LOGINWillow's POV I hear it from Katerina Volkov over lunch. She drops it the way women in this world drop everything important... buried inside small talk, wrapped in fake pleasantries, and slid across the restaurant table between the bread and the main course like it’s nothing. Like she isn’t watching my face for the exact reaction I’m trying so hard not to give her. “I heard the Moretti household has some exciting news,” Katerina says, lifting her wine glass. “A baby, apparently. The young wife.” I pick up my fork, set it down and pick it up again. “Is that right,” I say. “Mmm. Word came through last night. You know how fast these things travel.” She watches me over the rim of her glass. Katerina has always enjoyed other people’s pain in that classy, polished way some women do. Elegant cruelty. The kind that doesn’t leave bruises. “I imagine that changes things a lot, a child makes everything so much more permanent.” “It does,” I agree. My voice comes out exactly how
Lola's POV I shoot better pregnant than I did three months ago. I don’t know what that says about me, probably nothing good. But when Ezra sets up the targets this morning and I run through the sequence, every shot lands clean. Center mass. Controlled, and no hesitation. Ezra looks at the target, then at me. “Good.” From Ezra, that’s basically a standing ovation. I lower the gun and roll my shoulders. The nausea has been mild this week...mostly mornings, mostly manageable. Right now I feel clear, focused and like every nerve in my body is locked in on one thing. Protecting what’s mine. That feeling is new, before, when I trained, it was about not being helpless. About refusing to be the woman who just stood there and took it. That was enough. Now it’s sharper. It sits deeper, right down in my bones. There’s a life inside me. Small, new, and totally depending on me to keep it safe. And I swear I’ll burn this whole city down before I let anything touch it. I don’t say that ou
ThIRD PERSON POV The word spreads the way it always does in the Moretti organisation. Not through announcements, not through meetings. Through movement, through the specific reshuffling of men and resources that anyone with half a brain can read like a headline if they know what they're looking at. And these men know what they're looking at. By seven in the morning Ezra has been pulled from rotation and positioned outside the master bedroom hallway. By eight there are two additional men on the front gate and one on the east side of the property that had previously been considered low risk. By nine Daniel has made four calls to four captains and the content of those calls, while never explicit, carries a weight that everyone understands immediately. Something has changed. Something important. Ocean makes the calls himself from his office before the house is fully awake. Daniel first, then Ezra, then the doctor...a woman named Miriam who has handled sensitive medical si
Ocean's POV I don't sleep. Lola does, eventually. Her breathing evens out sometime around two in the morning and I lie there listening to it for a long time. Counting the rise and fall of her chest. Making sure she's real. Making sure she's still there. I've never done that before. Watched someone sleep and felt grateful for every breath. I do it now. She's pregnant. The words still don't feel entirely real. I've turned them over in my head a hundred times since she said them at dinner and every time they land differently. Sometimes like joy, sometimes like terror. Sometimes like both at once, so tangled together I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. A baby. Our baby. I place my hand flat on the bed between us, not touching her, just close. There's a life growing inside her right now. Something we made. Something that is half her and half me and entirely its own thing. A person who doesn't exist yet but will. Who will have a name and a face and a voice. Who will
LOLA'S POV I'm late. Not just a day or two, a whole fucking week. I've always been regular like clockwork...every twenty-eight days on the dot. No surprises, no drama. So missing a whole week? Yeah, that shit is serious. My stomach has been doing flips all morning just thinking about it. I'm locked in the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet lid, staring at this pregnancy test box like it's a bomb. I bought it yesterday in a small pharmacy across town so no one would recognize me. I hid it deep in my purse and sneaked it into the house like it was illegal drugs or stolen money. My hands were sweating the whole time. I don't even know why I'm acting so sneaky. Ocean is my husband. He loves me. If I'm really pregnant, he should be the first person I tell. But damn, I'm scared as hell. My heart won't stop racing. What if the test comes back positive? What if Ocean freaks out and thinks I planned this? What if this changes everything between us in a bad way? We only started
OCEAN'S POV One Week Later - Ocean's Office I'm sitting at my big desk, trying to focus on these boring contracts when the door opens. Lola walks in wearing this tight black dress I’ve never seen before. Damn. It hugs every single curve on her body like it was painted on. The neckline is low, showing off the soft tops of her boobs, and the hem is short enough that I can already imagine what’s underneath. She knows exactly what she’s doing to me. “You busy?” she asks with a naughty little smile, closing the door behind her and locking it with a click. “Yeah, but who cares right now. Come here.” She walks over slow and sexy, hips swinging side to side like she’s teasing me on purpose. My dick twitches in my pants just watching her. When she gets close, I grab her wrist and pull her straight onto my lap. Her thighs spread over mine, and she’s already breathing a little faster. “This dress is fucking dangerous,” I growl, running my hands up her smooth thighs, pushing the fabric h







