Crumpled on the floor, Lena Winslow's shrill voice cut through the ringing in my ears:
"I did lie to you back then, but what did the child ever do wrong?"
"I protected you for all those years. You couldn't even share one man with me?"
"Besides, handing him off to someone else would be worse than handing him to me."
She decided she was the wronged party, and the tears came with sound.
Dante just looked down at me, cold as stone:
"Lena. What exactly are you performing for me? What is there left to perform?"
"Nobody here would hurt Lucia except you. Or are you going to claim her own mother did this to her?"
"You already knew the truth. So why stage this little scene?"
Their voices crashed over each other, one after the other.
I reached out, used the last strength I had:
"Dante, I'm carrying a child!"
Lena Winslow cut me off instantly:
"Lena Moretti, Dante is sterile. So where exactly did this child come from?"
"After he and I got together, he had the procedure done. How could you possibly be pregnant?"
Dante's brow creased slightly. His eyes shifted to me.
My throat locked. I couldn't force out a single word.
I tried to brace against the wall and stand. My legs wouldn't hold. I tried again. Nothing.
My fists clenched so tight the blood ran out between my fingers.
My face turned to the side. Tears fell, one by one.
This was my first child.
This baby, bought with how many needles, how many injections, how many silent mornings on that clinic table.
I couldn't let anything happen to him.
I gathered everything I had left and pushed myself up, palms flat against the floor, crawling toward Dante one step at a time.
"Dante."
"The baby was conceived through clandestine treatments. At the family clinic."
"This child... is your child."
The words had barely left my mouth when a stack of documents slid off the top of the refrigerator and hit the floor.
The two of them saw what had spilled out, and the color drained from both their faces.
