720 Walking With His Fiancée, the Mafia Boss Saw the Woman He Thought Had Died—Now Pregnant

Grant stood frozen in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the exit, his eyes sweeping over her face, her hands, and finally resting on the unmistakable swell of her stomach. The cold, ruthless mob boss melted away, replaced by a man drowning in a wave of raw emotion.

He took three steps forward, stopping just inches from her. "Jolene."

Her name felt like holy ground on his tongue. He reached out with a trembling hand, his long fingers hovering near her cheek, terrified that if he touched her, she would dissolve into smoke.

"I’m real, Grant," she whispered, leaning her cheek slightly into his hand. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but her expression remained guarded. "I’m here."

"Why?" The single word tore out of his chest, heavy with months of agony. "Why let me believe you were dead? Why live like this—in this dump—buying cheap clothes while carrying my child?"

Jolene pulled back slightly, setting her tea mug on the counter. Her jaw tightened with a quiet strength that reminded him why he had fallen in love with her three years ago—when she was just a fiercely independent paralegal who refused to back down from the Holloway family's corporate lawyers.

"Because if I didn't die, Grant, our baby wouldn't be breathing right now," Jolene said, looking him dead in the eye.

Grant’s eyes narrowed into slits of ice. "Desmond."

"Five months ago, I started feeling sick," Jolene said, her voice shaking slightly. "I went to a clinic outside the city to get tested. When I found out I was pregnant, I came back to tell you. But you were at the Holloway estate in Tybee Island. I went there late at night. You weren't in your office... but your uncle was."

Grant felt a violent chill run down his spine. "What did he say to you?"

"He didn't just talk, Grant," Jolene said, pulling back the neck of her loose sweater slightly. On her left collarbone was a faint, jagged star-shaped scar. "He had two of his personal guards lock me in the study. He showed me photos of you—photos of your execution orders, photos of the men the Syndicate had buried. He told me that a bastard child with an ordinary woman would ruin the alliance with the Langford family. He said if I didn't disappear, he would make sure both I and the baby were put in the ground for real."

She swallowed hard, holding Grant’s gaze. "He gave me two options: take a forged death certificate and one hundred thousand dollars in cash, leave Savannah, and never speak to you again... or let him end it that night. I took the paper. I threw the cash in the river, moved here under a fake name, and worked cash jobs at a diner three miles away."

The air in the small apartment became terrifyingly thin. Grant felt a dark, ancient rage ignite in his veins—a fury so immense it quieted his mind into absolute, lethal clarity.

Desmond Holloway, his own blood, the man who had raised him after his father’s death, had threatened his woman, faked her death, forced her into hiding, and tried to murder his heir.

"He lied to me," Grant said, his voice dropping into a register so low it sounded like grinding stones. "He sat across from me at dinner every Sunday for five months, watching me drink myself to sleep, telling me to focus on the business and marry Monica."

Grant reached down, his large, warm hand gently resting on the curve of Jolene’s belly.

For the first time, he felt a sharp, strong kick against his palm.

Grant gasped softly, his eyes snapping up to Jolene’s. A single tear slipped down his cheek—the first tear Grant Holloway had shed in fifteen years.

"He thought he took you from me," Grant whispered, his hand gently stroking her stomach. "He thought he could use my grief to turn me into his puppet."

"Grant, you can't just kill him," Jolene said, panic finally bleeding into her voice as she felt the lethal energy radiating from him. "Desmond controls the board. He controls the Langford alliance. If you attack him directly, the entire syndicate will turn on you. You'll be hunted."