“Aria.” Gianna’s voice brought me back. Her face twisted with worry. “Please.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.”

Gianna sat back, gaping. “Fuck.” She glanced down at my stomach. “How far along are you?”

“Twelfth week.”

Relief settled on her features. “So that’s why you are sick?”

I nodded. “I guess it’s my bad luck that the sickness didn’t stop yet,” I said with a small laugh.

“Bad luck my ass. You have the worst luck, getting yourself pregnant with Luca’s child.” She frowned. “I thought you were taking the pill.”

“I did. But when all the drama with Lily and Romero went down, I forgot occasionally. I didn’t want it to happen. Luca doesn’t want children at the moment.” Or ever.

Gianna leveled her gaze to my stomach and stretched out her arm but stopped a couple of inches away. “Can I touch it?”

I glanced around. We were alone. “Sure.”

She put her palm against my bump, and I relaxed under her touch.

“It’s still so small. Hard to believe that there is a tiny human inside.”

“I know,” I said, looking down at Gianna’s hand against my bump and wishing it was Luca’s hand. Tears gathered in my eyes.

“Oh, Aria,” Gianna murmured and pulled me into a hug. “I hate to see you like this.”

“I’m so lonely, Gianna. I miss him.”

“You see his angry face almost every fucking day, Aria.”

“I miss how he used to be with me. I miss his kisses and his touch, I miss his body beside me at night. I miss his love.” I swallowed. “I miss being held.”

Gianna patted her lap and I lowered my head in it, then she began running her fingers through my hair like she’d done when we were younger. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to relax under her touch. I still had my sisters and the baby in me. Their love would have to carry me from now on. Would it be enough? I wasn’t sure, but it would have to be. Gianna began to hum a soothing melody, and tears squeezed past my lashes. I fell in, humming a lullaby our mother had occasionally sung to us.

She fell silent and tensed under me when steps rang out, familiar steps.

I braced myself before I opened my eyes.

Luca and Matteo stood in the foyer, watching us. Luca’s face was an emotionless mask. He kept me out as he had in the last few weeks. I lifted my head from Gianna’s legs, suppressing the urge to touch my belly as I straightened. “Excuse me,” I said to Gianna and rose to my feet, then walked upstairs. Luca didn’t follow. He never did anymore.

LUCA

A low humming sound greeted us as Matteo and I entered the mansion. We followed the sound into the open living area, and my chest tightened at the sight before us. Aria lay curled up on the sofa, head in her sister’s lap, as Gianna stroked her blonde hair. Aria was crying, eyes closed, tears trailing down perfect but too pale cheeks. So fucking pale.

Gianna froze, her gaze hardening as it settled on me. She didn’t bother hiding her contempt. I didn’t give a fuck, but seeing Aria like this, that got to me. Slowly she opened those stunning blue eyes, and as they met my gaze, hurt and despair filled them. Fuck. It was like a knife to the stomach. It was worse than that.

She sat up but her movements were off, as if she wasn’t sure of her body anymore, as if something was holding her back. I couldn’t say what it was, had no way of reading her because she lowered her head as she hurried past me and upstairs. She avoided me, and most of the time I was relieved because it made things easier, made it easier to ignore her, made it easier to forget the feelings only she could evoke.

When she’d broken down in the kitchen a few days back, I’d thought I’d lose it, and then when she’d gone down to her knees, looking small and hopeless, I’d wanted to crush her to my chest. She didn’t belong on her knees, she wasn’t supposed to look broken. She was a fucking queen among rats.

Whenever she was around, when I was forced to look into her face, I had a hard time holding back the apology that threatened to burst out of me. She had been the one who’d betrayed me in the first place, not in the way I’d accused her of, but a betrayal nevertheless. Three times she’d gone behind my back for her siblings.

Gianna jumped up from the couch and stormed toward me.

“What now?” Matteo asked her with raised hands, but she ignored him and shoved me hard. I narrowed my eyes as I looked down at her, not budging despite her vehemence. Her hands curled to fists and I could tell she had half a mind of hitting me.

Matteo must have seen it too because he gripped her wrist and muttered, “Gianna, get a grip.”

“Get a grip? He’s the one who needs to get a grip.” She shook him off and scowled back up at me. “Can’t you pull your head out of your ass for one fucking second and apologize to Aria, you stupid asshole? You are destroying everything.”

I had grown used to her insults. She had enough self-preservation to reserve them for when we were among family, and she knew I tolerated her disrespect because of Matteo, and Aria. “Apologize?” I asked in a low voice, sending her a scowl in return, but she didn’t back down.

“Yes, apologize. You know she didn’t cheat on you, and you treated her like dirt. You still do.”

“I don’t treat her like dirt.”

I knew Aria hadn’t cheated, but the fact remained that she had gone against me. She had taken money from the Famiglia bank account. She had gone to Chicago in a time of war, had let herself get captured by Dante. If he hadn’t used her to make me lose my mind, she’d still be in his hands, and woman or not, we were at war.

Gianna shook her head, disgusted. It was a look I was used to from her. “She’s fading every day, don’t you see? Is your pride worth losing the one person who doesn’t think you’re a psychotic serial killer?”

I’d seen that Aria had lost weight, but it wasn’t anywhere close to being dangerous yet. I’d asked the Doc. He had assured me that she looked healthy enough, even if he hadn’t examined her in a while because she didn’t want him to.

“I am a killer,” I said simply.

“He is,” Matteo said with a shrug, then he added in an attempt to lighten the mood, “Whether psychotic or sociopathic, that’s definitely up for debate.”

Gianna shook her head, then she whirled around and stomped off.

Matteo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Your problems with Aria are making my life hell, too. I’m barely getting sex anymore, not even angry sex, and Gianna is the best at angry sex, let me tell you.”

I didn’t doubt it. That woman harbored the fury of fifty hungry wildcats. She was completely intolerable, so unlike her sister. Aria hated arguments, tried to keep people together with her beautiful smile and kind words.

Fuck. The slow smile that began with a soft curl at the corners of that perfect mouth, then spread until it broke across her entire face, wide and stunning.

A fucking hole gaped in my stomach whenever I remembered her smile. She hadn’t smiled in a while.

Matteo watched me silently with a too-knowing expression. “Perhaps Aria started the mess but you will be the one to end it, Luca.”