Chapter 12 — Emma

Emma had never been more anxious in her life than she was waiting for the front door of the Donati home to open. On either side of her, both Michelle and Cynthia waited, both excited and happy.

But her?

Emma had so much dread building inside her body that she felt physically sick. It certainly didn’t help that leading up to this day, she had gotten very little sleep, and her nerves were ready to snap at even the slightest aggravation. Despite being put on bedrest, she had practically no time at all to relax.

Not with her husband coming home.

Affonso’s release had depended on several factors like his healing, the fever he had been running, and how he felt in general. When that call came from Ray, telling Emma that Affonso would be released the next day and expected to come home to a house ready to welcome him, she barely kept down her lunch.

Running a palm over her stomach, Emma tried to calm herself.

She didn’t need the stress or the worry.

It wasn’t her who had shot Affonso.

Oddly, it didn’t help much.

When the door finally opened, and Affonso was led inside by Ray and Calisto, Emma didn’t quite know what to do or say. In a wheelchair, the man seemed almost smaller than what she knew he actually was. He appeared fragile as he shook his head when Ray asked him a question, and then waved a hand to ward off whatever Calisto was saying right after.

Emma knew looks were certainly deceiving.

Affonso may have appeared weak, but she knew he was anything but.

The man was a snake.

A dangerous, poisonous snake.

“Daddy!”

Michelle’s shriek of happiness brought Emma from her inner thoughts, and she watched the girls rush forward to their father. It took Affonso far too long, in Emma’s opinion, to open his arms and accept the embrace from his daughters. He winced when they hugged him, but other than that, he gave nothing away.

From the corner of her eye, Emma found Calisto watching her.

Silent, unmoving, and dark.

He hadn’t come back to see her since that last time.

He hadn’t said another thing about the memory he had regained.

She wondered what he was thinking, or what else he might know.

Jesus.

She wondered all the time.

Emma schooled her features with a false smile when Affonso’s gaze leveled on her.

“No hello for me, my dear?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “We’re happy to have you back. Welcome home, Affonso.”

Somehow—by the grace of God and nothing else—Emma had managed to keep the resentment and worry out of her tone.

“You’re looking …” Affonso’s gaze traveled over her thirty-one-week swell, and his smile grew a little. “Well, I suppose.”

“Everything is good.”

“Wonderful.” Affonso waved at Ray and Calisto with one hand and said, “I am fine, you two. As you can clearly see. These three will make sure I am in bed like the doctor wants. I do not need grown men tucking me under the sheets.”

“Zio,” Calisto started to say.

“Boss,” Ray cut in at the same time.

“Go,” Affonso barked.

Emma caught Calisto’s eye for a brief second before he left the house. Ray quickly followed behind, but not before telling Affonso to call him in the morning. As soon as the door was closed and the men were gone, Emma’s nerves climbed a notch or two.

She wasn’t sure what Affonso’s mood was after being shot, nearly killed, operated on, and then finally allowed home. What she did know was that he had allowed practically no one entrance in his hospital room—he wanted no guests there at all.

Including her.

Even his daughters were not welcomed.

“Now, you two,” Affonso said, bringing Emma from her thoughts. His gaze was trained on his two waiting girls who only wanted to spend time with their father after his accident. “No more worrying about me, hmm? I am perfectly fine, it was nothing.”

“You were shot,” Cynthia argued.

“It was nothing, Cee. It will take a great deal more than a couple of bullets to kill me.”

Emma sucked in a hard breath at those words, but no one seemed to notice. Cynthia and Michelle were too focused on their father, and the small bit of attention he was giving them. He never gave them enough.

She hated that for the girls, because she knew exactly what it was like to grow up with a father who spoiled you with material things, but held back the one thing a girl wanted most of all—his love, attention, and time.

When Michelle bent down to hug her father again, Affonso took the embrace with an annoyed sigh. “All right, that’s enough of that. It’s getting close to supper, and I’m hungry. Tell me food is ready?”

