She went on, cheerful and careless. "Is your wife still making noise? Labor isn't even painful. I don't feel a thing. I could stand up and dance right now if I wanted. She's probably just being dramatic again."
Something collapsed in my chest.
Of course she wasn't in pain. She was lying on silk sheets in a private suite guarded by men with guns. Nurses hovering. Doctors smiling at her like she was royalty. Everything warm. Everything safe.
And me? I was bleeding onto concrete, trapped in a heater room like faulty equipment.
Marcello exhaled softly, the way he always did when Vittoria spoke. Like the world had finally realigned.
"See?" he said to his mother. "She's fine. Vittoria didn't even feel it. Serafina's always exaggerating."
Marcello didn't even hesitate. The second Vittoria spoke, he chose her. Just like always. His voice came back sharp, cutting, all warmth gone.
"Don't be stupid, Mom!" he snapped at his mother. "What could possibly happen to her? Serafina never does anything that puts her at risk. She's acting. That's all this is. She wants sympathy."
I felt something inside me crack and fall.
"She's faking it so you'll open the door," he continued. "Don't fall for her tricks."
Then the line went dead. Just like that. I was dismissed. Written off. Left to rot.
Donatella stood in the doorway for a moment, silence stretching like a blade. I could almost hear her teeth grinding, sharp and low. Then she laughed. Soft. Sweet. Poisoned.
"This is your fault," she said, eyes glittering. "You got me yelled at by my son."
She reached up and adjusted the pearl choker at her neck, a small preening motion, composing herself before the blow.
The heater room pressed in around me, the air thick and stifling, sweat blinding my eyes. The machines hummed, relentless, like they were breathing with her. She stepped closer, and my stomach plummeted.
In her hands was the monitor lizard — long, exotic, a pale shimmer like it had been sculpted from bone and sunlight. She cradled it like it were a child, her favorite.
"Since you love drama so much," she said, voice soft, teasing, "let's make this real."
Before I could scramble away, she tossed it at me.
It landed on my chest and wrapped around my arm with terrifying ease. Cold scales pressed against my skin, claws digging just enough to warn me it was alive. I screamed, panic clawing out of me, but the sound barely carried over the roar of the heaters.
The lizard's weight pressed down, its tail wrapping, curling, probing. Air seemed to leave my lungs. My hands flailed, shaking, instinctively shielding my belly, trying to pull it off. It snapped at me once. Pain exploded through my arm, white-hot. I recoiled, sobbing, too terrified to touch it again.
I collapsed onto the floor, curling in on myself, trying to shield the baby inside me from the world.
Tears ran into my hair, down my neck, mixing with sweat. I couldn't wipe them. Couldn't stop them. The pain in my belly twisted and climbed, spreading through my ribs, my spine, into my skull. I felt myself fading.
The lizard tightened again, then bit, over and over, deliberate and sharp. My mind went hazy. Pain, fear, heat — it all blurred.
For a second, I thought I saw light. Soft, warm, like something calling me from far away.
Then a sharp whistle cut through the haze.
The monitor lizard slid off me obediently. Donatella stepped closer, crouching down to grab a fistful of my hair and slam my head against the heated metal floor just to see my face.
"You nasty little thing," she sneered, voice shaking with a mix of anger and disappointment. "So dramatic before. Where's all that screaming now?"
I couldn't answer. I couldn't even blink properly.
She snorted, disgust curling her lips. "Let me guess. You finally realized Marcello won't save you. So you've given up. Quit acting."
She stood, rolling her eyes, exasperated as if my suffering were a minor inconvenience. "Selfish to the end. You'd never do anything that actually hurts you."
Her gaze drifted down to the monitor lizard, now still and observing. The light from the heater caught flecks of blood on its scales. Her face twisted.
She kicked me in the stomach. Hard. My body arched, pain tearing through me so violently I thought my soul would split in two.
"You stupid woman!" she screamed. "You hurt my baby! If my lizard dies because of you, I'll make sure Marcello throws you out. Vittoria is the one he wants anyway. You're just in the way."
She leaned down, cruelly smiling, and whispered as if savoring the words. "And don't even think you're taking that baby with you. You don't deserve it."
The pearls at her throat caught the heater's glow as she straightened. She turned the dial on the wall. The heaters roared louder, the air thickening, suffocating. Then she walked out, slamming the door behind her.
The lock engaged. The sound of it was small and final, the way a casket lid sounds when it settles into place. No one in this warehouse would defy the Valenti matriarch. No soldier. No associate. No one.
I started shaking uncontrollably. Violent, agonizing tremors that I couldn't stop.
In and out of consciousness, something pierced through the haze of heat and pain. A cry. A baby's cry.
"Mommy."
Again.
"Mommy."
I sobbed onto the scorching floor, chest heaving, apologizing over and over to a child I hadn't even seen yet. I was so close. I should have been holding my baby today. Why did it have to be like this? What kind of world lets a child be born into a family like this?
I screamed until my throat tore open. Not loud anymore. Just raw. Broken. The kind of sound that comes from knowing no one is coming.
The pain ripped through me, but the heat made it worse. My skin burned from the metal beneath me, sweat stinging my eyes, every contraction twisting my belly like it was being wrung. I pressed my shaking hand to my stomach, stroking it gently like that could somehow protect us.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I really tried."
If there was another life after this, I hoped my baby wouldn't choose me again. I hoped it would find parents who actually loved each other. A dad who didn't lock the mom in a heater room like she was nothing.
My right hand drifted to the base of my throat. I didn't know why. My pulse fluttered there, thin and unsteady, a bird trapped under skin. My breathing got shallow. Every inhale felt heavier than the last. My blood felt thick, slow, almost molten inside my veins from the heat pressing in.
Then suddenly—
Click.
Light flooded in. The heater room door opened.
A man froze, staring at me lying in sweat, blood, and exhaustion like I was already discarded.
I dragged myself forward with everything I had left, nails scraping against the metal floor.
"H… help," I rasped.
