Isaac's POV

"I leave you alone for fifteen minutes and you're already spilling the beans to my mom, babe?" I smile, a hint of laughter at the back of my throat.

"I'm sorry, it just came out." I can instantly picture her pouty face through the phone.

I should've known better than to just drop her off without greeting my own mother and telling her myself. Hailey's been feeling really guilty that we left without saying anything especially to my mom since I knew she had her suspicions, she's been more of a mother figure to her than anyone else can ever realize and I loved seeing the two most important women in my life being together and just bonding with each other.

My mom actually took it pretty hard when we almost lost Hailey last year, it's mainly where their bond grew, through her recovery because Hailey spent every waking moment with my mom when I was out working or her dad wasn't around visiting.

"What am I gonna do with you woman?"

"Deal with it," she sasses playfully, "you put a ring on it so now you're stuck with me."

I chuckle softly as I come up to a red light, "you say that like it's a bad thing, princess."

She giggles and there's a sudden ruffling, tapping sound.

"What are you doing?" I wonder out loud.

"Texting Angela," she responds. "She said she's done with the onsies and asked if I wanna go pick them up and hang out since Dion's not home."

"Wait until I get back, we'll go together, I'll drop you off."

I picture the eye roll almost immediately, "I can drive babe she's five minutes away, I'm going to be bored here with nothing to do. You don't let me unpack, you don't let me drive."

"There's plenty you can do, woman, you can nap, watch a movie, take a bath, I'll send you a driver if you don't want to wait for me."

"Isaac-"

"You signed up for this, Katherine," I smile as I turn into the parking lot, parking in my usual spot. "Matteo women don't drive themselves anywhere."

She snorts softly into the phone, "I don't need to be pampered like your dad pampers your mom baby. I'm perfectly capable of driving myself, all I need is your-"

"Dick?" I smirk.

"Antonio!" She giggles. "What if I had you on speaker and your mother was around?"

"Cats out of the bag princess, you didn't get pregnant by us holding hands."

She continues to laugh softly, "you're so dumb," I hear the instant tiredness in her voice, "excuse me," she yawns.

"Take a nap baby, we'll go pick the stuff up tonight when I get home."

"If your driver isn't here in twenty minutes I'm leaving."

"You wouldn't fucking dare," I threaten.

"Try me, Matteo," she continues to banter.

My smile immediately grows as I get the urge to call her by her maiden name and quickly remind myself that she no longer shares her dad's last name, she is no longer Summers.

"Keep testing me, Hail, and you're gonna see just how much of a Matteo I am," I grin.

She giggles softly, "fifteen minutes the second we hang up, Matteo. Are you going to try and talk to him if he's there?"

I inhale a deep breath quietly as she changes the subject, the playfulness instantly leaving my body, "if he's here," I answer looking in the direction of Ric's challenger, who my wife is currently referring to.

To say our friendship was a little rocky right now was a big understatement and I'll take full credit for it. I haven't made any effort to try and patch things up between us ever since everything went down with Guillermo.

I want to say I've been busy with Hailey's recovery, with the wedding planning, with the actual wedding, with hiding our pregnancy, with anything really but let's face it they're all excuses.

I'm a shitty friend and there's nothing else to say about it.

I'm prideful, I'm bitter, I'm petty, I'm arrogant, I'm selfish. I don't know how to swallow my pride, I don't like to- and I refuse to till this day.

I don't blame Patrick for anything that happened to Hailey though, for what went down, I don't. I know where his loyalty stands, I know he would never turn his back on us, on me again. I guess I'm just still hurt, upset about the way my father handled things.

I'm upset that he kept me in the dark about his plans; although I have no reasons to be, it was better that I didn't know , that way they could really sell it but a part of me wanted Ric to come talk to me, to give me the heads up but I understand why he didn't. I guess at this point I'm just being childish, I genuinely just don't know how to apologize and swallow my stupid ego.

It's no secret that I don't know how to talk about my feelings, emotions, especially to my friends. I don't like talking about the guilt and shame because the second I begin to open up I start to crumble and I can't let the old weak me resurface.

The second I decide to patch things up with Ric I know he's going to want to talk about what happened and it's not a conversation I'm ready to have honestly.

I'm not ready to come to terms with the fact that I almost lost Hailey about a year ago without letting the guilt eat me up all over again. At the end of the day no matter how anyone sees it, I put her in that position, I brought her into this world, into my family's mess, nothing changed, it was my fault and only my fault.

I hate that the feelings are still there, the guilt, the shame, the anger, it's all still there, the only thing that has changed is I've become a better liar. A fucking genius at masking my emotions because I'm suppose to be better, I'm suppose to be enjoying life, my marriage, getting ready to take over the family business, to be a parent in a few months.

