Kate

The following day I sat at the foot of the hospital bed. Stacey was fretfully trying to nurse the baby, Gabriel, who rather than eating just simply cried. He would latch for seconds and then turn his head away and cry.

It was clear to see that she was frustrated, she wasn't glowing with excitement and over whelming love, she seemed tired, irritable almost even. After his crying turned to wailing she looked up to Pietro. "Can you-"

"He's hungry baby."

"Try giving him a bottle."

Pietro took him and bounced him, he let him suck on his knuckle to quiet him. "Remember what the nurses said? The colostrum you produce at the very beginning is the best thing for him. Even if we do decide to formula feed those first few days of breastmilk are so good for him especially since he was early."

"They also said because they induced me early I might not be producing yet."

I felt uncomfortable, sitting between the two as they had a disagreement but to get up and leave sounded almost that much more awkward.

"Okay." He caved, breast feeding was a pretty personal choice and definitely one he couldn't force Stacey into. It had always been her intention to breast feed, but now that Gabriel was here everything seemed so hard. Pietro disappeared from the room and Stacey flopped back on bed.

I wanted to ask her so many things. One being had they told Alessio the moment they had learned she was being induced? It had taken me only a little over an hour to get to the hospital from my Uncle's apartment, it should have taken Alessio much longer to get here from Italy had we both been called at the same time. I was feeling yet again like they had taken his side.

I wanted to ask her if she was scared. Pietro was not just a member of the mafia now, he was their Don. Did the risks scare her? All of their lives could potentially come into question because of his line of work. Did she share the same fears I did?

Could I keep this child? Alessio's child, and raise him or her to have a safe and normal life?

I didn't have Aria's number, but perhaps I could all Sergio and they could help me fake my death and get a new identity to keep this child away from Alessio and the maria.

She was clearly exhausted and emotionally drained, to bring her potential fears to life would be cruel, concern over who was called first was a pettiness she didn't deserve to deal with, especially not now. Besides, to really voice my concerns I would have to tell her the truth about my own situation.

I was pregnant.

Confirmed by nearly a dozen pregnancy tests buried deep in the garbage, wrapped in old newspapers or paper towels, other trash etc, anything to prevent the accidental discovering of them by my uncle or cousin.

Rather than admit that to Stacey and ask for some much needed advice I ignored it.

"He's so handsome."

She turned her head to the side to look at me. "Yeah, he is."

"You look tired. Do you want me to go so you can get some sleep?"

She shook her head. "No, I won't get any anyway. He only sleeps if one of us is holding him. There's twelve other moms with their newborns on this floor and mine was the only one crying all night. The only one he stops crying for is freaking Alessio." She sat up slightly. "Sorry."

"It's fine Stacey, I'm fine. I mean I'm bound to see him some time or another, right?"

"Ugh, you saw him? He didn't mention."

I shrugged. "Not mentioning things is apparently a specialty of his. It's not a big deal really."

She stared at me, clearly knowing it was a huge deal, and on the day we were supposed to get married of all days. I had naturally gone home and cried in the bathtub until my uncle got home and I had to pretend all was fine and dandy. I had gushed about the baby and neglected to mention that Alessio was there at all.

"What happened? What did he say? What did-"

She stopped as Pietro came back in the room.

"Nothing really. It was awkward, he was just rocking and singing to the baby, I came in, and uh, apologized for coming in I guess and...he left pretty quickly."

"Good. He should. Run off with his tail between his legs." She huffed.

"Now Stacey." Pietro said calmly. "We agreed, no side picking here."

"You agreed."

"It's fine, I'm fine, really, I mean it's been like a month. I can't dwell forever." Only the next 18 years if I kept the little parasite growing inside me. "Let's talk about something else, when do you guys get to go home?"

"He's a little jaundice. Hopefully tomorrow, but we might have to stay another night."

"It'll be easier when you're at home, more relaxed."

"Yeah no." Stacey said flatly and shot Pietro a look. "Little Gabriel here has a family to meet, the entire family."

"Oh." Another thing I had not considered. Coming home with a baby only to be greeted by all of Alessio's legitimate, and presumably large, family and the "family" ie, mafia family. Something like that sounded like it would take days. "When will you sleep?"

"When he gets to high school if I had to guess."

I gave her a sympathetic look. I stayed to visit, but not for too much longer. Stacey was clearly on edge and having a difficult time. She was likely exhausted, and likely, had all the same concerns I did about all the what ifs should I continue the pregnancy. "I hear some women are having their placenta put into capsules, like a pill, and eating them. Apparently it's really healthy and great for postpartum depression." I mentioned as I was getting ready to leave.

"That's gross."

"Yeah, it kind of is." I laughed and gave her a hug goodbye.

"You okay Kate?"

"Not so much. You okay Stacey?" I asked and stood up straight.

