30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 08

30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 08

Day twenty-eight of the waiting period.

Andrea used whatever remained of the Camorra intelligence network to track down Elena’s office.

This time, he didn’t sit at the front desk. He walked straight in.

Gone was the cold composure of the man who ruled Caserta’s underworld.

The tailored suit jacket that once fit him perfectly now hung loose on his shoulders. His collar was open. Blue-gray stubble shadowed his jaw.

I looked up from my desk, and through several rows of cubicles, I saw him.

His gaze locked onto me. No. Onto my belly.

I was wearing a loose cream-colored dress. At thirty-six weeks, there was no point hiding it anymore.

The color drained from his face. Like someone had punched him in the gut.

“Chiara… you… you…”

Elena burst out of her office and planted herself in front of me.

“Andrea. Leave. This is my company. You don’t have an appointment, you can’t be here.”

He stepped around Elena and walked straight to me. “How far along?”

He crouched down, trying to meet my eyes.

His eyes were bloodshot, his voice raw and pleading. “Chiara, how far along are you?”

“Thirty-six weeks,” I said.

He swayed. Nearly lost his balance.

Thirty-six weeks. That meant when he asked for the divorce, I was already eight months pregnant.

He’d looked at me for three years and never noticed my clothes getting bigger. Never noticed the prenatal vitamins in the fridge.

Never noticed the bathroom trash can. Three months without a single pad.

He noticed nothing. Because he never truly cared.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was shaking.

I tilted my head. “When should I have told you?”

“When you were hiding in the study playing video games? When you were out with your mom and Anna? Or the exact moment you asked for a divorce?”

His lips were as white as his face. “Chiara… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” I gripped the desk and pushed myself to my feet. My belly tightened again.

“You asked for the divorce. I agreed. Two days left. We’ll finalize everything then.”

“No.” He stood up, his voice rising. “Chiara, I’m not signing. I’m not going through with it.”

I looked at him and felt a deep, bone-level exhaustion.

Not physical. Deeper than that.

“Andrea. If you won’t do it, I will.”

Day twenty-nine.

Four in the morning. Pain woke me.

This time it was real.

A slow, aching pressure radiated from my lower back down into my abdomen. Roughly every six minutes.

I struggled to sit up and grabbed my phone.

Elena answered faster than an ambulance. “Don’t move. I’m coming.”

She lived in the same building, just a few floors above mine.

Five minutes later, she was at my door, hair a mess. “Let’s go.”

She helped me downstairs. A taxi was already waiting.

In the back seat, I curled into myself involuntarily, forehead slick with sweat.

Elena held me with one arm and called the hospital with the other.

“Chiara Russo, thirty-six weeks and five days, regular contractions six minutes apart. Yes, it’s early.”

The emergency room lights were blinding, sharp enough to sting.

I remember the wheelchair. The long corridor. The elevator. And finally, the delivery room.

A nurse strapped on the monitoring band. The doctor checked my dilation.

Then the nurse said, “We’re ready.”

They wouldn’t let Elena into the delivery room.

She could only press herself against the door and shout through it: “Chiara! Can you hear me? You’ve got this!”

I couldn’t speak. I just gave a thumbs-up. No idea if she saw it.