Things may have calmed down a bit out here in the real world but in my head- it's still pretty loud, pretty messy.

I'm trying my hardest to keep my demons at bay though, to keep my sanity for my wife and baby's sake.

I don't go to the gym as much as I want to anymore because I'm afraid of leaving Hailey alone for such a long period of time, and the past three weeks were supposed to be all for her to get away from everyone and everything, just enjoy each others company but the tensions coming back and I'm having more and more trouble sleeping at night, which is leading up to some unwanted agitation.

I hear Hailey's sweet delicate voice attempt to pull me out of my pensive thinking.

"Earth to, Isaac.."

"Hmm?"

"Where'd you go?"

"Nowhere," I quickly answered. "I'm here, I'm listening."

"No you're not. You've been doing that a lot lately, baby, what's going on? What's on your mind?"

"You," I smile, although I'm technically not lying.

"Isaac-"

"I'm fine, princess, really, I'm just thinking about little bean and his overly tempered grandpa."

I hear the instant smile in her voice as she snorts softly, "you're so set on that it'll be a boy when I know Gods gonna punish both of you and your dad and put you guys in check with a girl."

"God wouldn't want that type of wrath in this world, baby, if I'd kill for you, imagine what I would do for my little girl."

"Go make up with your friend grumpy McGee so we can tell him you're gonna be a whole different type of daddy now."

This earns her a deep genuine chuckle and I instantly feel my dick attempt to spring to life, "Hailey Katherine-"

"I love you daddy," she giggles and is hanging the phone up before I can say anything in return.

I inhale a deep breath attempting to compose myself, smiling like an idiot as I kill my engine and step out of the car.

"Welcome back, Mr. Matteo."

I look up in front of me to find Lazee and Luca walking out of the building.

Almost everyone in the family calls me Mr. Matteo ever since Hailey and I announced our engagement, I think Beans, Don, Jer are the only ones who still refer to me as 'kid' or 'Isaac'.

I tilt my head up engaging both guys minimally as I begin to walk towards them and toss the keys in Lazee's direction and he's quickly catching them in his hand.

"Return the rental for me will ya."

"Yes sir."

"Brace yourself, he's not in a very good mood," Luca explains.

"Guess that makes two of us."

Luca snorts quietly as I pass both gentlemen, "go easy on him, he's missed you that's all."

I turn around to face them, slowly walking backwards,"funny, I don't remember asking."

Lazee smiles towards his buddy, placing his hand on Luca's shoulder, "come on."

Luca brushes his friend off of him and is looking back in my direction. "I'd hurry in sir, Amatto's currently in the ring fighting for his loyalty again."

The hair on the back of my neck instantly stands up and I immediately wanna rush into the building to go check on Ric but I don't.

I stop and stay rooted in my spot. I definitely didn't miss the snarkiness in his voice two seconds ago. Luca is definitely one of pops top men, meaning he thinks he can get away with usually anything, and he usually can, usually.

Don and Beanie deal with a lot these men when they act out of place so pops hardly ever gets involves unless he actually needs to be, and let's face it most of his top tier men are not used to getting yelled because they're well trained to behave around my dad, but I think that Luca needs a reminder that he can easily be replace just like everyone else below him.

I am not the same kid they watched grow up in this world, I am my fathers son, I am the heir to his organization, and whether they like it or not I will live up to my name starting now as a matter of fact.

"How about we test yours instead, Deluca. Lemme know now- I can easily arrange that for you and throw you in there next," I pointed a thumb behind me and glanced down at my watch on my wrist. "Matter fact I have time now."

He stays quiet, not uttering a single sound, looking off to the ground.

"Talk to me like that again and it's gonna be me you in there, Lucas."

Luca's whole name was Lucas Deangelo Deluca, how his parents thought that was a good idea beats me; but i loved disrespecting these men calling them by anything other than their nickname my father gave them or earned by the family, it really drove them crazy.

"I don't care how much older you are than me, Deluca, how much more experience you think you have, I'll make you my bitch with a snap of my fingers, my own personal punching bag if you ever speak to me like that again, you got it?"

"Yes sir. I'm sorry-"

"Go return my fucking car."

He quickly nods his head and is turning back around with Lazee following beside him. I fight the urge to grin when I hear him call Luca an idiot and smack him on the side of his arm as they continue to put distance between us.

I turn around and continue to make my way into the building brutally opening the doors already back in a pissy mood.

