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But every path I could see led to the same place.

Pain. Violence. Loss. No matter how I tried to work the angles, no matter what resources I called upon or what sacrifices I was willing to make, the endgame looked the same. Dark. Inevitable. Unforgiving.

“I love you,” I said against her hair, the words inadequate but true. “Whatever happens, whatever we have to do, I love you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“You might not have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.” I tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes. “And I choose you. I choose us. I choose this child.”

“Even if it costs you everything?”

“Especially then.”

She searched my face, looking for doubt, for hesitation, for any sign that I didn’t mean it. But I did. God help me, I meant every word.

I had known from the beginning that loving her would destroy me. I saw the warning signs early on, felt the danger in every stolen glance, every whispered conversation when no one else was listening. Had known that this path led nowhere good. That it wound through darkness and heartbreak, through betrayal and consequences I couldn’t begin to fathom. But I had chosen it anyway, willingly stepped onto that treacherous road with my eyes wide open, and I would keep choosing it, again and again, no matter what it cost.

Even if it cost me my family. My reputation. My life.

Because she was worth it. Every stolen moment, every risk, every lie I had to tell to protect what we had. They were worth it. Both of them.

“What do we do?” she asked, her voice small and scared.

“We’ll figure it out.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead, lingering there for a moment, breathing her in. Then her cheeks, soft and warm beneath my lips. Then her mouth, tasting the salt of her tears. “Together. We’ll figure it out together.”

I meant every word. I would fight for this. For her. For us. For the life we were creating, whether we planned for it or not. But even as I said the words, even as I held her trembling body against mine and promised her things I wasn’t sure I could deliver, I knew the truth. I could feel it settling in my bones like a cold, immutable fact.

Our secret was no longer sustainable.

A child changed everything. It shifted the entire landscape of what we were trying to build in the shadows. I could hide an affair. I could hide stolen moments and whispered promises, and late-night phone calls. But I couldn’t hide a child. Not forever. Not in a way that mattered.

And there was no hiding from what came next.

The reckoning was coming. For both of us. And when it arrived, it would be brutal, bloody, and unforgiving. There would be no mercy, no second chances, no opportunity to explain ourselves in a way that would make any of this okay. We’d crossed too many lines.

But I would face it.

For her. For our child. For a future I desperately wanted but wasn’t sure I deserved.

I would face anything.

Even if it killed me.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I sat quietly, with Madigan by my side, watching as Crispin Sinclair paced his office.

The room was exactly what I expected from a man like him—dark wood, leather, and the kind of understated wealth that didn’t need to announce itself. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the city, but the glass was tinted, keeping the world at bay.

Keeping us hidden.

Sinclair moved like a predator, all controlled energy and barely restrained violence. He was younger than I’d first realized, maybe mid-thirties, with dark hair and eyes that missed nothing. The kind of eyes that had seen too much and forgotten none of it.

They called him the Devil himself, and sitting there, watching him process what I had just told him, I understood why.

There was something fundamentally dangerous about Crispin Sinclair. Not the obvious danger of men like my father or Giovanni, who wore their violence like a badge of honor. No, Sinclair’s danger was quieter. More insidious. The kind that crept up on you when you weren’t looking and destroyed you before you even realized you were in trouble.

His reach was legendary. He knew all the players—every family, every organization, every dirty secret that kept the underworld turning. He operated outside the traditional power structures, beholden to no one, feared by everyone.