Valentina's POV
I used to beg him to love me. But now? I was done begging.
"Hello, Father. I'm ready to marry Don Alastair Moretti. Send someone to pick me up in three days, after I finalize the annulment." I said the words the moment my father picked up the call. My voice didn't waver. I wouldn't let it.
My father was silent for a moment. Through the phone I could hear the faint clink of ice in a glass, the measured breathing of a man who had survived fifty years in this life by never reacting too quickly.
"Annulment?" Eduardo Serrano's voice was low, careful. "I thought you were hopelessly devoted to Silas Valenti. Why the sudden change of heart?"
"I was just being a foolish child then." The words tasted like ash. "But I've grown up now."
My father didn't hesitate. "Good. I have always told you that you were too good for that bastard."
I released a bitter laugh. It scraped against my throat like broken glass. "I think I just realized that now."
After the call ended, I gripped the phone tighter, my knuckles bone-white, my chest aching with something that went deeper than heartbreak. It was the ache of a woman who had finally seen the shape of her own grave and chosen to crawl out of it.
Six years.
Six years wasted on someone who never wanted me.
Silas Valenti never loved me, and I knew that. He married me because his parents brokered the alliance with my father's Family. A strategic union. The Serrano name lending legitimacy and old-world connections to the Valenti operation on the waterfront. I stayed because I was hopelessly in love with him, because I believed that somewhere beneath the cold silences and the turned backs, there was a man worth saving.
I thought if I gave enough, if I waited long enough, he would see me.
Until I overheard his conversation with his underboss, Giovanni Russo, some hours ago.
——
I had gone looking for him because I had news to share. News that I thought might change everything. I'd walked through the dim corridor of the Valenti estate toward his study, the old floorboards groaning softly beneath my feet, the smell of cigar smoke and aged wood seeping from behind the half-closed door. I'd reached for the handle, and then his voice stopped me cold.
"Valentina doesn't know that her miscarriages have been helping Ana." Silas's voice cut through the air like a knife.
I froze in place, my hand still outstretched, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth.
"Silas," Giovanni's voice was low, careful, the way a man speaks when he knows he's standing on the edge of something monstrous. "You used three of her pregnancies. Are you sure she won't find out?"
Silas scoffed. The sound was casual. Dismissive. The sound of a man discussing inventory, not the lives of his unborn children. "She's too naïve. She thinks they were natural miscarriages. She doesn't know I had the doctor give her those drugged supplements that caused the miscarriages because we needed to harvest the biological material from the babies."
The blood drained from my face.
My stomach twisted, and my heart stopped. I couldn't breathe. The hallway seemed to narrow around me, the walls pressing inward, the dim sconces casting shadows that looked like reaching hands.
"Biological material?" Giovanni asked.
Silas's voice dropped, taking on the low, conspiratorial tone he used when discussing business he didn't want overheard. "Anastasia's womb was damaged. She couldn't carry a child. But the doctor said that stem cells harvested from a fetus with the right bloodline would help repair the damage. Valentina's miscarried babies have been perfect for that."
I couldn't breathe. My hands trembled against the doorframe. The world tilted, and I pressed my shoulder into the wall to keep from falling. Three pregnancies. Three times I had woken in sheets soaked with blood, screaming, begging God to tell me what I'd done wrong. Three tiny lives that never drew breath, and every single one of them had been stolen from me.
He always told me Anastasia Ferraro was just a distant relative from the old country, a cousin of some removed degree who needed the Family's hospitality while she found her footing in the city. And I had believed him. I had welcomed her into our home, poured her wine at Sunday dinners, treated her like blood. But the whole time, he was lying to me.
Giovanni let out a low whistle, the kind of sound a man makes when he's seen something that disturbs even his hardened conscience. "That's twisted, Silas. You're using your own unborn children like lab samples."
"I don't care," Silas snapped. I heard the sharp click of a lighter, the slow exhale of smoke. "I need an heir. A real heir. And Ana is the only woman I want to carry my legacy. She's finally pregnant, thanks to those treatments."
My breath hitched, and a wave of nausea surged through me so violently I had to clamp my hand over my mouth.
"Damn," Giovanni said quietly.
