Elena sat cross-legged on the huge cream sofa, wearing one of Dominic's shirts that swallowed her tiny frame. In her lap was a bowl of the strangest concoction anyone sane would ever eat: pickles dipped in melted chocolate, with a side of peanut butter smeared on crackers.
Dominic leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, watching her with narrowed eyes like she was plotting murder instead of eating. "You're not human," he said flatly.
Elena licked chocolate off her finger and grinned. "Correction, I'm pregnant. This is your child demanding this, so technically, you're insulting your own offspring."
Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose. "If our kid comes out craving peanut butter-covered pickles, I'm blaming you."
"You'll still love him," she shot back sweetly.
Dominic crossed the room, lowering himself onto the sofa beside her. He picked up a cracker, sniffed it, then promptly gagged. "No. Absolutely not. This is a crime against food."
Elena laughed so hard she nearly spilled the bowl. "Big bad mafia boss taken down by crackers and chocolate. Should I be scared?"
He gave her a look — the kind that used to make grown men beg for their lives. But on Elena, it had zero effect. If anything, she leaned closer and pressed a chocolate-smeared kiss against his cheek.
Dominic froze. "Did you just—"
"Mark you as mine? Yeah," she said smugly. "Now everyone will know the feared Dominic Moretti belongs to a woman with pickle breath."
He groaned, reaching for her waist and pulling her into his lap. "You're insufferable."
"And you love it," she whispered.
He didn't argue.
Later that day, they went shopping in the private town nearby. Of course, it wasn't really Dominic pushing a cart down the aisles of an Italian market — it was three of his men in disguise keeping a careful distance while Dominic tried to pretend he wasn't irritated.
Elena, however, was in heaven.
She shoved random things into the cart: marshmallows, five different cheeses, canned sardines, gummy worms, and at one point… raw jalapeños.
Dominic stared. "You're not serious."
"I need them."
"You need jalapeños?"
"Yes. With whipped cream."
He blinked. "That's it. I'm calling a priest. This is possession."
Elena clutched the peppers protectively. "Touch them and I'll bite you."
One of Dominic's men, following discreetly, actually choked on a laugh. Dominic turned slowly, his glare enough to silence the man instantly. Elena, on the other hand, looked smug.
Back at the villa, Dominic tried to help her cook — which was a disaster. He was a master at planning assassinations, but when it came to stirring a pot of soup, he looked like he was plotting its murder.
"Why are you holding the spoon like that?" Elena asked, half laughing, half horrified.
"Like what?"
"Like you're about to stab someone with it."
"That's how I hold everything," he said defensively.
By the end of the night, Elena had her jalapeños-and-whipped-cream masterpiece, and Dominic had somehow managed to burn water. They ended up ordering food from a local chef Dominic trusted, but Elena was too busy licking whipped cream off her fingers to care.
Later, when the villa was quiet and the waves crashed faintly in the distance, Dominic lay beside her in bed. One hand rested protectively over her stomach, his thumb tracing small circles.
"I still can't believe it," he admitted quietly. "A child. Ours."
Elena turned to face him, her eyes soft in the dim light. "Scared?"
"Terrified," he confessed. "But for the first time, I'm not scared for me. I'm scared because I don't know how to be… this."
She pressed her forehead to his. "You'll learn. We'll learn. Together."
Silence stretched, heavy but warm. Then Elena smirked. "Besides, if you screw up, I'll just tell the baby you burned water."
"Dominic groaned. "You're never letting that go, are you?"
"Not a chance."
He kissed her then, slow and deep, the kind of kiss that wasn't about lust but about grounding — about saying everything he couldn't put into words.
If Dominic was the king, then Valerie was the blade.
Sharp, silent, and designed to cut where it hurt most.
While her brother hid away in his seaside fortress with his pregnant wife, Valerie moved like a shadow across Europe, dismantling Isabella's empire with surgical precision.
And tonight?
Tonight, the knife was ready to gut the heart.
The warehouse on the outskirts of Milan stank of oil and gunpowder. Isabella sat at the head of a long steel table, her loyalists gathered like wolves at her feet. They were scarred men, trained killers — the kind of soldiers who had followed her through fire and blood.
