"Lena, you have to help me. I just got out of that place, and I have no one. No one."
"That man wants to take my child away from me. You're all I have left!"
She said it like it was the God's honest truth.
If I hadn't seen what I'd seen just moments before, I might have believed every word. I smiled, took one step forward, and blocked the doorway so neither of them could come any farther inside.
"Stop the act. I know everything."
"That year, the man who shared your bed was Dante. Wasn't it?"
Her fingers clawed the stone threshold, nails dragging until the skin split and blood seeped from the tips.
The pleading drained from her face like color from a dead man's cheeks. What replaced it was pure, undiluted hatred.
She braced a hand against the doorframe and rose slowly to her feet. Then she lifted her wrist and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with a deliberate, unhurried motion.
"If you already know, then why haven't you severed from Dante? You're content to watch me and my child be spat on? Humiliated?"
"All these years. Do you know how many times I've been called the kept woman? How many times Lucia came home from school crying because the other children said she was a bastard with no father?"
"You told me once you'd help me. Or have you forgotten that too?"
I laughed. I couldn't stand the sight of her face, the way she pushed forward as if she were owed something. I reached for the heavy door and started to close it.
But in the last second, she shoved Lucia's small hand into the gap.
Lucia screamed. A raw, piercing wail that bounced off the corridor walls. I tried to push the door open again, but it wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I threw my weight against it.
Listening to that child's broken crying, I couldn't stop myself from confronting Lena Winslow:
"She's your own daughter! You'd use your own child like this?!"
Her grip only tightened. Lucia was sobbing so hard she could barely draw breath.
"Six years ago, I carried that child for Dante. She's the one who keeps saying she wants a father." Her voice was flat, mechanical. "I'm granting her wish. I'm helping her."
She was insane. Completely, irreversibly insane.
Finally, her hands loosened.
But I fell hard. My back hit the floor and the impact traveled straight through me. In an instant, my stomach seized with a tightness so sharp it stole my vision.
I curled into the corner, both arms wrapped around my belly, holding on as if holding on could keep anything safe.
That was when Dante walked out of the bathroom, steam still clinging to his shoulders.
I reached out a hand toward him. My fingers were shaking.
"Save me…"
"Save my baby…"
He started toward me. Two steps, maybe three.
Then Lena Winslow's voice cracked through the hallway like a gunshot.
"Dante, can't you see what she's doing? She's playing you for sympathy."
The tears poured down her face, fast and unbroken, like beads snapping free from a string.
"Lucia came inside to find her. She was being sweet, being kind. And this woman, this viper, she slammed the door on my daughter's hand."
"Look at her fingers, Dante. Look. They're nearly broken."
Blood dripped steadily from the girl's small fingers. Dante's eyes went red.
His gaze drifted back to me. Slow. Heavy. The signet ring on his right hand was perfectly still.
"Lena Moretti." He bit down on every syllable of my name. "So you knew all along. You were just playing with me. Does that amuse you?"
I tried to explain. My mouth opened. Nothing came out. All I could do was press my hand against my stomach and cry out from the pain.
Dante noticed something was wrong. He took a step toward me.
Lena Winslow grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
This time it was Lucia who cried louder. She dropped to the floor, cradling her injured hand, and looked up at him.
"Papa… it hurts… it hurts so much."
One word. Papa. It stopped him cold.
He turned. He lifted Lucia into his arms and held her against his chest, turning her gently as if she might break further.
"Lucia, Papa already called the driver. He'll take you to the clinic. Just hold on, okay?"
Lucia nestled into his shoulder, quiet now, obedient. Her small head rested against him as though she had finally found the only safe place in the world.
I was losing feeling in my hands. The pain in my belly was swallowing everything else. The edges of the room softened, then blurred. My thumb pressed hard against my ring finger where the wedding band still sat, pressing and pressing until the skin beneath it went white, and then I couldn't feel that either.