He’d posed his question beyond the girls, to Emma only.

She nodded. “Your favorite, Sherry made sure of it.”

“Perfetto,” he praised. “Michelle, Cynthia, why don’t you run to my office and grab those cigars I like in the box. I have a taste for one, and the hospital wouldn’t let me smoke.”

Without argument, the girls went in search of what their father wanted. The moment they were out of sight, Emma had all she could do not to fidget under Affonso’s heavy stare.

“How were things when I was gone?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“Oh?”

“What else did you expect? I can hold a house down,” she said quietly.

“Barely, I imagine. You’re too young for much else. My baby better be well, too.”

His baby. She almost scoffed, but held it back.

Emma’s anger swelled, but she kept it in check. “The pregnancy is coming along fine, but I’m not to be up on my feet for long, and I’ll probably have him early, as they suspected.”

Affonso didn’t look pleased about that at all. “He better be healthy, Emma.”

“Then maybe you should smoke those cigars you just asked for somewhere else,” she suggested.

“It was a distraction for them,” he explained with a shrug. “I want them back at school within a couple of days. They don’t need to be here taking up time that could be better spent elsewhere.”

His coldness burned.

She wasn’t even surprised.

“Whatever you want, Affonso,” Emma murmured.

Then, with a grunt and a scowl, Affonso pushed up from the wheelchair. He cringed, his pain obvious, as he took a hesitant step. “You are not the only one who was ordered to stay off their feet, but I have a feeling you’ll be lazying around far more than me.”

Fuck him.

She didn’t give him a response to that nonsense, either.

*

Emma’s eyes snapped open to darkness. She wasn’t sure what had woken her this time, but as she raised her hand to move the hair from her eyes, she found her forehead damp with sweat and a chill ran through her blood. The house was quiet, and it had been ever since Affonso shipped his daughters off back to boarding school just two short days after he came home from the hospital.

Without much of a fuss, the girls went. Of course, it was clear they had wanted to stay behind a while longer, but when Affonso gave them one of his looks, he silenced their opinions. They covered up their sadness, and everyone’s mask was put firmly back in place.

It was business as usual.

Except it wasn’t.

Affonso, when he was in pain, turned out to act even worse than he did on a regular day. He berated anyone within spitting distance, he drank too much when he wasn’t supposed to consume any alcohol due to his medications, and he couldn’t be pleased.

For the most part, he took his abuse out on whoever visited him. His men, friends, and business associates. He couldn’t leave the house for any long periods of time, and as far as she knew, there was still a hell being unleashed on the streets with the Irish. So, he did his business from his office.

Emma tried to stay as far out of his way as she possibly could.

She didn’t need the added stress of being put under his abuse with everything she already had going on. Sometimes, though, Affonso couldn’t be avoided. He questioned her often, demanding to know what she had done when he was incapacitated. Sometimes he accused her of lying to him when he was drunk, but he never explained exactly what she was lying about. Occasionally, he would eye her rounded stomach with a mixture of disgust and anger, before reminding her what would happen, should she fail to see the pregnancy out with a healthy child at the end, and Calisto none the wiser.

Emma was dying inside.

A little more each day.

She thought about Calisto constantly. She dreamed of him more often than she wanted to. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones doing it, but the dreams were rarely innocent. She could almost feel his fingers between her thighs, and his tongue working her to a fever. She’d wake up hot, sweating, and unsatisfied.

Blinking up at the darkness, Emma rolled over to her other side.

And then she felt it between her thighs, soaking the sheets.

A steady drip of water.

Now, she knew why she had woken up. Especially when she was suddenly doubled over with pain as a contraction started from the middle of her stomach and worked its way to her back.

Her baby was coming.

Cross was coming.

She shouted for Affonso, as he was just across the hall. As much as she hated to do it, she didn’t have much of a choice. As she heard him begin to cuss and move around next door, Emma breathed her way through the last of the contraction.

It actually wasn’t that bad.