She glanced to Pietro on the other side of the room, he had his head on his palm and appeared to be sleeping. "Not so much." She agreed.

"He is really cute though."

"He really is."

Looking at him almost made me think everything could be okay. I was thinking sun shines, and rainbows, and unicorns when I looked at baby Gabriel, how could one not? But every time I glanced away reality looked back at me, ugly, and grey, and cold. I would have stayed at the hospital longer, but I didn't want to risk running into Alessio again. So instead, I went home and I went to sleep.







I opened my eyes slowly, and then became alert quickly as someone was sitting on one of the chairs in front of me. Startled I sat up so quickly with the fling of my arms I knocked the glass off the coffee table and to the intruder.

Alessio raised his hands but was already doused with blue koolaid.

"What are you doing here?" I yelled and put my hand on my chest. My heart was pounding like crazy. "You gave me a freaking heart attack!"

"The door was open." He said simply and looked down, the white button down under his blazer was stained blue and wet.

"It's an apartment Alessio not a restaurant, that doesn't mean open for business!"

"Yes, well, I thought I should check in." He apparently decided to pretend as though there wasn't koolaid dripping from his collar and folded his hands back in his lap. "Have you eaten today?"

"Oh my God, get out!"

"Until you make your decision I think it best that you take care of yourself, should you decide to maintain the pregnancy."

"You are so unbelievable, get out of here!"

"You're sleeping on the couch?"

"I love this couch."

"And what is this you are drinking? Maybe something with a little less sugar-"

I grabbed the remote and threw it at him, he deflected it with a throw pillow and it landed on the floor in front of my very comfortable couch again, the back came off and one of the batteries disappeared.

"We are not having this conversation right now. It's none of your business if I've eaten, where I'm sleeping, or what I'm drinking!"

"I could make something for you to eat."

"I don't want your food."

"What do you want?" He said it so simply, so simply, as though it were a question actually regarding food, or drinks, or sleeping arrangements. We both knew it was not.

"Nothing from you."

He tapped his finger a few times before a thoughtful hum. "Pietro tells me you are working at a call center."

"Please don't. We are not doing this, we aren't catching up. We aren't friends, I don't need to talk to you. I'm going to lay back down, on my couch, drink some sugary drinks, go nowhere and eat nothing until you get so sick of it you leave." To prove my point I laid back down and pulled a blanket over myself, it was a throw blanket and in order to pull it over my head my feet stuck out until I pulled my knees up to my chest.

"It's a bit below you, don't you think? You were a very successful journalist, regardless of my opinions on it. Surely you could have found yourself into the field easily enough."

"I don't want in the field. I just need a job. A simple job. That supplies me with money, so that I can get my own apartment, so I can get my dog back, and be done with you." Not only was the apartment too small and without a yard, they didn't allow pets either.

"Have you found an apartment or house you like? I could have the money wired to you and we can make arrangements for Donato-"

I threw the blanket as I sat up. "What part of I want nothing from you do you not understand? I don't want your money Alessio. I don't want your money, or your apartments, your food, or your lectures, or you kid, I don't want anything from you, I just want my dog and to be done with you already? Is that too much to ask?" He didn't react.

"This is about more than you and I Katherine. I-" He hesitated to consider his words and square his jaw. "I cannot make the decision for you Katherine, regarding you and I. There is no world, or universe where I believe that you and I don't belong together, but that is not a decision for just me to decide, if it were I would have never let you leave."

"Yeah, I know, you made a hell of an attempt on the not leaving thing!"

"But this child, our child, that is not just for you. This isn't a situation when you can just say you're angry so I don't get to be involved." He motioned towards my stomach. "It is my child too. There is more to think about than just you and I."

"You think I don't know that?" I was seething. "You think I don't know this is about more than you and I? You think I'm thinking about anything other than this right now? I'm thinking about what kind of life I would bring this baby into, I'm thinking about the fact that it will never be safe because what if your enemies wanted to use it to hurt you? I'm thinking about how old you were when you first shot gun or cleaned up a body, what you went through at a young age and how unfair it is and how I will never let that happen to my child-"

"You think I would? You think I would subject my child to that?"

"So what? Just no more mafia? Your Dad ran it and taught you, his dad him, and even before that, all of the sudden it just stops? No more Genovese Mafia? Give me a break! I will not ask you to leave Alessio, because I understand you cannot, it is who you are, but I won't be a part of it and I won't have my child subject to the fall out."

"I'm not running anything, I gave up my position to Pietro. I'm just Alessio, you're just Katherine, that's just baby, that can be enough for me."

"And what about when your father dies? Huh? You mean to tell me your mother won't ring you and tell you they need you and you won't go? You mean to tell me someone else will take over Italy? Pietro can't run both! He said his son won't step up, Sergio walked away, someone has to do it Alessio! And you know, and I know it's going to be you! Then you're going to be him, I'm going to be your mother and our kid is going to be you all over again."

