The light in the hospital room buzzes faintly. You’re cold, but you’re too tired to move. Your body aches from the birth, your head heavier than your limbs and your eyes blur with the weight of exhaustion.

You don’t remember falling asleep. But when you wake, he’s standing there.

The man who made you his wife on paper. The man who needed you to carry a child so his enemies would believe he was just another family man..a mafioso. His name Valverde Sanchez

He doesn’t speak at first. Just stands near the edge of the crib, hands in his coat pockets, staring down at something that clearly unsettles him.

You shift a little. Maybe he hears it, because then his voice cuts through the silence, low and hoarse.

“I didn’t think I’d feel anything.”

His words confuse you.

He steps closer to the bed, and you’re shocked to see something in his face that doesn’t belong there. Not the cold, unreadable mask he always wears. But something… unguarded.

His eyes move from the baby to you. And something in his jaw twitches like he’s trying to fight himself.

You want to say something, but the room feels like glass ..one wrong breath and it’ll all shatter.

“I saw you both,” he says again, barely above a whisper. “And I think I’m f*cked.” He sits beside the bed. Not close enough to touch you. Not close enough to call it comfort. But he doesn’t leave.

And for him, that’s everything.