Vitale hesitated for a moment, but before he could say anything, Serafina broke into louder sobs, her voice trembling with a grief pitched for the whole household to hear.
"Forget it. I know I'm nothing but a burden under this roof," she cried. "It's all my fault, isn't it? Fine. I'll take Matteo and go. I'll lie down in the grave beside your brother and keep him company where I belong!"
Then she spun on her heel and fled down the corridor.
Vitale's eyes followed her retreating figure, heavy with worry. But before he went after her, he turned a venomous glare on me.
"This is the daughter you raised?" he snapped. "A child already old enough to lie, to twist people, to scheme. She's always tormented her aunt. What next? Was she planning to turn on her baby brother too?"
He stepped closer, his voice thick with a righteousness I had learned to hate.
"My brother died young. Serafina has no one in this world but me. Is it truly so much to ask that the two of you simply make room for her? You disappoint me, Adriana. You've forgotten every ounce of decency your father raised you with." With that, he turned and left us standing there, bloodied and bruised on the marble, and went after her.
Gia watched his back vanish through the doorway, her tiny hands clutching the hem of my shirt, her big eyes brimming with confusion and hurt.
"Mama," she whispered, "is it because I'm a girl? Is that why Daddy loves Auntie Serafina and Matteo more than us?" She went on, softer still, "I'm sorry… It's my fault. I made everything hard for you…"
Even after Vitale struck her, after all of it, my daughter didn't hate him. Not even a little. She blamed herself for having been born the way she was.
I knelt and pulled her into my arms, my heart shattering all over again.
"No, baby. None of this is your fault," I murmured, my voice thick with tears. "You're the best thing in my life. The kindest, bravest little girl I've ever known."
"Sweetheart," I kissed the top of her head and whispered, "you don't need that kind of father. Not anymore."
I carried Gia back to the guest room and asked Don Ricci to send for a doctor the Family trusted, one who asked no questions. He came quickly and gave her a rabies shot, his old hands steady, his eyes never once meeting mine.
From Gia, I finally learned the truth about the past year.
Vitale had poured all his attention into Serafina and her unborn child, leaving his own blood daughter to fend for herself in a house full of armed men who answered to him. Serafina, in the meantime, had tormented Gia in secret, and sometimes right under his nose. Every time the child tried to tell her father the truth, Serafina would twist it, brand her a liar, and Vitale would believe the widow without a moment's doubt.
It was the two of them, Vitale and Serafina, who had told Gia that I'd been taken and killed by "bad men."
Gia had cried herself to sleep night after night, clutching a small memorial card with my name on it as though it were the only thing left of me in the world. She had even let the dog sink its teeth into her rather than let it ruin the picture of my face.
After I finally coaxed her to sleep, I sat on the edge of the bed, but there was no peace anywhere inside me.
I had told her we didn't need that kind of father anymore. She hadn't agreed. She hadn't said a single word.
I knew. Deep down, she still ached for him.
No matter how often Vitale scorned her for being a girl, called her weak, called her worthless, she still longed for his love. Still saw him as her father.
Should I give Vitale one more chance, for her sake?
I was lost in thought when I felt myself pulled back into a warm embrace. The smell of milk and the sour sweat of the birthing bed clung thick around him.
"Adri," came his voice from behind me, trembling with feeling. "Thank God… you're alive. You found your way back to me."
Vitale pressed soft kisses along my neck, his voice low and coaxing. "I gave my brother my word I'd look after Serafina. That I'd give his line an heir. When she learned she was carrying, it went hard on her. Sickness, fainting, all of it. I had to stay at her side. That's why I wasn't there to pull you out."
"I turned over every stone looking for you. And then word came that you were dead… Adri, it broke me."
I pushed him off, swallowing down the nausea rising in my throat. My voice came out calm, but there was steel underneath it.
"I'm back now. Very much alive. And you still mean to bind yourself to her, don't you? You still plan to make her your wife."
Vitale let out a helpless sigh, as though I were the unreasonable one. "Of course not. You're my wife. You always have been. The union is only for the eyes of the Family. No blood oath will pass between us, no pact signed."
"I need to give Serafina and Matteo some standing, so the men stop whispering. That's all this is. A performance. You understand that. What's between us is the real thing. In every way that counts. You've always been the reasonable one, Adri. You won't make trouble over this… will you?"
So that was it. He still expected me to live in the dark corner of his house, dead to the world outside, his in secret. Hidden. Forgotten. And then, with the same easy entitlement of a man who had never once been refused, Vitale began working open the buttons of my blouse.
"Serafina's already given me a son," he murmured. "We should make up for lost time, don't you think? A boy of our own, and with Gia… the three of them together would make a perfect little family. Harmony. Balance."
He wanted to finish his pretty family portrait. With me tucked away as the piece no one was ever meant to see.