One thing. I asked my dad for one fucking thing while I was gone. To not mistreat Ric, to leave him the fuck alone already and stop picking on him because he was gonna be top chair the second I take over, to start showing him some respect, not that I expected him to do much of that, but all he had to do was leave him the fuck alone.

I'm immediately relieved to see that Ric is up and breathing the second I step into the warehouse and smile to myself when I see some fresh ink running up his entire left arm that wasn't there before we left for our honeymoon.

I ended up getting a new tattoo out in Italy as well on my left forearm going up to my elbow, two roses with a cross and I know the second my mother sees it she's going to lose her shit.

As for Ric's opponent, he's not so lucky.

I can't make out who's lying on the floor bleeding out though because I'm still at a distance from but even as I walk closer and closer towards the crowd I still can't make out who it is because he's facing the other way.

One thing that does point out though, almost instantly as you walk in is all the heavily suited guys standing at the back of the warehouse, they're in almost every corner that you turn to look at, all dressed in black from head to toe, their face covered with heavy automatic machinery in their hands.

Definitely intimidating if one's not used to being around big guns.

Pops special op team doesn't surprise me though, I knew that it was being organized from the second my wife got discharged from the hospital. There had been one too many incidents in such a short period of time and pops was damn if he'd let anything happen anytime soon again.

The highly trained professionals were mainly for my mother, Jessica, and Hailey, the women of the house so I'm surprised to see so many guys out here in the warehouse. I'm surprised to see them out in the open so soon because from the last time pops and I spoke a lot of them were still in training.

Pops, Don, and myself hand picked out every single guy out on that team, a lot of them being his hawks since a lot of them already had a low profile and knew how to be discreet, Ian Metcalf being one of them of course.

Still couldn't stand the mother fucker- but I know he'll do whatever it takes to protect and save my family and for that I'm greatful for, for that I'll tolerate him..

Dion was another one of my dad's recommendations, and as much as I would love to see my best friend on the team I couldn't allow it, I couldn't put his life in more jeopardy especially with his little girl on the way.

Both Angela and their little Angel deserved Dee to their fullest from the second she decided to make an appearance into this world.

I couldn't let him be preoccupied with other things, other people who weren't his first priority.

He deserved to be happy and enjoy his little bundle of joy to his fullest.

I wanted him to be the best parent he could ever be because I know it's what he wants- to be a better parent than his shitty biological mother; who mind you is still in town.

Dion decided to give her the benefit of doubt and agreed to meet with her in person to hear her out and he did. It didn't change a damn thing though, Dion still hated her, he still resented her and basically told her that she can rot in the ground for all he cared and made the stupid mistake to tell her that he was gonna be a father because now the damn broad won't leave.

I know why he did it, I know he was trying to be spiteful and throw it in her face that even though he grew up without her love he was gonna love his daughter unconditionally, but we never expected her to care, expected her to stick around, praying to God that Dion will allow her to see the baby when she's born but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Dion's hoping the cancer will take her out by the time his daughter arrives but it's not looking good, she's still breathing perfectly fine.

My fathers offered to interfere, to run her out of town and although Dee was quick to accept pops offer, his own dad put a stop to it. Telling him to think things through and really think it through without letting his hatred for her consume him. Dion was far from being a bitter person and his dad didn't want this one thing to ruin him, he wanted him to get the comfort he always longed for and he did.

He allowed her to stay. They went out on multiple lunches, talked, and Dion forgave her- for his own sake, not hers, but his, because his mother raised him to better than that, to be decent human being and told her to go fuck herself that she was nothing to him, blood doesn't make you family and his baby had nothing to do with her and never will.

After taking Dee off of the recommendation list Don suggested that pops consider Ric to be on the team and to my surprise he agreed, and that's when my own conditions came in.

I didn't want my dad to force him in, I wanted Ric to have a choice, a say in this therefore i asked my dad not to fucking drag him in anything until I got back from honeymoon because I wanted to be the one to bring him in, I wanted to prose it to him, in hopes that it'll save our friendship.

"Isaac my boy!!" Pops exclaims excitedly, welcoming me into his open arms.

I smile and engage my dad back in probably one of the biggest hugs we've ever encountered, "hey pops."

He pats his hand on my back, "I missed you kid."

"So I've heard," I chuckle softly and glance in Ric's direction to find him staring in our direction.

He was slowly making his way toward us when my father quickly dismissed him. I tilt my head up greeting him from a distance as he does the same in return and my dad is pulling me off of him a second later.

"Come on, let's catch up in my office."

I nod and follow my father to his office walking beside him. "What team do you have ready for Hailey?" I asked, stepping into the room.

"We'll get to that in a bit, how was the trip?"