Silas scoffed again. "You think I stayed married to Valentina for love? I only kept her around long enough to repair Ana's womb, and it worked."
I couldn't hear anything else after that. My ears rang, a high, keening sound that drowned out the world. My throat tightened until I thought I might choke. My vision blurred, the hallway dissolving into smears of dark wood and flickering light. It couldn't possibly be true, right?
Silas kept saying over and over that Anastasia was only a distant relative, someone he'd known since childhood. And I believed him like a fool. I had stood in this very hallway and defended him to my own father, sworn that he was a good man, that the Valenti name meant something. And all the while, he had been feeding me poison and harvesting my children.
"So what happens now that Ana is pregnant?" Giovanni asked.
Silas chuckled coldly. The sound was barely human. "Simple. I'll dissolve the marriage after Ana's next blood test comes back. If she's truly healed, then Valentina's job is done."
My knees gave out, and I nearly dropped to the ground. I caught myself on the wall, fingernails scraping against the plaster, my breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The hallway swam around me.
I had thought the miscarriages were natural. I had even blamed myself, time and again, convinced that something was broken inside me. I had knelt in the chapel at the back of the estate and prayed to the Madonna, asking her what sin I had committed to deserve such suffering.
All that stress. All that pain and exhaustion. The weeks spent in bed, hollow-eyed and bleeding, while Silas barely looked at me.
He had done that to me to help another woman carry his legacy.
I had given him everything. My loyalty. My body. My heart. I had kept his house, stood at his side during sit-downs with rival Families, smiled for the cameras at charity galas while his hand rested on my waist like a brand of ownership. And he was planning to throw me away like garbage.
I didn't even remember walking back through the house. I just remembered hitting the cold marble floor of the bedroom as soon as I stepped inside. My legs had given out. My heart was racing, and I couldn't stop shaking. The room was dark. The heavy curtains were drawn against the afternoon light, and the only sound was the distant ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall, counting out the seconds of a life I no longer recognized.
I had been nothing but loyal to him. I had defended him, cooked for him, stood by him while he ignored me, while he spent his nights in Anastasia's bed and left me alone in this mausoleum of a marriage.
I blinked when I realized that I had been sitting there on the cold floor, replaying it all in my head, for how long I didn't know. Minutes. Maybe hours. The light beneath the curtains had shifted.
That's when I remembered why I had gone looking for him in the first place.
My fingers trembled as I reached into my pocket, and I pulled out the small white stick.
Two pink lines.
Positive.
I was pregnant with his child.
I had come to tell him, to share the news that maybe, just maybe, things could change. That maybe this baby would be the thing that made him turn toward me, that made him see me as more than a vessel, more than a convenient arrangement with the Serrano name attached.
But now?
I stared at the stick, tears falling silently onto its plastic surface. Each drop caught the faint light and disappeared.
This baby wouldn't be born into love. It wouldn't be safe. It would be harvested like the others. Another sacrifice on the altar of Anastasia Ferraro's stolen motherhood.
My hand moved to my belly, cradling it protectively, my palm flat against the fabric of my dress.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, and my voice broke. The words barely made it past my lips. "But I won't allow you to be another sacrifice for him."
I wiped my tears away with a shaky breath and picked up the phone again, standing slowly to my feet. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. The room steadied around me. I dialed the number I'd found earlier, the one for the clinic on neutral ground, outside Valenti territory, where no one would report back to Silas.
"Hello, this is the Blue Moon Medical Clinic. How can I help you today?"
"I... I need an appointment," I said softly. "For an abortion."
The receptionist's voice was gentle. Professional. The kind of voice trained to hold no judgment. "Of course. Can I ask how far along you are?"
"A few weeks."
"What is your name?"
"Valentina Serrano." I replied, using my maiden name. The name I was born with. The name that still meant something.
"Okay, Ms. Serrano. We have an opening in two days."
I nodded as tears ran down my face, though she couldn't see them. "See you in two days."
"Valentina, what's happening in two days?"
Silas's voice came from the doorway of the living room. I turned slowly. He stood there in the frame of the door, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, a glass of whiskey in one hand. His dark eyes were fixed on me with the flat, assessing gaze of a man who owned everything in the room, including the woman standing in it.
