Amelia’s POV

They say grief has stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Cute theory, neat little boxes.

Me? I never got past the first one.

Since the day I saw those two pink lines, I’d been living inside a fog, like I’d misplaced myself and was too tired to go looking. My body moved, my mouth spoke, my hands poured lattes for strangers who tapped their credit cards and asked me to smile, but inside, I was hollow, dead air.

Every morning I’d hover over the trash can in the backroom, clutching my stomach, dry-heaving, or worse. The smell of espresso that used to comfort me now turned my insides upside down. My manager pretended not to notice, my coworkers gave me the kind of pity glances you reserve for roadkill, awful to look at, but worse to acknowledge.

I couldn’t quit, rent doesn’t care about morning sickness. The world keeps spinning even when yours shatters.

Cecilia tried to keep me tethered. Pros and cons lists, hopeful whispers about “miracles in disguise.” She held my hair back some nights and gave me silence on others. She meant well, but pep talks felt like band-aids on an amputation. What I needed was time travel, a chance to rewind a single night I could barely remember, blurry faces and blurred choices, and press delete.

But time only moved forward, and my body, my traitorous body moved with it. Every day it reminded me of something growing inside me. Something I never asked for, a word I couldn’t say, mother, echoed like a curse.

So I stayed in between, not planning, not deciding. Just… suspended, staring out the windows at nothing.

The rain came heavily that afternoon, slicking the streets into mirror glass. Cecilia had left me a grocery list, and I convinced myself that walking might shake me out of the haze. The drizzle soaked through my sweater by the time I made it to the market. I hugged the paper bag against my chest, my steps heavy, my stomach twisting. Just get home. Don’t puke in the street, don’t fall apart where people can see.

The street was nearly empty, just the sound of rain tapping umbrellas and tires hissing through puddles. My shoes slapped against wet pavement. I kept my head down. That’s why I didn’t hear the car until it was right there, purring beside me.

Confused, I slowed, a shadow moved, then a hand clamped over my mouth.

The bag hit the ground, oranges and bread scattering into the gutter. My muffled cry disappeared into a palm that smelled like leather and smoke. I kicked, twisted, fought but he shoved me into the black SUV like I weighed nothing.

The door slammed, and another man slid in beside me, his gun gleaming casually in his hand like it was a lighter, like I wasn’t worth the effort of a threat. My body shut down, stilling in terror.

Rough tape bit into my wrists, a gag muffled my sobs, my chest heaved, shaking until I could barely see.

Please God, no.

They didn’t speak, not to me, not to each other. The silence was worse than shouting, the tinted windows turned the world black.

My brain scrambled for reasons. Money? But I had twenty dollars in my purse, revenge? Wrong girl, then darker possibilities slammed through me, organ trafficking, human trafficking. Headlines I’d scrolled past and never thought could have my name in them.

When the SUV finally stopped, they dragged me out into the cold drizzle. An iron gate loomed, opening by itself with the hum of machinery. The driveway stretched long and cruel, ending in a mansion that looked carved out of nightmares, with stone walls, tall windows, and no warmth anywhere.

Inside was worse, dark wood, marble floors. The air was thick with cigar smoke and something sharper, cologne and maybe blood. They shoved me into a room, a chair, and more tape at my ankles. Then they left, their voices fading into the hall.

I caught fragments.

“…she thinks she could just walk away…”

“…he always checks the girls he sleeps with…”

“…carrying the boss’s baby…”

“…Mafioso Moreno doesn’t play games…”

The words sliced me open.

Boss.

Baby.

Moreno.

My breath stopped.

I remembered his face in flashes, a night blurred with alcohol, charm too dangerous to resist, a man who seemed untouchable. I’d buried it, shoved it somewhere I wouldn’t have to think about. And now, my chest caved, Oh my God, Oh my God.

Footsteps approached, heavy, final.

The door opened.

Not him, not yet, another man, tall, tattooed, gun at his side. He cut the gag loose without expression.

“Please,” I whispered, lips cracked, voice broken. “What is this? What did I do? Why am I here?”

He didn’t answer, he didn’t blink, he just left, shutting the door like I was nothing.

I was shaking so hard my teeth clicked, my stomach lurched, and I tried to breathe but it came out shallow, panicked.

Then a voice slid across the room behind me.

Low, smooth, familiar.

“Ciao, bella.”

Every nerve in my body froze.

I turned my head slowly.

He was leaning in the shadowed doorway, one hand in his pocket, the other brushing his suit jacket. Black wool, dark curls, gray eyes colder than I remembered. He looked like a sin wrapped in silk, a devil in human skin.

And he was smiling.

“Pregnant with my child,” he murmured, amused, almost tender if not for the steel in his eyes. “And you hid it like I wouldn’t want to be part of any baby shower? Tsk.”

My blood turned to ice.

His smile was all wrong, not cruel, not soft, something in between, like he was amused by a private joke only he understood.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, my body was ice, but my pulse thundered in my ears.

He took one slow step into the room, his shoes clicked against marble, precise, deliberate.

“You vanished,” he said simply, as though I’d been late for a date, not hiding from a nightmare. “I woke, and the bed was empty, no number, no name, just silence.” His head tilted, a predator’s angle. “And yet, bella, silence doesn’t erase consequences.”

My lips parted, but no sound came. The air was too heavy, my throat too dry.

He studied me like I was a puzzle, his eyes didn’t leave my face, not even for the tape binding my wrists. “You thought you could disappear into a crowd. A ghost in the city, but fate is cruel, no?” He touched his chest lightly. “Cruel for you, generous for me.”

“Please,” I whispered, my voice barely a thread. “I don’t want…”

He raised a hand, and the word shriveled on my tongue. His palm hovered in the air, silencing me more effectively than the gag had.

“You think I don’t know fear when I see it?” His voice dropped lower, smoother. “But fear is temporary, legacy… is forever.”

He stepped closer, the scent of expensive cologne mingling with rain and smoke, his shadow stretched over me, drowning me in it.

“You carry my blood,” he said softly, almost reverently. “Do you understand what that means?”

Tears burned my eyes, and I shook my head, a desperate denial.

“It means,” he continued, crouching so we were eye-level, his face too close, “that you are not disposable, not replaceable, not… forgotten.” He leaned closer until his breath warmed my cheek. “It means you are mine. Both of you.”

My chest heaved. “I don’t want to be yours.”

His laugh was quiet, humorless. “You think you have a choice?” His gray eyes flickered, not angry, not mocking, just certain. “You’ll learn soon, with me, there is no escape.”

He stood, smoothing his jacket, his control seamless. No raised voice, no threats shouted, just calm inevitability.

“I don’t play games with my blood,” he said finally. “You will have protection. No one will touch you without my permission, not the police, not strangers, not even fate. You will live under my roof, eat my food, breathe my air.” He glanced at the door. “Because where else can you go?”

I shook my head hard, my voice shaking. “I have a life, a job, a friend, I can’t just…”

He cut me off with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Jobs are for the desperate, friends vanish when the rent is late, but this?” He tapped his chest, then gestured at my stomach. “This binds you to something eternal.”

My pulse was racing so fast it hurt.

He turned toward the door, already dismissing me. “You will stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we will talk about doctors. About the future.” His pause was deliberate. “Our future.”

The door opened, his silhouette filled the frame like a warning, like a promise. He looked back once more, and his voice wrapped around me like silk that cut.

“Sleep, bella. You’ll need strength.”

Then he was gone, and the lock clicked shut.

I sat shaking in the silence, the word ours ringing in my skull like a sentence I hadn’t chosen.

And I'd never hated my life more than I did now.