I shake my head remembering her threat from our phone call, "she needs a driver at the house immediately pops."

"A driver?" Pops frowns. "You just got back, where the hell does she think she is going?!"

"Out, pops, she does have a life outside of this family."

He rolls his eyes muttering, "the hell she does," under his breath and is peaking his head out of the doorway. He sticks the back of his pinky finger into his mouth and is whistling loudly, shouting, "Bejarano!" He shouts. "Round up Patricio if he's still around and take a car to the estate, you're officially on Baby Matteo duty!"

My heart nearly drops to my stomach when I hear my dad mention 'baby Matteo' and almost begin to panic when I remember that Beanie and Don refer to Hailey as baby Matteo rather than Summers now.

This is gonna be a lot harder than I thought.

"Happy?" Pops sarcastically points towards the warehouse.

"Aj and Ric?" I frown. "Really? That's who's gonna be in charge of my wife?" And baby. "I barely know that idiot."

"Relax, KP, it's temporary for now. I want Hailey to choose who she wants, I know she's comfortable with certain guys, and everyone else is currently occupied right now. Plus Bejarano and Patrick actually make a pretty good team, they have similar personalities, they're lowkey besties now."

"Besties?" I scoff. "Since when?"

"Since you've been gone."

"Since when do you care about personalities?"

"Since you brought a young lady who has one into our lives. You just got back son. I don't want to spend it arguing already."

"Where are we with the renovations?"

Pops scoffs, "you just got back and you already want to move out?"

"It's a genuine question, pops, but yeah Hailey and I would like to have our own space, we can't entirely stay under your roof forever."

"Why not?" He frowns, placing his hands on top of his desk, both locked in with each other. "What's the rush.."

"Dad, you knew this was coming, we'll be down the street, just like you wanted us to be."

"For safety measures."

I arch an eyebrow, "right, safety measures."

"What is this?" Pops waves his hand up and down in front of me. He's now sitting behind his desk. "The hell are you wearing?" He frowns.

I look down at my overly warm, comfortable, outfit. I was in a black hoodie, black cargo sweatpants and my white air forces.

"What?" I frown in return as I sit down in one of the two empty chairs.

"The hell did we talk about?"

I immediately want to roll my eyes but don't, I know better, instead I do it mentally. "You serious? I had no intention of coming to the warehouse today, pops. I literally woke up, got dressed and was gonna go straight home."

Another thing that's changed, my entire attire. Pops no longer wanted me to look or dress like a young adult, he wanted me to look like the mafia boss I was about to become and got rid of alot of my clothes to bring in all the new suits and slacks, and although Hailey's been enjoying the formal outfits I missed the hoodies, the casual T's, the lounging around clothes.

"Don't start making it a habit," he grumbles. "How was Italy? Did Hailey like it?"

"She loved it," I replied.

Pops inhales a deep breath exhaling it slowly, he smiles and nods his head, "I'm glad to hear. I wanted us to go out into the city, eat at a restaurant- the four of us together for your first night back, but your mother insisted on staying at the house."

"It's fine pops, I honestly don't care to go anywhere for a couple days, I just wanna relax for a while."

"That's fine, take the rest of the week off, we'll get back on track on Monday, but there is something I want to talk about since it's just the two of us right now."

"What's going on?"

"Just formalities," he says as he opens up a drawer on his desk, digging around for something.

I mentally roll my eyes, "dad-"

"Calm down, calm down, it's not what you think, I'm not lecturing you. Here-" he puts a small black box on top of his desk in between us.

"What's this?" I asked, leaning forward in the chair, reaching for it.

"I know it's still a little soon for it but I wanted you to have it already," he says.

I open the box up to find another smaller black box inside of it and open it up to find my fathers heirloom ring sitting inside of it and I'm quickly looking up at him.

"Pops, I can't-"

"You can and you will," he talks over me. "I know that I don't speak much of my father and you know damn well why. We didn't have a good relationship so I'm about 92% sure that if the accident hadn't killed him he would've never handed that down to me. I had to pry it off of his dead cold finger before they burned his body."

I stay quiet admiring the gold ring that's now in my hands.

The ring that I used to be so obsessed over when I was younger because my dad would always tell me 'this ring will one day be yours son, along with an entire empire.'

It was about the size of a class ring with ridged edges all around the band and in the middle of it there sat an M engraved into it.

I always wanted the ring when I was younger because it looked expensive, it was shiny, it was big, and my dad had it so I needed it. I needed the ring in my teenage years because I was ignorant and arrogant and needed people to know that I came from a family of power, as if my last name wasn't enough.