She suspected it would get a hell of a lot worse.

Emma wasn’t ready for it, and she wished more than anything that it was Calisto standing in her doorway wearing a tired, confused expression instead of the man who was.

“What?” Affonso asked, angry and gruff.

“The baby is coming,” Emma told him.

Affonso’s brow furrowed. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I need to go to the hospital.”

“Call the ambulance.”

He turned around and walked back into the bedroom across the hall.

Emma sat still and stunned in her own bed for the longest while—until another contraction ripped through her womb, stabbing her all over with pain. It was only then that she reached for the phone on the bedside table, knowing that Affonso had no interest in her child, or his birth.

At least not until he was outside of her body and breathing.

*

Emma couldn’t stop staring at her child. He was beautiful with his tiny, sloped nose, rounded pink cheeks, and his small features.

Oh, Cross was perfect.

All those hours, those terrifying, painful hours, had been worth it for this one, quiet moment of her life. People often said that once the baby was in the woman’s arms, she forgot about the pain that had come with the birth because the child took it away.

Emma hadn’t believed that, not entirely.

And in a way, she still didn’t.

She would never forget the pain—not the blood, the contractions, or the fear. But once she had her healthy, beautiful—albeit tiny, given he’d come early—boy in her arms, the memory of the pain had lessened instantly. She focused in on Cross, his bloodstained cheeks and matted black hair. She had traced her shaking finger down the slope of his nose and under his blinking, hazy black eyes as a nurse put him on her chest and began to warm him with a towel.

Not once did she think about the pain.

“So beautiful,” she told her little boy.

Cross’s black eyes watched her contentedly, though she was sure things were a little fuzzy to him. Still, as long as he was swaddled and being held, he was happy. Emma didn’t mind making him happy. He was her little prince, after all.

“I waited so long for you, Cross.”

The baby blinked, unknowing.

He couldn’t possibly know how terrified she had been for most of his pregnancy, or how much she had needed to do just to keep him safe while praying he stayed right where he was inside her womb for long enough to survive being outside of it.

Worth it, Emma reminded herself.

Once more, Emma went about counting each one of the baby’s little fingers and toes. She traced the lines on his palms, and studied the fingerprints on each of his little fingers.

Innocence and pure love rested in her arms.

Emma had never felt more complete.

She had also never felt lonelier.

Staring at Cross only reminded her of the person he was missing the most, even if he didn’t know it—his father. He shared far more of Calisto’s features than he did hers. From his dark hair, or his black eyes, the curve of his plump pink lips, and the shape of his nose—it was all Calisto Donati right there in flesh and blood.

Cross was his father’s son, no doubt about it.

“Handsome boy,” Emma told him.

“So he is.”

Emma started at the new voice, knowing damn well her hospital room had been closed, which meant she didn’t want visitors while she fed and attended to her son. Cross was staying in the NICU as his oxygen levels sometimes dropped, and he had just a touch of jaundice that the doctors were monitoring. He also wasn’t taking well to a bottle, but he didn’t mind a breast. Emma’s milk hadn’t dropped, even two days after her son was born, although the lactation consultant said that was normal for some women. Still, she fed her boy because that was what he wanted, even if she wasn’t giving him much.

“Affonso,” Emma said, not bothering to look up from her son. “Good of you to finally come around.”

He hadn’t bothered to come to the hospital during the birth, or even seen Emma off when the ambulance came. He hadn’t once visited her in the two days since Cross made his way into the world. She was surprised to see the man there at all.

Then again, maybe she wasn’t.

Affonso wanted his boy, after all.

Affonso strolled across the room, his shoes squeaking with each step, making Cross’s little brow pucker at the sound. “I’ve been here. I’ve seen him, and held him, for your information. And when you’re ready, I will sign the birth certificate. Today, even.”

Emma’s throat thickened at his admission.

“I even took him for a little walk around the place, and let some of my men see him,” Affonso added.

