Humiliated By My Rich Ex While Pregnant With Just $17 Left, But The Grocery Aisle Froze When Chicago’s Deadliest Mafia Don Kissed Me And Called Me His Queen!

The interior of the Mercedes Maybach smelled of new leather, ozone, and Adrian’s signature scent of smoky bourbon. The windows were heavily tinted, blacking out the dreary Chicago rain and the stares of the crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk. Two heavily armed guards sat in the front, separated from us by a thick glass partition.

Adrian sat beside me. He hadn't let go of my hand since we left the store. His fingers were long and scarred across the knuckles, but his touch remained impossibly gentle.

“You’re shaking,” he said, his deep voice filling the quiet cabin. He reached across, pulling a plush cashmere blanket over my lap, tucking it securely around my legs and over my rounded stomach.

“Who wouldn’t be?” My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to be. I looked down at my worn jeans, then up at his impeccably tailored suit. “Adrian… Mr. Moretti—”

“Adrian,” he corrected firmly, his dark gaze locking onto mine. “To you, I am only Adrian.”

“Five months,” I whispered, the reality of the situation crashing into me in waves. “It was five months ago at the Drake. You… you were in the dark. The suite was unlit. I was so broken, so reckless… I didn’t even ask your name.”

A faint, self-deprecating smile played at the corner of Adrian’s lips, though his eyes remained dark with lingering anger from what had happened in the store.

“I knew who you were the moment you stumbled into my private lounge on the penthouse floor,” Adrian said softly. “You were crying. Your mascara was ruined, and you held a shredded wedding invitation in your hand. You looked like an angel that had fallen straight into hell. I had spent that entire week negotiating with cartel bosses who wanted my head, yet when you looked at me and asked me to help you forget… I lost my mind.”

Heat rushed to my face as the memories of that night flashed before my eyes. The desperate passion, the rough velvet of the couch, the way he had whispered into my neck, promising to tear apart anyone who had ever made me cry. I had thought it was a drunken fantasy, a fleeting dream born out of heartbreak. When I woke up at five in the morning, terrified of what I had done, I had fled before the sun rose.

“I didn’t plan this,” I choked out, my hand instinctively resting over my belly. “I found out six weeks later. I was terrified. I had no job because Nathan made sure I was blacklisted from every design firm in the city after we broke up. I was down to my last seventeen dollars, Adrian. I didn't know the baby was yours.”

Adrian’s jaw clenched so tightly that I could see the muscle ticking beneath his skin. A terrifying darkness flitted across his features, the true visage of the man who ruled the city's underworld.

“Nathan Cross blacklisted you?” Adrian asked, his voice deathly quiet.

“He told the agencies that I stole proprietary designs from his firm,” I confessed, looking away, unable to bear the weight of his gaze. “Nobody would hire me. I’ve been living in a studio apartment in Pilsen, cleaning offices at night just to make rent. If I hadn’t saved for the prenatal care, I wouldn’t even have that.”

Adrian closed his eyes for a brief second. When he opened them, the sheer fury inside them had transformed into something lethal, cold, and calculated.

“Cross Logistics relies heavily on port authority clearances,” Adrian murmured, as if talking to himself. “Clearances that my family has controlled for three generations. By tomorrow morning, Nathan Cross will realize that every contract his company owns is worth less than the lint in his pocket.”

“Adrian, wait,” I gasped, reaching out and touching his arm. The muscles beneath his coat were rock-solid. “You can’t just… you don’t have to do this. We don’t belong in the same world. You’re… you’re the head of the Moretti family. People die around you.”

Adrian turned his hand, capturing mine and bringing my knuckles to his lips. He pressed a warm, lingering kiss against my skin, his eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that stole the breath from my lungs.

“People die around me when they cross me, Claire,” he said slowly. “People who threaten what is mine do not survive. But you? You and this child? You are the only things in this godforsaken city that I will spend every drop of my blood to protect.”

The car smoothly took a turn, gliding through the towering wrought-iron gates of an estate in the Gold Coast. The gates shut heavily behind us with a loud, mechanical *clack*, locking out the rest of the world. High stone walls, security cameras, and armed guards patrolling the perimeter with trained Dobermans painted a clear picture.

This was not a home. This was a fortress.

The car stopped in front of a sprawling, limestone mansion that overlooked the choppy gray waters of Lake Michigan.

“Welcome home, Claire,” Adrian said softly, reaching over to undo my seatbelt.

“Home?” I echoed, my chest tightening with anxiety. “Adrian, I have my apartment. I have my things—”

“Your things have already been packed and brought here,” Adrian replied smoothly, stepping out of the vehicle and offering his hand to help me out. “Your ratty apartment in Pilsen is no longer your concern. From this moment on, you walk on marble, you sleep on silk, and anyone who looks at you with anything less than absolute reverence will answer to me.”

I stood on the wet stone driveway, the cold lake wind whipping my hair across my face. I looked at the mansion before me, then looked at the terrifying, gorgeous man standing beside me. I was five months pregnant, broke, and completely at the mercy of the most dangerous man in Chicago.

And yet, as Adrian gently pulled my coat tighter around my neck to shield me from the wind, a strange, dangerous feeling settled in my chest.