She thought they were loyal.
She thought wrong.
Her brother's betrayal had been silent but fatal — whispering her plans to Valerie, leading her men one by one into quiet graves. And now, the last of them sat here, waiting to die.
Valerie arrived without a sound.
One moment the room buzzed with Isabella's gravel-edged voice, the next it was punctured by the wet, choking gurgle of a man at the far end of the table. His throat opened like a second mouth, arterial spray painting the steel in red.
"Wh—" Isabella shot to her feet, but before the word left her lips, the lights died.
Blackness swallowed them.
Then came the whispers.
Footsteps on steel beams above.
The faint scrape of a blade against metal, long and deliberate, designed to crawl into their bones.
"Who's there?!" one of Isabella's men barked, his voice cracking.
The answer was a bullet. His skull snapped back, half his face gone.
Panic erupted. Chairs scraped. Guns lifted.
Valerie moved faster.
A flash of steel. A scream cut short. The wet thud of a body hitting concrete. Then another. And another.
The room was becoming a slaughterhouse.
The emergency lights flickered back on, casting the warehouse in sickly red glow.
Valerie stood at the far end of the room.
All black leather, blades strapped to her thighs, her eyes cold enough to freeze hell. Blood speckled her cheek like freckles.
She smiled.
"Hello, bitch ," she purred.
Isabella's jaw clenched. "Valerie. You don't have to do this."
"Oh, but I do." Valerie tilted her head. "Haven't you done enough ,after everything you dared to touch what belongs to Dominic. You dared to touch family."
Her voice sharpened, slicing the room sharper than any blade.
"And that means you die."
The fight that followed wasn't fair.
Isabella's men were trained soldiers. But they weren't prepared for Valerie.
She moved like a ghost — here, then gone, her blade carving flesh before they even realized she'd struck. One man screamed as she slit his Achilles, dragging him down before driving her knife up through his chin and into his brain. Another tried to shoot her point-blank; she caught his wrist, twisted until the bone snapped like glass, then shoved the barrel under his jaw and pulled the trigger.
Blood and brain matter painted the ceiling.
One by one, Isabella's circle fell. Their loyalty meant nothing in the face of the storm that was Valerie Moretti.
Soon, only Isabella remained.
She stood in the corner, chest heaving, a pistol clutched in her hand. Blood smeared across her face — her men's, not her own.
"You think you're better than me?" Isabella spat, aiming the gun with shaky hands.
You think Dominic will thank you for this?
Valerie smirked, stepping closer. "This isn't about thanks. This is about cleaning his mess… so his precious little family never has to dirty their hands."
She stopped a foot away, looking down at the pistol pressed against her chest.
"Go ahead. Pull the trigger."
Isabella's finger twitched — but she hesitated.
That was all it took.
Valerie's blade flashed once. Clean. Efficient.
Isabella's eyes widened as the knife opened her throat, a red smile blooming across her skin. She dropped the gun, clutching at the wound, gurgling as the blood poured.
Valerie leaned close, whispering in her ear as she crumpled.
"Tell the devil Dominic sent his regards."
Then she shoved her to the floor, watching Isabella drown in her own blood.
Hours later, the news reached Dominic.
He sat in the villa's sunlit kitchen, Elena curled up beside him on the counter, still laughing at something ridiculous he'd said about baby names. He was feeding her strawberries dipped in sugar, the picture of peace.
The phone rang.
His expression shifted in an instant, that warmth replaced with cold steel. He answered, listening in silence.
When the voice on the other end finished, Dominic said only three words:
"It's done then."
He hung up. His jaw was tight, but his hand never left Elena's back.
"What happened?" she asked softly, sensing the change in him.
He looked at her, his gaze dark but unreadable.
"My sister cleaned house."
Elena swallowed, suddenly chilled despite the Mediterranean sun.
Valerie, somewhere in the shadows, washed Isabella's blood from her hands.
She didn't do it for Dominic.
She didn't do it for the throne.
She did it for the unborn child — the only innocent left in their rotten empire.
And if Dominic thought peace would last, Valerie already knew better
The war had only just begun.