“Stop it, I am not pregnant.”
But Luciano paid no attention to my words.
He grabbed my wrist and yanked me out of the bed, urgency flashing across his face.
"You've done well. This is perfect timing." His voice was almost distracted. "Mother is expecting at least five grandsons. Even if there are one or two girls along the way, it doesn't matter."
He grabbed my arm, already pushing me inside the bathroom.
"Go. Take the test. We need to confirm."
I stood there shaking, one hand pressed against my hollow womb.
The excitement that once made butterflies flutter inside my stomach now felt like the cruelest joke in the world.
Minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom. The test in my hand indicating what I had already known all along.
[Not pregnant.]
Luciano took it from my fingers. His face, which had held a flicker of hope, darkened immediately.
"Negative." His voice was quiet. Controlled. "How?"
He grabbed my shoulders gently and yet his eyes that bore into my skull were full of suspicion. "Don’t tell me you are taking contraceptives behind my back when I clearly prohibited it?"
“Now that you say it.” I gritted my teeth “I regret not taking them sooner.”
“Penelope!”
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if I were being unreasonable again.
“We've been trying for months now! Right when I desperately need another heir, you fail me again!”
Fail.
The word pierced deeper than any knife.
His gaze swept over me.
Cold.
Assessing.
Like a businessman staring at a failed investment.
“Every time something goes fucking wrong with your body.” His jaw tightened. “You conceive only to miscarry.”
“Wrong?” My wet lashes quivered as I barely looked at him, suppressing my erupting hatred.
Two years ago, heartbroken, with wide open eyes, I had bled on the operating table as the doctors removed my seven‑month‑old fully developed fetus from my body.
I still remembered hearing one of them whisper to my devastated husband:
“Mr. Moretti, her body is badly damaged. Even if the women in her family have a history of high fertility, her body cannot endure another pregnancy so soon. If pushed again… she may not survive.’
Yet a week later, Luciano still walked into our bedroom and gently fed me a soup laced with aphrodisiac drug.
That night, he had embraced me, apologizing with bloodshot eyes:
“Penelope, the Moretti Family isn't a fairy tale. If I die tomorrow, the five subclans will tear each other apart. I need five heirs. One for each clan. Only then will nobody dare touch you after I am gone.
So... even if you hate me now, endure this for a little longer. ”
I believed him.
I believed every lie.
He was the one who ruined me step by step and yet, still had the audacity to blame me?
"Wasn’t this all orchestrated by you?!" I spat. "“Even after the doctors warned you-”
“The doctors know nothing!”
Luciano cut me off sharply.
His patience finally cracking.
“You were born for this!”
His words landed like a fist to my gut, knocking the air straight out of my lungs.
He kept pushing my broken body. After every miscarriage, he waited weeks, sometimes days and tried again.
And all along he thought my body was made to endure such pain?
The ugly truth I had avoided for years finally stood naked before me.
From the very beginning, Luciano had never built a future with me.
He had been preparing one for Kiara and I was merely keeping her seat warm.
My fingers curled sharply at my sides despite the agony jabbing my heart.
“Penelope, even if you had contraceptives these days.” Luciano stepped closer, towering over me. "
“You are my wife.”
The possessiveness in his voice made my skin crawl.
“Don't forget your responsibilities.”
Ice flooded my veins as he embraced me, his hands already roaming over my body.
For a second I almost lost all my reason and shoved him away hard.
"No! I don’t want it!"
Luciano froze.
Then slowly frowned.
“No?” His voice dropped dangerously low.
“Are you refusing me?”
A long silence followed before he laughed.
Not because he found anything funny but because he thought I was being ridiculous.
"Penelope.”His jaw clenched, racking his fingers through his hair before he finally looked at me with quiet, terrible certainty.
“Have you forgotten who keeps the Solon Family standing?”
My heart skipped.
“Your mother.”
He counted calmly.
“Your younger brother.”
Blood rushed to my ears and for a moment I almost thought I misheard before he continued.
“They all depend on me. If you don't behave, you can forget about your father's medical treatment."
The blood drained from my face.
My father- the man who treated Luciano like his own son, his greatest ally who helped him claim his position as Italy’s Mafia King.
The man whose final request before slipping into a coma had been:
Protect my daughter.
And now Luciano was using him as leverage.
The fight drained out of me like blood from an open wound. My arms fell limp at my sides before trembling as they fumbled with the hem of my shirt.
Luciano sighed. “Now, its not that hard is it Pene?” His eyes didn't waver. They moved over every inch of my skin like he I was a negotiation he won again.
I pulled the shirt over my head, my skin burning raw as his took in my breasts, my stomach, the scars from the miscarriages pale, silvery lines he had never bothered to notice before.
When he laid me down on bed I clenched my jaw tightly, tears pooling in my eyes as my body trembled beneath him while he took whatever he wanted and labeled it as love.
"Get cleaned up." He finished, standing up before straightening his clothes.
Minutes passed as I turned my head away, laying limp on the bed.
All those innocent memories I had treasured suddenly felt rotten.
Eight years ago, the son of a rival mafia family had cornered me during a banquet ready to assault me when Luciano found us.
Beating the man until he lay unconscious in a pool of his own blood, Luciano hadn’t even cared about the punishment that came as hundred poisoned whips, splitting his back open.
The husband who broke me tonight was the same boy who had wrapped his coat around my shoulders and whispered: “No one touches you while I am alive.”
Tonight, those words felt like a joke.
Watching my frail back shuddering with silent sobs, Luciano’s voice softened slightly.
“Penelope, everything I'm doing is for your own good.”
I nearly laughed in rage.
My own good?
Building a life where Kiara would have your heart and throne, and I would have the storage room and secret midnight visits like a dirty mistress was for my good?
“Pene…“If you take care of Kiara properly, she'll recover faster.”
Once she's stable, I will explain the circumstances of our marriage.”
Explain.
As though I were the mistake.
As though I were the problem.
“I'm sure she'll forgive you.”
Forgive me?
Something inside me snapped, anger seeping through cracks in my composure.
In four days, I would divorce him.
This marriage he had trampled beneath his feet…I would tear it apart with my own hands.
I will become the first woman in mafia who would challenge the almighty Moretti clan.