It was very possible he was telling the truth, considering Cross spent a good majority of his day between Emma’s room and the NICU ward when they were checking him over and recording what they needed to, regarding his breathing and color. When he wasn’t with Emma, she knew that Affonso could have gotten in on the basis that he was her husband, and the child’s father. He was listed on the information, and even had a bracelet waiting that matched the baby.

Still, it made her sick to her stomach.

Affonso watched her from the side with that cold smile of his. “Ah, you’re getting it, I see.”

She was getting it, as terrifying as it was to her.

He was telling her—without directly saying it—that her son was not safe from him, not even in a hospital surrounded by people who were meant to be constantly watching Cross. At any point, Affonso could simply take her baby, and she could do nothing.

“I’ve had men posted around the building since you came in,” Affonso explained with a wave, coming closer to the bed. “I had to make sure everything was … good.”

Emma swallowed hard. “You mean that I didn’t have Calisto come here and meet his son before you could get your filthy fucking hands all over his child.”

Affonso’s dark eyes flashed with a warning. Emma knew she had crossed a line, but damn, that’s all her life was with Affonso Donati.

Lines drawn in the sand.

Rules written on the walls.

Unspoken threats hanging in the air.

It suffocated her.

Her life felt so thin—it only became thinner with every passing day. Like the less pleasing she was, the less useful she could be, the less important she became.

Cross was her one thing—a beautiful, perfect thing she just wanted to love.

And keep safe.

With the grace of a predator, Affonso sat on the edge of Emma’s hospital bed, never taking his gaze away from her and the content baby boy. He reached out to touch Cross, and Emma moved slightly away, holding her baby a little bit tighter from the monster who appeared on the outside to be a saint.

“My son?” Affonso asked, opening his hands to take the baby.

Emma refused. “He’s happy where he is.”

“Give me my child, wife.”

“Affonso—”

Her words cut off as he ran a hand over the top of Cross’s head, messing up the baby’s black tufts of hair in the process. Then, as quickly as his hand had touched the baby, he was lifting it, and squeezing Emma’s throat.

She gasped, a burning pain searing through her lungs when she couldn’t take in even a little bit of air to breathe. Affonso simply smiled his cold grin again, and grasped a little tighter.

“Shall we have a reminder, Emma?” he asked quietly.

Her gaze flitted to the closed door of her maternity suite. No one was coming to help her, and Affonso had probably locked the door behind him when she was distracted with admiring her son.

“Do let me remind you who this child belongs to, now,” Affonso continued, never releasing his hold on her throat even a little bit. “While he was inside your body, he was yours to take care of and do with as you wished. But now that he is outside into the world and alive, I will do with him what I wish. If you plan on making this hard, then I will make it exceptionally easy by making you disappear.”

Emma’s eyes watered, but she kept a firm hold on Cross, refusing to drop him and claw at Affonso’s hand like her instincts were demanding.

“I’m his mother,” she croaked.

“You are the whore that created him,” Affonso replied coolly. “And believe me, he will grow up thinking just that, if I have any say.”

Finally, Affonso let her go, and at the same time, took the baby from her arms. Emma lurched forward in the bed, ignoring the pain shooting through her lower regions at the action.

“Give me him back, Affonso!”

Affonso gave her a look over his shoulder, before his attention was back on the baby in his arms. “Cross, Cross, Cross … my boy, you are a handsome thing, aren’t you? Let’s go for a walk, bambino.”

“Affonso,” Emma muttered through clenched teeth, “do not take my child from me.”

“I’m simply taking him for a walk,” her husband replied.

Lies.

The man was a goddamn liar in the worst way.

He wasn’t just taking Cross for a walk as he proclaimed, he was warning her again.

Affonso could take her child.

He could hurt her.

Hurt the baby.

Anything.

And she could do nothing.

“You’re a bastard,” Emma told him.

Affonso didn’t bother with a reply.

Emma was scared that if she did more—fought him more—he would do far worse to her, Cross, or Calisto than just simply choking her.

What could she do? What?