Bonus Chapter 3

Bonus Chapter 3
Dante’s POV

I’d survived bullets, blood, betrayal.

But nothing prepared me for the moment Lucia went into labor.

It started with a sharp gasp in the middle of the night. Her fingers clutched my wrist, nails digging in like claws, and her breath came in ragged, uneven waves. I was up in a second… shirtless, gun on the nightstand forgotten, pulse pounding like I was walking into a firefight.

“It’s time,” she whispered, and I swear the ground shifted beneath me.

Time.

I’d planned wars with less urgency than I moved that night. One call to the doctor. Another to secure the hospital route. I was calm. Efficient. A fucking machine.

Until she screamed in the car.

That’s when I lost it.

By the time we got to the delivery room, my shirt was inside out, I’d put my suit jacket on backward, and my hands…those hands that never trembled even with a trigger under them, were shaking.

She was a hurricane on that bed. Sweat running down her face. Hair plastered to her neck. Her legs trembling, fists clenched around the sheets like letting go would kill her.

And I couldn’t do a damn thing.

“Don’t just stand there like a statue!” she shouted, her voice sharp, panicked. “Do something!”

I tried to respond. I think I said something about being supportive or told her I’d get water, help her breathe, stay with her. But I could barely think. All I wanted was for her pain to stop. I just wanted her to be okay.

I would’ve traded my soul to take the pain for her.

“She’s at nine centimeters,” the nurse said.

My stomach dropped.

Nine. That meant she was nearly there. That meant it was happening. Now.

Lucia’s groan pulled me back. She clutched my hand—no, she crushed it—and I welcomed the pain. I wanted it. If it meant I could carry even a sliver of what she was feeling, I’d have let her break every bone in my body.

“You’re breaking my hand,” I muttered.

“Good,” she shot back.

And I loved her for that.

God, I loved her.

She swore at me. Said she hated me for doing this to her.

I didn’t flinch. I didn’t speak.

I just kissed her forehead.

“Hate me all you want,” I whispered, “if it means you get to hold him in your arms.”

That was all I wanted. 

I would’ve burned the world to see her hold our son.

The nurses came in. The doctor. Lights blazed. It felt sterile and bright and chaotic, but I didn’t leave her side. Even when they offered me an out.

“I’m not leaving her,” I said. “Not even if the building catches fire.”

Because I meant that. I didn’t care if the sky fell. My place was beside her.

And then the pushing began.

I’d seen blood spray from a man’s throat. Watched someone die with his eyes open.

But watching Lucia fight to bring life into the world?

That nearly destroyed me.

Her whole body shook. Muscles straining. Pain etched into every inch of her face. And I just stood there, helpless, gripping her hand like it was the only thing keeping me grounded.

“You’ve got this, love,” I said. “Just a little more. You’re stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

She was.

God, she was.

But I could see it in her eyes—she was slipping. Drowning in it. So I did the only thing I could. I bribed her.

“You get him out,” I murmured against her hair, “and I’ll buy you anything you want. Greece, Paris, Rome. That beach house in Amalfi? It’s yours. Hell, I’ll build you your own island if that’s what it takes.”

Her laugh cracked through the pain. Soft. Real. Lucia. My little firefly.

Another push. Another scream.

And then…

That sound.

That goddamn cry.

I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t fucking ready.

He was tiny. Red. Loud. Alive.

I watched, frozen, as they placed him on her chest. Her arms were shaking, but she held him like she was made for it. Her face broke. Tears spilled down her cheeks. I’d never seen her look more broken… or more whole.

“He’s here,” she whispered. “Dante, he’s perfect.”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

Because in that moment, I knew nothing would ever compare to this. Not power. Not fear. Not vengeance. Nothing.

She looked at me. “Do you want to hold him?”

I hesitated.

Not because I didn’t want to. But because I didn’t think I deserved to.

I nodded anyway.

And the second I felt his weight against my chest?

Everything stopped.

I held him like the world might try to take him, and I’d kill anyone who tried.

“Hi,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I’m your dad. And no one—no one—will ever touch you.”

This is the future king.
Mine. Ours. The one who clawed his way into this world with fists already curled, ready to fight before he even took his first breath.

“Enea.”

His name tastes like blood and promise on my tongue. It’s not just a name. It’s a message. A warning. A curse, if it needs to be.

Let them hear it… and choke on it.

He doesn’t wear a crown yet, but he already has enemies. And if anyone so much as breathes wrong in his direction, I’ll carve the lesson into their bones.

He’ll grow up with love sharpened into armor.
With a mother who’d set the world on fire for him and a father who already did.

And he was my greatest weakness.

————

Lucia was asleep now.

Finally.

Her body had collapsed from the exhaustion, the pain, the goddamn war she just waged with her own flesh. She didn’t go down easy… she fought it the whole time, mumbling that she needed to keep her eyes on him, that she didn’t want to miss a single second. But the minute the nurse wrapped our son in a blanket and the room grew quiet, she exhaled…and drifted.

And now it was just me.

Me and him.

Enea.

He was curled against my chest, warm and breathing in these short, soft puffs that shook me harder than any gunshot ever had. His hand twitched against my shirt, tiny fingers clenching like he knew me already. Like he trusted me.

I stared at him. At that little face that already had my jaw and Lucia’s mouth. At the faint line between his brows like he was already suspicious of the world he’d just been born into. Good. That meant he belonged to me.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered, my voice low, gravelly.

He didn’t answer. Just wriggled a little closer.

“But I swear to you…” My throat locked. I had to blink fast to keep from losing it. “I’ll learn. I’ll give you what I never had. Safety. Power. A fucking childhood. You’ll never flinch when someone raises a hand. You’ll never sleep with fear in your chest.”

I leaned my head back against the hospital chair, one arm curled tight around him, the other brushing his soft hair.

“I’ll be better than my father was,” I whispered. “Better than all of them.”

Then I looked over at Lucia, still asleep, her face slack with exhaustion, lashes dark against her cheeks. There was still dried blood on her thighs. Her hair was wild. Her hands were clenched in the sheets even in sleep.

She looked like she’d survived a battle.

She had.

“I’m sorry,” I said to her quietly, voice thick. “For not knowing what to do while you went through hell. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known, Lucia. Always have been.”

I don’t know how long I sat there.

But eventually… I drifted, too.

Enea against my chest. My arms locked around him like he was my only tether to the earth. My heart beating in a rhythm I didn’t recognize… one I’d never felt before.

A father’s rhythm.