Bianca's POV
I didn't answer her.
I didn't even blink.
My fists clenched slightly at my sides, nails biting into my palms hard enough to leave crescents in the flesh—but I refused to give her the satisfaction she craved. Instead, I held her gaze with the stillness of a woman who had learned to bury her emotions beneath six feet of marble silence. My face betrayed nothing.
She tilted her head, dark curls spilling over one shoulder, clearly disappointed that her venom had failed to draw blood.
"Really? No reply?" she teased, her heels clicking against the imported Carrara tile as she came to stand beside me at the gilded vanity.
I stayed quiet, washing my hands beneath the antique brass faucet, watching the water swirl down the drain like I wished I could follow it.
"Oh, come on, Bianca." Adriana leaned against the marble countertop with practiced elegance, her reflection a serpent in the mirror. "Don't act like you didn't see us that night. You were standing right there in the doorway, watching everything."
Still, I said nothing. The silence stretched between us like piano wire.
She continued with a cruel laugh that echoed off the bathroom walls of the Pini estate. "You should have heard him last night. He was pazzo for my body—couldn't keep his hands off me. I really hope you learned a thing or two from what you saw."
I dried my hands on the monogrammed towel with deliberate calm, then turned to walk away without sparing her another glance.
She was getting irritated at my lack of reaction—I could feel the frustration radiating off her like heat from a furnace. So she pushed harder.
"Oh, I know what'll crack you," she said, her voice dropping to something malicious and intimate. "Let's talk about your babies."
I froze instantly.
My blood turned to ice water in my veins.
"Those poor little things," she whispered from behind me, each word a stiletto sliding between my ribs. "But they didn't die for nothing, you know. Thanks to them—thanks to what the clinic extracted—my womb is finally strong enough to carry his heir."
I turned slowly.
She leaned closer, triumph burning in those coal-dark eyes like hellfire. "You couldn't carry his child. Your body failed him, over and over. But I will succeed where you couldn't. And Salvatore will finally have what he always wanted—with me."
Something inside me snapped at her words.
Three years of silence. Three forced terminations. Three children I never got to hold, stolen from my body for her benefit while I was told it was medicine, told it was for my health. The rage that had been building behind my sternum like a caged animal finally broke free.
I shoved her hard, and she stumbled backward, gasping as she caught herself against the damask-papered wall.
She looked at me in shock for a moment, her carefully constructed mask slipping.
And then, slowly, she smiled.
"You'll regret that," she murmured.
Before I could ask what she meant, she turned toward the wall—
And slammed her own head into it.
I blinked in horror and disbelief.
Then she did it again. And again.
Blood bloomed against the cream-colored wallpaper like roses in winter.
She released a loud, piercing scream that could have shattered crystal, then dropped to the floor in a heap of silk and calculated tears, sobbing and clutching her head as though I had done it.
The bathroom door burst open almost instantly—too quickly, as if they had been waiting just outside.
Several Family members rushed in, soldiers and wives alike, their faces a chorus of manufactured concern.
"Someone call the doctor!"
"Madonna mia—Adriana!"
"Donna Bianca—what happened here?"
I stood there frozen, my hands trembling at my sides, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Don Salvatore Pini swept through the doorway with two enforcers flanking him, his presence filling the room like a gathering storm. He wore his authority like a second skin—the tailored charcoal suit, the heavy signet ring, the cold calculation in those pale eyes.
He saw the blood first, dark against the wallpaper.
Then he saw her, crumpled artfully on the floor.
Then me.
"Bianca?" His voice was sharp with fury, each syllable a bullet.
Adriana whimpered weakly, curling in on herself with the skill of a woman who had rehearsed this moment.
"She—she attacked me," she sobbed, her voice breaking with perfect precision. "I came to apologize to her for the dance earlier, to make peace between us, and she just snapped. She pushed me and slammed my head against the wall. I—I think I'm bleeding badly, Salvatore."
Salvatore stared at me, his face twisted with rage that I recognized all too well. It was the same expression he wore before every punishment, every lesson he decided I needed to learn.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. My throat had closed around the truth like a fist.
"She's lying," I croaked when I finally found my voice. "She's lying. I didn't touch her—not like that. She's doing this to frame me."
Salvatore's eyes blazed with cold fire. "So now you're calling her a liar? Calling a guest in my house, a woman under my protection, a liar?"
