30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 09

30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 09

The pain crashed over me like a tidal wave.

I’d never felt anything like it. My body was being torn apart.

I clenched my teeth and followed the midwife’s instructions. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Every time a contraction hit, the world around me lost all color.

Nothing else mattered.

Andrea didn’t matter. The divorce didn’t matter. Greta and Anna didn’t matter.

The only things that mattered were me and the baby about to be born.

Later, the nurse told me a disheveled man had rushed to the delivery ward.

He tried to charge in without properly scrubbing up. Eyes red and swollen. He’d tripped and fallen in the hallway, picked himself up, and kept running.

At the delivery room door, he stopped. Head down.

Elena stood there, face like stone.

“What are you doing here?”

“Let me in,” Andrea rasped. “Elena, please.”

“She carried this baby alone, and you asked for a divorce. Now that she’s giving birth, you show up?”

“I was wrong—”

“You can’t go in.”

Andrea stood frozen, staring at the floor.

Some unknowable amount of time passed. Then the nurse murmured in my ear, “Push. The baby’s head is out.”

I gave everything I had.

And then I heard it. A loud, piercing cry that filled the entire room.

A brand-new life had arrived.

Tears poured down my face. Not from pain. From everything I’d held inside finally breaking free.

The nurse placed the baby on my chest. She was so small, wrinkled, her tiny fist clenched tight.

My hands were trembling. But I held her steady.

“A girl. Six pounds, thirteen ounces. Perfectly healthy,” the nurse said.

I looked down at her. Eyes closed. Her little mouth opening and closing, making the softest sounds.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever held.

But the commotion outside the delivery room didn’t stop when the birth was over. It only grew louder.

An argument.

The nurse poked her head out, then looked back at me.

“The man says he’s your husband. Wants to see the baby. Should I let him in?”

I held my daughter tighter.

Her warm little body pressed against my chest, her heartbeat echoing mine in steady rhythm.

“No.”

The nurse nodded and stepped out.

A moment later, she came back. “He’s asking what you named the baby.”

I looked down at her. “Bianca Russo.”

“He also asked if he could…”

“Tell him,” I cut in, “this child has my last name. Tell him to leave.”

Forty days later. The day before Thanksgiving.

The divorce had been finalized the day after the waiting period ended.

That day in the conference room at the Camorra headquarters, Andrea sat at the table, pen in hand.

For three full minutes, he couldn’t bring himself to sign.

The family lawyer reminded him twice. “Don Camorra, please sign.”

He looked at me. “Chiara, one last time. Please reconsider.”

I said nothing.

He waited. Then finally picked up the pen and signed.

The moment the pen left his hand, it dropped to the floor.

He didn’t throw it. His fingers just… couldn’t hold on.

Forty days later, AURA Consulting Group moved into a proper office.

Vomero’s creative district. Three hundred square meters, south-facing, floor-to-ceiling windows.

Elena stuck a bright holiday sticker on the front door.

“It’s almost Thanksgiving,” she said.

The secretary carried a pot of ivy to the front desk and turned to ask, “Ms. Russo, where should I put this?”

“Wherever you think looks good.”

She grinned.

I held Bianca in my arms, bundled in a pale yellow blanket, softly snoring.

Don Giuliano had called yesterday. Not looking for Andrea. Looking for me.