Claimed By The Mafia Don (Ariella and Asher) novel Chapter 214

And I wasn’t there.I wasn’t f***ing there. I missed it all.

Not because I left. Not because I disappeared. Not because I didn’t want to be a father. But because she never gave me the choice.

I clenched my jaw, fingers curling into a fist under the countertop.

Ariella.

I remembered that talk we had. The one where I told her I didn’t want to see “her son.” The kid she had while she was gone, the kid I thought belonged to someone else. I had been angry, bitter, maybe even cruel, but even then, even when I said I didn’t want to see him, she hadn’t said a damn thing.

Not one word.

Not one breath of truth.

She had let me walk away from my son. Let me live in ignorance. Let me hate a boy who shared my blood. She didn’t think I’d want to know?

She didn’t think I had the right?

What kind of person makes that decision for someone?

I stared at Leon, I couldn’t be mad at him. He was perfect. Innocent. He didn’t ask for any of this. But me?

I felt like a goddamn villain. Like the type of father I had promised myself I’d never become.

Absent. Unknowing. Irrelevant.

I wasn’t even a photo in his room. I hadn’t even been a face he knew until tonight. And now, five years later, I sit across from him with milk and cookies like that would fix it all..... And the guilt?

It chewed at me just as fiercely as the rage did.

Because I had said awful things to Ariella. Because I had believed she’d moved on and had another man’s child. The worst part was that with all the power in the world I couldn’t go back. I couldn't go back in time and fix it. Fix us.

I was so damn angry. Boiling. Raging. Torn apart inside. And I wanted to blame someone. No, I needed to blame someone. But I couldn't blame myself. Not this time.

I didn’t know.

She should have told me.

From the very beginning. The moment she found out. The minute she knew she was pregnant. She should’ve picked up the phone, found me, anything. But she didn’t. She ran. She vanished. She made the decision for both of us.

And I’m supposed to smile?

I’m supposed to pretend I’m not furious?

No.

Ariella caused this. She chose to keep him from me. She made me the villain in her head and never gave me a chance to be the father I could’ve been. The father I would’ve been.

And now? Now it’s too late to change the past.

But it’s not too late to make damn sure she regrets keeping my son away from me.