"She slammed her own head against the wall," I said, firmer this time, though my voice shook. "I didn't—"
"Basta!" he roared, and the single word silenced the room like a gunshot.
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears.
The Family members gasped and murmured among themselves. I could feel their eyes on me—judging, condemning, already writing the story they wanted to believe.
"She's unstable," someone whispered. "Always knew there was something wrong with her."
"The Valente girl was never right for this Family," another voice muttered, low but deliberate.
"Poor Adriana. She only wanted to make peace."
Salvatore turned to his enforcers, his jaw set like granite. "Teach her a lesson."
The words froze the blood in my veins, and my heart stopped beating.
Before I could move, before I could run, the two soldiers stepped forward and grabbed me by the arms. Their grips were iron, unyielding.
"No—wait!" I cried, but it was already too late.
The first blow landed hard against my stomach. I doubled over, gasping for air that wouldn't come, stars exploding behind my eyes.
Another came against my back, sending me crashing to the cold tile floor.
I curled in on myself instinctively, wrapping my arms around my belly—around the secret I had been carrying for eight weeks, the child I had hoped might finally be allowed to live.
"Please—stop," I cried out, my voice breaking.
But they didn't.
They kept kicking and punching mercilessly as I screamed, their polished shoes connecting with my ribs, my spine, my arms as I tried desperately to shield myself.
I tried to protect my belly, especially my belly, but it was useless against their trained brutality.
Then I felt it.
A sharp, twisting pain tore through my abdomen, followed by a familiar rush of warmth down my thighs.
Blood.
I choked on a sob as I looked down. Crimson soaked through the pale blue silk of my dress, spreading like an accusation.
The fourth. They had taken the fourth.
The enforcers faltered, stepping back with something like unease flickering across their hardened faces.
"Don Pini," one of them said, hesitating, "she's bleeding badly—"
Salvatore stepped forward, his rage momentarily giving way to confusion as he registered the growing pool beneath me. He saw the blood.
I met his eyes with tears streaming down my face, my body broken and trembling. "Please..." I whispered. "Please, I was pregnant—"
He hesitated for a single moment. Something that might have been doubt crossed his features.
Then Adriana whimpered from the floor, her voice soft and pitiful, perfectly timed: "Salvatore... I don't feel so good... I think I might faint..."
That was all it took.
Salvatore turned away from me as though I were nothing—as though I had never been his wife, never carried his name, never bled for his legacy—and knelt beside her. "I've got you, Ana," he murmured, lifting her into his arms with a gentleness he had never once shown me.
She clung to him weakly, playing her role to perfection. But as her eyes met mine over his shoulder, she smirked—a small, triumphant curl of her lips that only I could see.
Salvatore didn't even glance at me as he walked out of the room, carrying her like she was something precious.
At the doorway, he finally spoke.
"I hope you've learned your lesson, Bianca." His voice was cold as a January burial. "Get yourself to the clinic. Clean yourself up. And remember your place."
Then he was gone.
Leaving me there on the bloodstained marble, severely injured and half-dead, surrounded by Family members who wouldn't lift a finger to help me.
One by one, they filed out, stepping around the blood like it was merely an inconvenience.
I tried to move, but the pain was too much. My body shook violently, and my vision blurred at the edges. The metallic scent of blood filled my nostrils—my blood, my child's blood, mixing with the expensive perfume that still lingered in the air.
I dragged myself slowly across the floor, leaving a trail of crimson behind me, until I reached the corner where my clutch had fallen earlier. I pulled out my phone with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling.
Then I called my father.
"Bianca?" Don Vittorio Valente's voice came through immediately, already sharp with concern. "What's wrong? Where are you?"
I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. My lips trembled as I tried to speak, tried to form words around the devastation in my chest.
"Papà... please," I whispered hoarsely, my voice barely a thread of sound. "Come take me home..."
"Where are you right now?" he asked immediately, and I could hear him already moving, already giving orders to someone in the background.
I gave him the directions as best I could, my words slurring together as consciousness began to slip away.
He cursed under his breath—words I had never heard him use, oaths that promised retribution. "I'm sending men right now. Don't move. Don't speak to anyone. Just hold on, figlia mia. You'll be fine. I swear to you, you'll be fine."
"Come... qui...ck..." I managed to mumble before the phone slipped from my blood-slicked hand, clattering against the tile.
The last thing I heard was my father calling my name over and over—Bianca, Bianca, stay with me—as the darkness rose up like a tide and pulled me under.
