Novel-novel oleh Katie o.

CHAPTER 120LENA POVI stood in front of the mirror preparing for dinner and barely recognized the exhaustion in my own face. I'd eaten almost nothing all day. The pregnancy remained a secret, and every small change in my body made me more conscious of what I was carrying. Tiredness and occasional nausea pressed at the edges of ordinary moments, but I hid both from the household as carefully as I could.The threatening messages returned to my thoughts without invitation. HE KNOWS. DON'T TELL SALVATORE ABOUT THE BABY.I still didn't know who'd sent them or what they truly meant.I considered telling Salvatore anyway. Maybe the messages were a trick designed only to frighten me. Maybe keeping the secret would make everything worse. I imagined walking into his office and telling him.Then I remembered the previous. His plans to attack another family, and the coldness in his voice when he spoke about eliminating threats.My hand settled over my stomach. I whispered that I only wanted this

CHAPTER 119 SALVATORE POVThe private meeting room felt heavier than usual. Diego, Charlie, and several senior members of the organization sat around the long table while reports of the latest losses circulated without ceremony. Three rival families had begun moving against my territory. One of my warehouses had been hit. Another shipment had disappeared without a trace. A trusted associate had been killed.Everyone demanded retaliation.Then Uncle David arrived and took the empty seat at the far end as if he'd always belonged there.He presented himself as the voice of experience. He told me that weakness was spreading because my enemies believed I'd become distracted. He never spoke Lena's name. Instead he said my enemies had noticed that my priorities had changed.The sentence landed harder than any open accusation.He reminded me that my father once hesitated because he trusted the wrong people, and he framed aggression as protection rather than revenge."You don't start wars, Sa

CHAPTER 118 LENA POVI lay awake long after the house had gone quiet. Salvatore slept beside me, one arm resting near mine, his breathing steady for once. I kept my hand over my stomach without meaning to, as if the simple contact could make the truth less overwhelming.The pregnancy test remained hidden where only I could find it. I no longer doubted the result. I kept remembering it because reality wouldn't leave me alone. I was going to be someone's mother. Salvatore was going to be someone's father.The thought of how completely that could change everything and how easily it could make everything worse kept coming back.I looked at him while he slept. For a few quiet minutes he wasn't the Don and wasn't the man everyone feared. He was simply a man resting beside the woman he loved. The sight made me imagine something I'd barely let myself picture: a normal family, a home that didn't require constant security, a child running through rooms that held no weapons on the tables and no

CHAPTER 117 SALVATORE POVI stood in the bedroom doorway and watched Lena carefully. She'd just hidden something. The effort she put into appearing normal was too deliberate to ignore. I asked why she was awake. She answered that she couldn't sleep.Something about the reply felt wrong not because she was lying badly, but because she was trying too hard not to lie.I noticed her nervous hands, the exhaustion in her eyes, the way she kept one hand near her stomach without seeming to realize it, the slight change in her breathing, and the fact that she avoided looking directly at me for more than a second.I knew Lena's silence. I've learned every version of it. This wasn't the silence of anger. This was the silence of someone protecting a secret. I asked if something had happened. She shook her head and said no. I didn't believe her. I also didn't press.After she went to bed I remained awake while my mind moved through every dangerous possibility. Dante could have contacted her. Som

CHAPTER 116 LENA POVWeeks had passed since the warehouse, but the memory of fire and gunfire still felt close enough to touch. The investigation into Uncle David and the massacre continued. Charlie and Diego worked through the recovered documents with careful persistence. Salvatore had become more careful in his decisions. Our enemies hadn't disappeared, but inside the safehouse there were stretches of ordinary life that would've been impossible only a month earlier.I noticed the small changes in him first. He asked whether I'd eaten. He waited for me instead of ordering me to follow. He listened when I spoke. He no longer decided every detail of my day without asking. For the first time I was beginning to understand what it meant to love someone without disappearing inside them.Yet something about my own body felt different. I was unusually tired. I woke up exhausted. Certain smells unsettled me. Occasional waves of nausea arrived without warning. Strange food cravings appeared

CHAPTER 115 SALVATORE POVLena's confession hung between us. She'd said the words clearly, without hesitation, and for the first time in years the most feared man in the room didn't know how to answer. My first instinct was to say them back. My mouth almost formed the reply. Then the memories of my father came back without mercy.I remembered being a boy, watching him laugh with my mother, feeling the solid safety of his arms when he carried me, believing our family was untouchable because we stood together. Then the massacre. Blood. Gunfire. Screaming. My father's body on the floor. The people he loved becoming the exact weaknesses his enemies used against him.Love hadn't saved my father. Love had given his enemies something to take from him.I looked at Lena and felt a fear that had nothing to do with Dante, the men outside, or the war still waiting for us. I was terrified of losing her.She noticed the silence. I watched uncertainty settle into her expression as she began to wond