Page 75 of Claimed Through Deception

The gates were open. The cameras were blind.

The realization strikes me with devastating clarity. Livia had a three-day window consisting of unmonitored chaos. She had the cash she hoarded in her canvas bag, and nobody would have noticed a civilian slipping past the shattered perimeter while the syndicate soldiers were busy dragging bodies out of the foyer. She possessed the perfect, flawless opportunity to vanish into the city and protect her unborn child from the monster she believed me to be.

She is gone.

A hollow, crushing void opens up inside my ribcage, an agony far worse than the surgical incisions holding my flesh together. I sacrificed my own life to ensure she survived the hitman, and she used the resulting distraction to run away from me. I cannot blame her. I told her I was poison to our bloodline, and she finally believed me.

"I need water," I mutter, turning my head away from my men so they cannot see the devastating heartbreak fracturing my composure.

As I shift my gaze toward the small table beside the bed, my eyes land on a shape huddled in the corner of the room.

The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp, stuttering gasp.

Livia is curled into a stiff, uncomfortable vinyl visitor's chair pulled flush against the metal railing of my bed. She is wearing an oversized, borrowed sweatshirt that swallows her small frame, her legs tucked protectively against her stomach. Her face is pale, smudged with exhaustion, but she is breathing in a steady, peaceful rhythm.

She didn't run.

I stare at her, my drug-addled brain struggling to process the impossible visual. The gates were open, the guards were distracted, and yet the woman who tried to flee through the freezing mud a week ago is sleeping in the subterranean medical wing.

I look down. Her small, delicate fingers are wrapped around my uninjured left hand in a fierce, bruising death grip, holding onto me so tightly.

I carefully flex my fingers against hers, the slight movement instantly dragging her out of her exhausted sleep. Livia gasps, her spine snapping perfectly straight as her wide, panicked eyes dart frantically around the sterile room before locking onto my face.

"You're awake," she breathes, the words trembling as she pushes herself out of the chair and leans over the bed railing. "Niccolò, you're awake."

"I am still breathing," I manage to say, my voice sounds pathetic to my own ears.

Alessio clears his throat loudly from the foot of the bed. "We will give you two a minute. Enzo, let's go check the perimeter sweeps. Call us on the intercom if his vitals drop, Livia."

My brother and the Consigliere slip out of the medical room, the solid steel door sealing us in a quiet, intimate isolation. Livia doesn't watch them leave, her focus remains entirely fixated on the bandages wrapped around my torso. She reaches out with a shaking hand, her fingertips hovering just millimeters above my skin, terrified of causing me any further pain.

"You stayed," I state the undeniable fact, my chest aching as I search her beautiful, exhausted face. "Enzo said the grid was down. The gates were breached. You had every opportunity to walk out of here with the cash in your bag, and nobody would have been able to stop you. Why the fuck are you sitting in a hospital chair, Livia?"

She drops her hand, crossing her arms over the oversized sweater with defiance.

"Because I am not a coward," she snaps back, her voice ringing with a newfound authority that sends a thrill of pride straight through my veins. "I watched you step in front of a loaded weapon to shield my body. I watched you bleed out on our bedroom floor because you decided my life was worth infinitely more than your own. You think I am going to pack a bag and run away from the only man who has ever truly protected me?"

"I told you I was dangerous to our child," I argue, the self-loathing bubbling back to the surface despite the profound relief of her presence. "I am a mobster. I invite violence into our home. That hitman was aiming at your stomach because he wanted to eradicate my bloodline. My proximity almost got you killed."

"Your proximity saved my life," she corrects me ruthlessly, leaning over the railing until her face is inches from mine. "My father was a pathetic drunk who used his fists to break my mother because it made him feel powerful. You used your strength to build a fortress around me, and when the wolves breached the walls, you laid down your own life to ensure I survived. You are not a monster, Niccolò Severato. You are exactly the kind of man I want raising my baby."

The conviction in her voice shatters the final remnants of the guilt I have been carrying since the moment I discovered she was pregnant. She sees the blood on my hands, she acknowledges the ruthless reality of the syndicate I command, and she is choosing to stand beside me regardless of the collateral damage.

"I will burn the rest of the Falco family to the ground," I promise her, the vow slipping from my lips with a lethal, unshakeable certainty. "I will eradicate every single threat in this city until you and this baby can walk the streets without looking over your shoulders. You will never have to fear the shadows again, mia regina."

Livia smiles, a stunning, tear-soaked expression that completely wrecks the remaining defenses guarding my heart. She leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of my mouth, careful not to jostle my injured chest.

"I know you will," she whispers against my lips, her fingers tangling possessively in my hair. "But right now, you are going to lay here and let Dr. Evans pump you full of antibiotics, because if you try to get out of this bed before you are healed, I will personally shoot you in the other lung."

I let out a weak, raspy chuckle, ignoring the agonizing flare of pain radiating from my sutures.

31

Livia

It has been exactly twenty-one days since they wheeled the bleeding Underboss of the Severato syndicate into this subterranean bunker. Three weeks of the agonizing, monotonous beep of cardiac monitors and the stifling scent of antiseptic that I am desperately trying to mask with drops of my vanilla lotion. Niccolò is a notoriously terrible patient. He is a man accustomed to commanding an empire, pacing war rooms, and breaking bones with a flick of his wrist, so being confined to a sterile mattress with a chest full of healing sutures has turned him into a spectacularly grumpy bastard. But the forced proximity is destroying my sanity in a completely different way. I have spent hours washing his torso with a warm sponge, tracing the rigid planes of his stomach while carefully avoiding the healing bullet wound, and the agonizing restraint is making us both feral.

Dr. Evans packs his stethoscope into his worn leather bag, his brow furrowed in perpetual exhaustion as he secures the clasp. "The incision is knitting nicely, Don Niccolò. The threat of infection has passed, and your lung capacity is returning to normal, provided you continue to avoid strenuous physical exertion for another week. You took a hollow-point bullet to the chest cavity. Healing takes time."