Then as I matured I started understanding the meaning of wealth and power and couldn't wait to get my hands on it; it meant that I finally had my old man's approval, his blessing, his respect, his empire.

"It's no secret that I didn't live up to my own dad's expectations, that I was a genuine disappointment to him, but you, Isaac, you are far from that. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of you son, you've grown into a remarkable young man, without the dad you needed in your life."

"Dad-"

"I'm not done," he says. "I may not have become my father but I was no better at raising you than he was, and for that I'm truly sorry. Hailey pointed something out a while back and it didn't sit right with me so I've been trying to fix it since. I'm trying to be less of the boss and more of the father you can look up to, the father you can be proud of. I want you to become the best version of yourself for whenever the time comes to start raising your own son."

There's an instant pang of guilt in my stomach. Should I tell him already?

No.

"Your mother and I talked about this for weeks and decided that I would give you the ring over dinner with her and Hailey present, but I wanted it to just be us two, I wanted it to be a little more personal, more sentimental because I'm trying to be more sentimental. You're ready kid. You've been ready and this is the only way I know how to prove it, I know what that ring means to you."

I glance back down at the ring

"I want you to accept it, KP, I want you to have it, keep it, wear it, do whatever you want to do with it, but I'm not stepping down yet."

I look back up at him, mildly frowning.

"Enjoy your life son. Enjoy your twenties. Enjoy your marriage, your wife for crying out loud. Live the life I couldn't at your age and when you think you've had enough fun in the world we'll talk again, we'll start the transition, your crowning," he smirks.

"I-," I clear my throat. "I-I don't know what to say, pops."

"Thank you, dad, I love you, dad."

I laugh softly as I slip the ring onto my right pinky "thank you, and for what it's worth pops, you've always been someone I looked up to, I've never not been proud of calling you my father."

He smiles, "c'mere, come give your old man a hug."

I nod and get up from the chair and walk around his desk as he steps out of his chair and wraps his arms around me.

I wrap my arms around him, hugging him in return as he pats my back, just like he did a little while ago. "I love you kid, I promise I'm making more of an effort to show it."

"I love you too, dad."

"Let's see it," he says as he pulls me off of him.

I pick up my hand in between us and pops is immediately reaching for it, turning my hand side to side, whistling.

"Thanks again, dad, this means everything to me."

"I know," he smiles and is quickly snapping his fingers. "Cazzo! I can't believe I almost forgot, hold on."

He walks to the other side of his office and is opening up a secret opening behind a picture on the wall that hides his safe. He puts in his pin and is instantly turning the handle opening the door and is pulling out two different shaped boxes, one bigger than the other.

"Here," he smiles. "To match your ring."

I grab the smaller green box from him with a smile on my face already. I don't have to open it to know what's inside already because I recognize the packaging from past purchases. Sure enough I opened the emerald green box to find a brand new gold Rolex watch inside.

"Jesus fuck dad-"

"Gotta accessories right if you're gonna look the part son."

I begin to grin as I continue inspect the watch, "this is nice as fuck."

"This one-" he takes the Rolex box from my hand and replaces it with the slightly bigger box. It's actually a case, a gun case. "Is for your wife."

I open the case up to find a black Glock inside and immediately look up at him.

"I know she probably won't care for it, but it'll make me feel better knowing she has it. We'll start off small and upgrade to a beretta once she gets comfortable with it."

I smile and shut the case handing it back to him, "it'll mean more if it comes from you pops, you give it to her."

A soft knock on the door is quickly grabbing both of our attention, it's Don.

"Sorry to interrupt boss, but Jer asked me to rely a message, he's trying to tap out."

Pops nods his head, "I'll head down in a bit."

Dominic doesn't say anything in return and is quickly leaving just as fast as he came and pops is taking the gun case from my hand.

"Come on, I wanna show you something, let's go down to the basement."

He sets the case down on top of his desk along with the Rolex and I'm quickly following behind him and we're making our way downstairs until we've hit the first level and we're stepping out and into the gym.

Only thing is though it's not empty like it normally is. Jeremiah, my trainer is down here, nothing unusual about that, it's who he's currently with.

He's with Emiliano.

****** Yes the wait is over my babies, I'm back, Isaac is back 🥹🥹 I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I tried making it a little longer than the first two cause come on, it's Isaac! Lol Anyways how we liking the beginning? What are your thoughts? Do we have any theories for future chapters? What are we excited about? I can't begin to explain to tell you guys how much I've missed writing Isaac's POV 😭

Did you guys like Ric's chapter? Is anyone interested in getting more POV's from him? Or just Hailey and Isaac? Lemme know guys, love ya!!