Chapter 3 Oops..

Marco Reyes had never been so frightened in his entire life.

Here he was, apparently helping a woman give birth to a child that was not his, in a hospital he had no business being in, wearing scrubs he had no business putting on.

All he had wanted this morning was to meet Nikolai's woman, retrieve the codes Nikolai had stolen from him, and send her on her way before lunch.

Instead, he was doing this.

Marco pushed through the sterile doors, his breath snagging in his throat. The delivery room was bright and loud and smelled sharply of antiseptic, and right in the middle of all of it was Nikolai's little redheaded girlfriend, screaming with everything she had.

He had noticed it before, in a detached sort of way, but standing here now with nowhere else to look, Marco had to admit that Vera Calloway was a striking woman.

The fiery red hair, the large green eyes, the pale skin dusted with freckles standing out even more against the stark white of the hospital pillow.

Marco had never considered himself a man with a particular type, but watching Vera in that moment, furious and fierce and utterly unstoppable, he discovered rather inconveniently that he had a weakness for redheads.

"Cara mia," he started, his voice doing something embarrassing.

"I am here."

"Here? Here!" She flung the word at him like something sharp, her green eyes blazing with a fury that had no business being that intense from a woman currently in labor.

"Marco, you absolute fool! What are you doing in this room?"

The medical staff moved around her with quiet precision, entirely unbothered by the chaos unfolding between them. They had seen everything before. This was nothing to them.

"Helping," was all Marco managed, and even that came out uncertain. Why was she so angry? He was trying to be useful.

"Helping?" Her laugh was short and vicious.

"What on earth for? Get out!"

He should leave. He knew that clearly. He had no right to be standing in this room. The child was Nikolai's, and Nikolai was gone. And yet he stayed.

"Stand next to her, please," the doctor said, calm and authoritative, and every thought Marco had about leaving simply evaporated.

Vera's cursing continued, but he tuned it out, focusing instead on the rhythm of her breathing.

"Deep breaths, Vera," a nurse encouraged softly.

"Shut up, just shut up!" Vera's voice cracked, raw at the edges.

Marco leaned closer, uncertain whether his touch would be a comfort or a catastrophe. "You are doing great," he murmured.

"Great? You think this is great?" The scorn in her voice could have cut through steel. He smiled at her in spite of himself. Mamma mia, he had never met a woman quite like this one.

"Focus, Vera. Almost there," he said.

"When I am done with this," she ground out, "I will kill you."

"We can revisit that when you are finished, mio amore," he said gently.

"Look!" A nurse pointed, and Marco shifted his gaze.

Time stopped.

The baby's head was crowning, a small and stubborn sliver of new life forcing its way into the world.

"Keep pushing!" the doctor commanded.

"Pushing! That is all I have been doing!" Vera shot back.

Marco watched, every muscle tense, as the baby emerged further with each of Vera's tremendous efforts. Something stirred inside his chest that he did not have a name for yet. He had taken lives before, more than he cared to count.

He had never stood at the other end of that equation. The feeling rising in him now was something close to joy, bright and startling and entirely uninvited.

"Push, mi amore, you can do it!" The words left him before he could think better of it.

"Shut up, Marco!" Vera's fingers seized the front of his gown, knuckles bone white, her whole body trembling with effort.

Marco took her hand and held it firmly without letting go. He had nothing meaningful to say, so he settled for staying present and staying steady.

"Almost there," a nurse said quietly.

"I cannot do this," Vera's voice wavered, something frightened bleeding through the fury for the first time.

"You are doing it right now, cara mia." The sincerity in his own voice surprised him. "You are incredible."

"Feels like punishment," she managed through gritted teeth, "for ever letting that idiot Nikolai anywhere near me."

There was something they could agree on entirely.

"Ah, si," Marco said, nodding. "I agree completely."

She turned and gave him the most withering look he had ever received in his life.

"Deep breaths," the doctor said steadily. "Here comes another one."

Marco echoed the words, feeling useless beside the professionals yet completely unable to move from her side.

His heart hammered against his ribs in a way it had not done in years. Marco Reyes did not get nervous. He had sat across from men who wanted him dead and finished his dinner without blinking.

But this small, bright room with its impossible weight was the most terrifying place he had ever stood.

Vera cried out one final time, and then the room filled with a sound that cut through everything else.

A baby crying.

"Congratulations," the doctor announced, warmth breaking through her composure.

"It is a beautiful baby boy."

Vera's head fell back against the pillow.

Marco stood very still as the nurse cleaned the baby and wrapped him snugly in a blanket. Then she turned and walked toward him.

"Here you go," she said, and placed the bundle in his arms without ceremony.

His hands, which had held weapons and signed orders that ended lives, now held something that weighed almost nothing. The baby's skin was flushed and newborn red, his head crowned with a surprising amount of dark hair.

His tiny fingers grasped at the air as though already reaching for something just beyond him.

"Support his head," the nurse instructed, eyeing his hold carefully.

Marco adjusted. The baby was impossibly light.

"Ciao," he murmured, his voice softer than he intended. The baby's eyelids fluttered, dark lashes against red cheeks, pure and unbothered and entirely unaware of whose arms he had ended up in.

"Is he healthy?" Marco asked, his voice unsteady in a way he hoped no one noticed.

"Perfectly," the doctor replied warmly.

"Sign here, please." The doctor's finger rested on a line near the bottom of the page.

Father's Signature.

Marco blinked. He looked at the line, then at Vera unconscious against the pillow, then down at the baby in his arms.

The pen moved before his brain could intervene.

Marco Reyes.

In ink as black and irreversible as the silence that followed.

"Congratulations," the doctor said, her voice reaching him as though from far away.

He stared at his own signature on a line that had never been meant for him. One distracted moment, one automatic motion of his hand, and now he was apparently the father of a child he had met approximately four minutes ago.

"Questo è folle."

He looked down at the baby, who blinked back up at him with dark, unfocused eyes, entirely unbothered by the whole situation.

Well.

Oops...