All Chapters of MARRIED TO THE MAFIA: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Lila The world felt different when we stepped out of the clinic.It was something about the way the sun hit the pavement, warm and bright. Something about the way Luca fell into step beside me without a word, like it was the most natural thing in the world.He didn’t try to hold my hand.He didn’t try to touch me at all.But the nearness of him was enough to make my chest ache.Across the street was a little café I’d passed a hundred times but never gone into Le Petit Matin, with wrought. iron chairs out front and a cheerful chalkboard sign that read *Fresh croissants daily!*I paused at the crosswalk, feeling a sudden, inexplicable urge to keep the moment going.Luca stopped too, watching me carefully.“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice soft.I hesitated.Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I glanced up at him.“Do you…want to get breakfast?” I asked quietly.His eyebrows lifted just a fraction, like I’d surprised him.Then he nodded.“I’d like that,” he said.We crosse

LilaI didn’t feel myself stand.Didn’t feel the legs of the chair scraping across the tile.Didn’t feel the eyes of every stranger in the café fixed on me like I was a specimen under glass.All I felt was the roar in my ears like the ocean, drowning everything else.And the pressure behind my breastbone, so sharp it hurt to breathe.“Lila.”His voice cut through the static.Low, rough, desperate.But I couldn’t look at him.If I looked at him, I would shatter.So I turned.I turned and walked toward the door with my head high, even though the tears were already streaming down my face.Even though my hands were shaking so violently I could barely push the door open.I heard him rise behind me heard the scuff of his shoes and the scrape of the chair legs as he followed.“Lila, please”“Don’t.”My voice was calm.Too calm.I didn’t even recognize it.I kept walking.Out onto the sidewalk, into the blinding sunlight that made the wetness on my cheeks burn.I had no idea where I was going.

LilaI didn’t go back to my little apartment after I left the café.I needed to breathe.I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t losing my mind for loving a man who came with more shadows than light.So I went to the only person in the world who’d ever loved me without conditions.I sat on the end of my mother’s hospital bed, twisting a tissue in my hands until it was nothing but shreds.She watched me silently, her eyes patient and knowing.When I finally looked up, she reached out and cupped my cheek in her warm, frail palm.“You love him,” she said softly, not a question but a fact.I swallowed hard, my throat tight.“I don’t know how to stop,” I whispered.Her thumb brushed under my eye, wiping away a tear I hadn’t realized was falling.“Then don’t,” she said simply.“But Mom…” My voice broke. “He has another child. With her.”Her brows lifted a fraction.“And you think running away will make that child disappear?”I let out a strangled little laugh. “No.”“Then why are you here?”“Be

Lila. I was folding tiny onesies again.Not because I had to, really I'd already folded them twice but because it was the only thing that kept my hands from trembling and my thoughts from spiraling. It had become a ritual now: fold, smooth, tuck, breathe. Fold, smooth, tuck, breathe.The nursery still smelled faintly of fresh paint and lavender oil, a scent I'd begged the housekeeper to diffuse just to help with the nausea. But tonight it did little to soothe me.I heard the knock before I felt it soft, hesitant on the slightly ajar door of my room. My spine went rigid. I didn't have to look up to know who it was."Lila?" Anna's voice was gentle, and that alone made me suspicious. She never came to my room. She barely said more than pleasantries unless she was pointing out a mistake I’d made or subtly reminding me of my place.I turned slowly, folding the last onesie and placing it into the drawer. I didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched.Anna stepped in.She wasn’t wearing

Lila. I’d never seen Luca like this.Focused, yes. Determined, always. But this version of him smiling, relaxed, one hand resting possessively on the small of my back as we strolled down the sidewalk felt like someone I was just beginning to know.A man who could be gentle. Soft, even.A man who had let me see the rawest pieces of him and hadn’t hidden afterward.We were baby shopping, which still sounded surreal even inside my own head. It felt like something other people did normal people with unremarkable lives. Not mafia lords and their almost-wives.But here we were.“You’re sure about the green?” he asked, holding up a tiny onesie printed with pale sage leaves.I covered my mouth, trying not to laugh. “It’s adorable, Luca.”“I don’t want him to look like a vegetable,” he muttered, studying the tag as if it might reveal some hidden threat.“He’ll be three months old. He won’t care.”He glanced up, and I caught the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Fine. But I’m not putting him i