I stood rooted to the marble floor, the hurt in my chest pressing down like a stone slab over a crypt.
I had always believed that when it came to the baby, at least Zeno cared. I believed he was ready to be a decent father, that somewhere beneath the arrogance and the entitlement and the name he wore like armor, there existed a man who understood what it meant to protect something small and innocent.
But now I finally understood that it was nothing more than my own fantasy.
The baby was not even here yet, and Zeno could already, without a second thought, take everything meant for her and use it to flatter another woman.
I did not dare picture it. If the baby were truly born, would she really end up fighting for scraps at the table of her own Family?
The small hope I still held that Zeno might try to be a good father broke apart right then, quiet and final, like a rosary snapping and scattering its beads across cold stone.
When I did not speak, Zeno walked toward me instead.
He leaned down, his dark eyes dropping to my belly, his voice soft as velvet drawn over a blade. "Baby, when the time comes, Daddy will buy you the nicest, the prettiest things. The finest lace, the softest cashmere. Alright?"
He straightened, his gaze sliding back to me with that easy, practiced warmth.
"Those secondhand things from someone else's house. We don't need them."
Zeno pinched my cheek again, smiling just as sweetly and charmingly as he always did, the smile that had once made me believe I was the center of his world.
"Don't make that sad look, little crybaby." His thumb traced the curve of my jaw. "Relax. I'll make it up to you."
Staring at the face I knew so well yet felt so distant from, a wave of ridiculousness rushed through me so violently I nearly laughed.
There was a time when Zeno and I spent night after night in this same study, the heavy oak doors locked, the world shut out. We had stayed up until dawn poring over blueprints and financial projections, chasing investors, courting allied families, planning the future of La Confessione from nothing but ambition and a shared dream. The leather chairs had smelled of espresso and fresh ink, and the only sound between us was the scratch of pens and the low hum of trust.
But now, papers were scattered across the Persian rug, flipped over in a mess, and even a few used condoms lay plainly on the carpet beside the overturned crystal tumbler.
Everything here was dirty enough to make me sick.
That heavy sense of collapse hit me without mercy. I covered my mouth violently, bile rising hot and acidic in my throat.
The next moment, I spun around and fled from the study, nearly tripping over the threshold as I rushed down the corridor and into the nearest bathroom. I threw up until my knees buckled, until I was gripping the edge of the marble sink with white-knuckled hands, the taste of bile and betrayal indistinguishable on my tongue.
When I came back, I never mentioned the clothes again.
Instead, I gently packed every single item set aside for the baby. The outfits. The hand-stitched blankets. The tiny leather shoes no bigger than my palm. The mobile for the crib, its little silver stars catching the lamplight as I wrapped it in tissue. I packed it all quietly and had everything moved to the house I had purchased years ago in Europe, tucked away in a hillside village where the Valente name meant nothing.
Zeno did not notice any of it. He assumed I had finally learned to be "understanding."
So he started buying things to make up for me.
Pricey maternity dresses from Milan. Limited-edition jewelry. Sets of designer clothes, pile after pile stacked inside the walk-in closet of the master suite like offerings at a shrine he no longer visited.
I did not even look at them.
He sent one round, and I had someone take one round away exactly as they came.
At the same time, Maeva Lazzari started performing more often.
She had secured a regular stage at a lounge on the waterfront, a place frequented by men from every Family on the Eastern Seaboard. Sometimes, during her performances, with just a small turn of her head toward the private booth in the corner, Zeno's figure would appear in the dim amber light.
Sometimes he was passing her a glass of champagne as she stepped off stage. Sometimes he was leaning close, his mouth near her ear, murmuring something that made her smile. Sometimes it was only a blurred silhouette caught in the background of someone's photograph, a shape too broad-shouldered and too well-tailored to be anyone else.
But even those so-called accidental moments together sent the grapevine into a frenzy.
Word traveled fast in our world. It always did. More people began linking the two of them openly, speaking their names in the same breath at dinner tables and in the back rooms of social clubs.
Some envied her, whispering that Maeva was lucky, that the Don was powerful, wealthy, generous, and willing to be seen with her in public, a thing no married Don should ever do.
But not every voice on the grapevine was a blind cheer.
Clear voices showed up soon after.
Isn't this basically a betrayal of the Blood Pact?
Flaunt it long enough and suddenly it becomes "real love"?
When Zeno pursued the Morani girl, wasn't he offering her the world? Practically laying his life at her feet?