He stood up abruptly. "I am not my father! I don't want that for the baby and I will be damned if I ever let anything happen to you like he did my mother!"

"It's who you are! It's inevitable! You can't walk away and somehow someway or another it's going to trickle down to this child and you know it! You're just to selfish to see it. You're so stuck on wanting this baby you can't see how dangerous, and hard, and unfair it would be for the child!"

"And you're so stuck on hating the mafia and me that you can't see everything I would do for you and my child!"

"Because the only things we need you can never provide Alessio. Safety. Stability. Any sense of normalcy!"

"And you can provide more without me? With your nothing job in this shitty apartment, you would rather I walk away to leave you to raise this child as what, you were? Poor, with one parent trying to hold it all together, you turned out so well yourself, purposely throwing yourself into danger falling for someone you think is so wrong-"

I threw a coaster off the coffee table at him like it was a Frisbee. "You're so lucky I don't have more things to throw at you right now! I may not have had money but I had-"

"Stability right? With your Dad and uncle running into gun fire every other night and grandma as old as this freaking building to watch you kids. Your brother joins a gang and died from it, your uncle's kids all ran off to this gang or that gang or the street corner, but you, oh you turned out so much better didn't you?"

I stood up and stormed past him. He was probably right about the couch thing, my back definitely hurt when I stood up.

"Katherine." He rose to his feet. "Where are you going?"

"To the bathroom!" I yelled and slammed the door behind me. "I don't want to answer to you anymore either!" I yelled behind the closed door.

From the toilet I could just imagine him sighing heavily, he would sit back down and put his hand on the arm rest of the old worn down chair and tap his finger thinking about how irrational I was. He might wish he could pace back and forth, but that would reveal too much, no, he would try to reel his emotions back in. If he was really confident in how long I would take in the bathroom he might spare a millisecond to glance down and show distain to the stain on his shirt as though he didn't have dozens of the same style.

I wished I was strong enough to do something, anything. Beat him up, give him a swirly, knock him around a little...

I stared at the toilet paper for a minute frozen. It was bright red.

I stared at it for far too long before throwing it in the toilet and repeating the action. Red. I was thinking of the two lines on the pregnancy test, the secret I'd held, walking away from the clinic twice without ending the little life, the decision Alessio had instructed me to make that I had already known the answer to. Was it gone?

I left the bathroom with a pad on and slipped on a pair of pants.

When I came back out no longer in my pajamas Alessio rose back up to his feet. "What happened to staying on the couch until I left?"

"Don't have the patience for you. You can stay, I'm going." I tried to sound casually annoyed with him and not let on that inside, I was freaking out for an entirely different reason.

I slipped on a pair of flip flops and picked up my purse. "Where are you going?"

"To get something greasy to eat and drink a whole bunch of sugar, caffeinated sodas, juices, coffees, whatever I want."

He caught my elbow. "What's wrong?"

"You."

"Don't lie to me."

"You lie enough for the both of us. I can't be around you, it's too hard."

"That's not it."

I pulled my elbow away.

He spoke again before I could. "Katherine, talk to me." He said in that typical Alessio tone. Somehow sounding completely calm yet firm at the same time.

"I'm bleeding." I admitted and began to cry.

He put an arm around my shoulder and turned me back towards the door. "Come on." With his arm still around me he brought me into his chest steered me out the door.

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Happy Halloween! Feel free to share you Halloween costumes, be it trick or treating, or a party or whatever. I loooove holidays. Halloween and Christmas especially. Currently I am sitting at work in a pair of skeleton leggings, with skeleton gloves all the way past my elbows and a top hat. Typing with gloves is surprisingly not as difficult as anticipated but thumbing through paper has been a challenge...You can see pictures of my sweet children in their homemade Halloween costumes on my twitter https://twitter.com/RaFranc0 :D

Hope everyone has enjoyed this rollercoaster ride, not going to lie, I agree with BOTH Kate and Alessio. I mean, her concerns are totally valid right? But at the same time it's pretty unfair to rip a kid away from a loving parent. If there is a kid to rip away I guess.... This could be the thing that brings them back together, or the final straw that cements their separation.

Alessio with the hard shots about Kate's family turning out sooo well. It was briefly mentioned wayyyyyyyyyy early in book one that Kate had had a brother who joined a gang and died, Nicolo obviously who joined Alessio's specifically and died, Tera her Uncle's daughter who turned to drugs and the streets until Alessio sobered her up. And then there is Kate who fell for the Don himself. Her argument of HIS lifestyle not being good to grow up in kind of got knocked down a few pegs there.

I hadn't planned on updating today so I didn't think of a chapter song, open to uggestions (=

Anywayyyyy. Don't forget to vote and commenttt. <3