follow their explanations right now. “What did they say?” I asked.
“He said you had a preterm rupture of membranes. That’s why you lost some of your amniotic fluid.”
“What does it mean? Do they have to deliver our baby early?” Fear felt like a vice around my throat. It would be too soon. What if I lost our child?
Dante settled himself against the pillow and pulled me against his chest. “No, they don’t. It didn’t rupture completely, but of course there’s a higher risk of an infection now, which is why you’ll have to take antibiotics for a while. You didn’t go into labor, so that’s a plus. They hope to delay the birth until week thirty at least. You’ll have to stay in bed as much as possible and aren’t allowed to exert yourself in any way.”
“Okay,” I whispered. “I just want our baby to be safe.”
“It will be. We won’t let anything happen to her,” Dante said in his calm, soothing voice.
I startled. “Her?”
Dante nodded. “I asked the doctor. They could see it when they did the ultrasound. It’s a girl.”
I wanted to be happy, and I was. I would love our child no matter if it was a girl or a boy, but I knew what was expected of me. I licked my dry lips, searching Dante’s eyes. “Are you angry because it isn’t a boy? I know you need an heir. Your father—”
Dante cupped my cheek, stopping me from saying more. “I’m happy. I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl. And my father will eventually see reason.”
He sounded honest, but I knew the realities of mob life, and the need for a Made Man to have a boy who could follow in his footsteps, be inducted into the mafia and guarantee the success of the Outfit. A man needed a son to be fully respected by his fellow Made Men. “You don’t have to sugarcoat things for me, Dante. I know how things work in our world.”
Dante pulled back a few inches, eyebrows raised. “I’m not sugarcoating anything. I told you the truth. I’m happy that we’re having a daughter. I’ll be happy about every child we have. I’m not going to lie—many people in the Outfit will see it as something less desirable. They will only really congratulate me once you’re pregnant with a boy, but I don’t care about them. You’re still young, and we have time. We’ll have more children and maybe there’ll be a boy among them. But for now let’s be happy about our daughter.”
“Are you happy?” I asked, already getting teary again. That was the one thing I hated most about being pregnant: my loss of self-control when it came to my emotions, especially my tears. “Since I told you I was pregnant, you never once asked about the baby. You pretended it wasn’t there. You made me feel horrible for something that should have been cause for joy. Why did you change your mind? Because I almost lost our baby?”
“I didn’t change my mind. I’ve been happy about your pregnancy for a while now.”
I gave him a doubtful look. “That’s not what I saw.”
“I’m good at hiding my thoughts and emotions,” Dante said regretfully. “But I shouldn’t have done it in this case. You are right, I ruined your first weeks of pregnancy for you. All because I was too proud to admit I’d been wrong.”
I waited patiently for him to say more. I wasn’t ready to accept his unspoken apology yet.
Dante rested his palm lightly on my stomach. “You were right during our fight after you told me about your pregnancy. I never wanted Carla to see a doctor about her inability to conceive because I didn’t want to find out it was me who was infertile. I’m a proud man, Val. Too proud, and somehow I had convinced myself that I couldn’t become Capo if I found out I was incapable of getting my wife with child. I would have been half a man.”
“No, you wouldn’t. But I understand where you’re coming from. But if that’s the case, then why weren’t you elated when I told you I was pregnant with your child? After all, that meant you weren’t infertile. Shouldn’t you have been proud?”
Dante’s smile was solemn. “Yes, I suppose I should have been.” He paused, and I gave him the time he needed to figure out his next words. I had a feeling he’d share something very personal with me. “But when you told me about your pregnancy, it almost felt like an attack on Carla’s memory, as if you were blaming Carla for her inability to give me children by getting pregnant so quickly.”
“I never wanted to attack your wife,” I said, horrified. “I know you loved her more than anything. I knew it before we married, and you never let me forget it in all the time we’ve been together.” The last part came out more accusatory than intended.
“I know,” Dante said, his cool blue eyes tracing my face. “I treated you badly. You did nothing to deserve it. When you gave yourself to me for the first time, I should have held you afterward. It would have been the decent, the honorable thing to do. Instead, I left. I didn’t want to allow myself to be close to you. I’d allowed myself to love once, and after I had to watch Carla die a slow, horrible death, I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t let a woman into my life again.”
I nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for what happened to Carla. I’m sorry you had to watch her die.”
Dante’s eyes were distant. He wasn’t crying. I didn’t think he’d ever allow himself to do so in front of anyone, but there was a deep sadness in his eyes that tore at me. “I killed her.”
I jerked in his embrace, my eyes wide. “You did what? But I thought she died from cancer.”
“She would have, yes. The doctors said there was nothing they could do for her. She was home, drugged up most days so she wasn’t in too much pain, but even the morphine eventually didn’t help anymore. She asked me to help her, to free her from the horror that her life had become. She didn’t want to spend more weeks bound to her bed, unable to get out and wracked by pain.” He paused, and I was openly crying, even if he couldn’t. I pressed my hand against his chest, trying to show him that it was okay, that I understood. “She wanted me to shoot her because she thought it would be easier for me, less personal. I couldn’t do it. Not like that. Not the same way I dealt with traitors and scum that wasn’t even worth the dirt under her feet. I injected her insulin, and she fell asleep in my arms and never woke up again.”