Let's be honest. He's just playing. He'll tire of this one too.
When these whispers reached me late at night, carried by a loyal housekeeper who thought I should know, I suddenly thought of many years ago.
In university, I had been the top student in our department.
Scholarships, academic competitions, professor recommendations. Everything came to me as naturally as breathing. My whole life back then was made up of the library, the research lab, and stacks of heavy textbooks that smelled of dust and possibility. The legitimate world. The clean world. The world where merit meant something and bloodlines were just biology.
But Zeno was the opposite.
He skipped lectures, showed up late when he showed up at all, had no interest in coursework, and was often called out by instructors. A walking warning sign in my carefully ordered academic life. He moved through campus like he owned it, because in a way he did. The Valente name opened every door, and Zeno saw no reason to earn what could simply be taken.
If it had not been for Nonna Ravenna, I would never have crossed paths with him.
That year, with Ravenna's financial backing, I had been able to finish my studies without the burden of debt that had threatened to pull me under after my mother's death. She had arranged it quietly, through a scholarship fund that bore no Valente insignia but was funded entirely by the Family.
She treated me with genuine kindness, and she was very straightforward about her reasons.
She had sat me down in the parlor of the Valente compound, poured two cups of espresso from the stovetop pot herself, and looked at me with those sharp, knowing eyes.
"Zeno has a wild streak," she said, her voice carrying the weight of a woman who had spent decades managing men far more dangerous than her grandson. "You steady him."
I agreed.
So I began dragging Zeno to class, pushing him to hand in assignments, pulling him to review sessions in the library's back corner, even sorting his notes for him when his handwriting devolved into illegible scrawl.
I used every simple, stubborn method I could think of to make him act like a student, to make him see that the legitimate world had value, that a man could be powerful without being feared.
Later, he slowly changed.
He started arriving for lectures on time. He started pulling away from the reckless circles he ran with, the sons of capos and associates who treated the university like an extended playground. He started putting his energy into his studies and into the real work of learning the Family's legitimate operations.
And later, Zeno fell for me. Openly and loudly.
He ended all unclear entanglements, severed every flirtation, and wanted everyone to know he was pursuing me. He even began seriously taking over responsibilities within the Syndicate just to prove to me, and to Ravenna, that he could be the man they both needed him to be.
People in our world all said I was the rope that held Zeno Valente down. The anchor that kept the heir from capsizing.
Back then, I believed it too.
I thought I was special.
I thought I was the one who had pulled him out of the chaos, the one who had shaped the Don he became.
But now, thinking back, I suddenly saw it clearly.
I was not a rope.
Maybe I had just shown up earlier than the others.
There were only three days left before the dissolution.
And today was the night of the Grand Gala for the fifth anniversary of La Confessione.
We had prepared for an entire year for this night. Every detail had been orchestrated with the precision of a military campaign. The guest list alone had taken months to finalize, a careful balance of allied families, legitimate business partners, politicians who owed favors, and the press outlets we controlled. La Confessione was not merely a casino and speakeasy. It was the crown jewel of the Valente empire, the operation that had transformed the Family from old-world muscle into a sophisticated, untouchable force. And it was something Zeno and I had built from nothing.
I had always assumed that even if our marriage was full of cracks, at least in matters of the Family's business, Zeno would keep basic logic. After all, La Confessione was not only my effort. It was something Zeno and I had architected together from a single back room and a borrowed deck of cards. It was the core of the Valente Organization, and the shared memories and loyalties of countless associates, patrons, and allies.
Because I was pregnant and exhausted, the one who was supposed to stand on the grand stage tonight and face the crowd of distinguished guests was Zeno.
During the rehearsal two weeks earlier, everything had gone almost flawlessly. The lighting. The music. The sequence of speakers. The unveiling of the new high-roller floor. I had overseen every detail from behind the curtain, and Zeno had delivered his lines with the effortless authority of a man born to command a room.
I thought tonight would go the same way.
The master of ceremonies' voice rose with practiced energy as he introduced the main guest of the evening. The crystal chandeliers blazed brighter, their light cascading across the packed ballroom of La Confessione like liquid gold.
The person who should have stepped forward was a newly celebrated actor we had paid a considerable sum to secure for the occasion, a face recognizable enough to lend the event the veneer of glamour that kept the legitimate world fascinated by us.
Instead, Zeno appeared from behind the velvet curtain, holding Maeva Lazzari's hand, the two of them rising slowly on the elevated platform as if ascending a throne.
