Bonus Chapter 1

Bonus Chapter 1
Dante’s POV

Hospitals made me uneasy.

Not for the usual reasons. It wasn’t the sterile air or the too-clean walls or the faint scent of bleach that lingered like regret. No. It was the waiting.

The fucking waiting.

I’d stood in burning warehouses, blood soaking through my shirt, with my Glock still hot from a kill, and I was calmer than I was right now. But nothing in that building was trying to kill me.

Except my own thoughts.

Lucia sat beside me in the private OB consultation room I had reserved—one of those quiet, high security clinics where no one saw you unless I said so.

It wasn’t cheap. But nothing about that pregnancy had been. She was quiet, too. Hands folded over her stomach. It was still small. Barely a bump. But I saw it. I saw him or her… hell, I didn’t even know which was growing in her yet.

Inside my woman.

My throat felt tight.

“How much longer?” I asked, not to anyone in particular.

Lucia gave me a side-glance. “They’re only five minutes late.”

Yeah. Five minutes felt like five years when I didn’t know what was going on inside her body. When I didn’t know if everything was okay. When I couldn’t see the problem, only waited to be told it was already too late.

“What if the baby’s not okay?” I muttered.

Her hand touched mine, light but steady. “Dante. I’m fine, it’s just antenatal.”

I clenched my jaw.

The door opened and the doctor walked in. A short woman, maybe mid-forties, calm face, soft voice. I had already background-checked her. Vetted her entire team. There was security on every floor. No one got in or out of that clinic unless I said so.

Still, my fingers twitched near my belt like I was reaching for a holster I didn’t bring.

“Mr. and Mrs. Romano,” she said, smiling. “You ready?”

Lucia nodded. I moved stiffly behind her.

We followed her into the ultrasound room. Lucia lay back on the table and lifted her blouse. I stared at her stomach. I had kissed that skin. Marked it with my mouth, my hands, my teeth. But now it was different.

Now it held something I couldn’t control.

The doctor squirted the gel. Lucia flinched, and I caught her hand.

“Sorry,” the doctor said softly. “Let’s take a look.”

She moved the probe over Lucia’s stomach. The screen next to us flickered. Black and white waves rippled across it. For a moment, I didn’t see anything.

Then I heard it.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

A sound I had never heard in my life.

I’d heard thousands of heartbeats, most of them slowing, dying.

But this one was different. This one was alive. This one was mine.

My hand tightened in Lucia’s. My knees nearly gave out, and I had to lean forward, elbows on my thighs, breathing through my mouth.

“That’s…” I cleared my throat. “That’s them?”

The doctor nodded. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”

Lucia’s eyes shimmered. She looked at me. Really looked.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

I laughed under my breath. A short, broken sound. “No. Not even a little bit.”

She smiled, and wiped a tear from her cheek.

They took some measurements. Printed out an image… a grainy, black and white photo of our baby. Lucia clutched it like it was gold.

I just stood there, rooted to the spot, eyes locked on what we’d made.

———

Outside the exam room, the nurse gave us more information. Something about vitamins. Blood pressure. The next appointment. I nodded at all the right times, but I was barely listening.

All I heard was that heartbeat.

All I saw was that screen.

Lucia’s body had made life. Our life.

And now it was my job to make sure they both stayed breathing.

I watched her as we walked to the car. She was glowing—not in the cliché, magazine-cover way. In that Lucia way. Strong. Quiet. Fire beneath the surface. And now carrying my heir.

We got into the backseat. I didn’t speak for a while. Neither did she.

The car started to move.

I reached over and slipped my hand over hers again.

“I don’t know how to be a father,” I admitted, voice low.

She turned to me slowly. “Neither do I. But we’ll figure it out.”

I shook my head. “I never had one. Not really. Just men who used me. Beat me. Tried to carve me into something I didn’t want to be.”

My father never told me he loved me.
Not once. He only taught me how to hurt things before they hurt me.

Her thumb brushed mine, but her voice was firmer this time.

“You’re not them, Dante. You never were.”

“I’m scared I’ll fuck this up,” I whispered. “That I’ll turn into them.”

She squeezed my hand. “Then don’t,” she said quietly. “Be better. Be the man you are with me. With our baby.”

I looked at Lucia, her hand in mine, soft where the world had once only been sharp.

“We’re not doing this alone,” she added. “You’re not that man anymore. And I’m not letting you forget it.”

God, she always said shit like that when I needed it most. She pulled me back from the edge without even trying.

I lifted her hand and kissed it.

“You keep me human, firefly.”

She smiled softly. “And you keep me safe.”

Later that night, she was asleep.

The lights were off, the room quiet except for the city hum outside our windows. I sat in the nursery, unfinished, just a crib and some boxes.

In my hand was that ultrasound photo.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I took out a sheet of paper and started writing a letter for the future. For my son. Or daughter. I didn’t know who they’d become, but I knew who I’d be.

Yours.

Fiercely. Without question. With blood and fire and every part of me that ever knew pain, now remade into love.

I folded the letter and tucked it into a box labeled “From Your Father.”

Just in case.

Just so they’d always know. That I was nothing like the man who raised me. And everything like the one I chose to become.