Just then Little Nina tugged nervously at Damiano's sleeve, her voice barely rising above the hum of the freezer coils.
"Damiano, pouring water over ice will make it stick to skin like glue," she said timidly. "If she moves even a little, her flesh will tear. She's due any day now. Something terrible could happen..."
His hand, mid-gesture, paused in the air.
He hesitated.
But before the moment could shift, a soft, pitiful voice came from behind him.
"Damiano... let it go. My time bleeding out in that back room wasn't as unbearable as you imagine..."
Vittoria's words instantly turned his hesitation to stone. His gaze darkened. His thumb dragged once, hard, across his knuckles.
The hand he had paused slowly lowered as his voice turned cold again.
"Do exactly as I said."
Little Nina opened her mouth to protest again, but Damiano waved her off. Her hands flew flat over her lips, pressing the words back where they'd come from.
"What she's going through is nothing compared to what Vittoria suffered. I already have a car waiting outside the gate. What could possibly go wrong?"
With that, she fell silent.
Now emboldened by Damiano's command, the soldiers returned to the freezer. This time they carried even more blocks of ice.
One of them grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me upright. They surrounded me with slabs of ice, building a wall around my body.
Then a basin of icy water was dumped over my head.
The next second, my skin adhered to the ice like glue, bonded by freezing water. Each breath burned my throat. Each pore pulled tight with searing pain as the cold seeped into my bones.
I glanced at the clock on the far wall, its tick the only sound the men couldn't silence.
I'd been trapped in the freezer for over five hours.
My limbs had turned dark purple from the cold.
To shield my unborn child, I tried to shift my body slightly, to find a posture where my stomach might retain some warmth.
But every tiny movement ripped more of my flesh from the ice.
The baby's movements inside me had grown faint. Alarmingly faint.
I gritted my teeth, ignoring the raw pain as chunks of skin tore away. Slowly, I maneuvered my body to shield my belly as best I could, my frozen hand curling over the place where my child still lived.
Bright red blood began to smear across the crystal-clear ice.
By the time I managed to reposition myself, the once-clear ice around me was stained a ghastly crimson.
The laughter outside died.
Even the made men who had jeered at me earlier fell silent at the sight, and in that silence I could hear the freezer breathe.
Through the blur of blood and frost, I glared at Damiano and screamed hoarsely, "Damiano! If anything, anything, happens to this baby, then you, his own blood, are his murderers! I swear I'll pray day and night to his spirit, so that you never know peace!"
His expression wavered.
The steel in his eyes faltered as he stepped closer, peering through the blood-fogged glass.
Then a shout rang out behind him.
"Damiano! My father just got word. There's a plane running the Falcone family's private route!"
Damiano's face drained of color. His expression twisted with panic and fury. His thumb worked across his knuckles, faster now, the old street habit of a man checking whether his fists were still all he had.
He pounded his fist against the glass, roaring at me. "Alessandra! What the hell is this? You think you can hide behind the Falcone name forever?"
Before I could answer, Vittoria rushed to his side, gently rubbing his back and shooting me a look that combined hurt with quiet blame. One fingertip drifted to the corner of her lower lip.
"Alessandra, if you won't admit your mistake, that's fine. But why must you torture Damiano like this?" she said, tears glimmering in her eyes. "You know how much he suffered in the years when Don Falcone still sat at the head of the table. Now the old man's in the ground, and the Family's fortune was carved up and sold off long ago. What's the point of staging this farce?"
Then she gently tugged Damiano's hand, her voice like a breeze as she added, "Let it go, Damiano. Let her out. If something really happens to the baby, we'll be the ones they pin it on. It's not like she ever cared about lowborn nobodies like us anyway."
Her words didn't soothe him. They only fanned the flames.
His eyes lit with renewed rage. He spat out a curse, then snapped toward his men with a roar. "Take it down to negative one hundred! Do it, now!"
