Six months pregnant, and Lorenzo Moretti's childhood love opened the gates of our family estate to the Sabini, hoping the chaos would tear me apart and leave no one to ask how.
I didn't whistle for Lorenzo's Shadow Soldiers. I gathered the Donna and the capos' women instead, and we slipped into a back room of the east wing to wait out the raid.
Because in my last life, after the Sabini breached the walls, they put the place to the torch and gunned down everyone inside. Lorenzo tracked me through the markers his Shadow Soldiers left and dragged me out breathing.
But his childhood love, Vittoria Falcone, was taken by the Sabini. Used until she died.
Lorenzo soothed me with soft words, told me none of it was my fault, and moved me out to the lake house to rest through the end of my pregnancy.
Yet on the very day my labor began, he walked into my room with ten Sabini men at his back, every one of them stinking of blood and the gutter.
I watched, helpless, as the child about to come into this world was beaten to pulp inside me.
Before I died, Lorenzo raged at me like a man gone mad:
"If you hadn't opened the gates to the Sabini, Vittoria would never have been touched! You poisonous woman, you nearly fooled even me!"
"Since you love their company so much, I'll let you have your fill of it."
I died with hatred choking my throat. But God took pity, and threw me back to the very moment the gates were breached.
……
The Sabini's shouts crept closer through the halls, eager, and the leftover terror of my death sent me shaking before I could stop it.
But one glance at the Donna and the women beside me, every face white with fear, and I bit through the tip of my tongue, forcing myself steady.
I threw away the Shadow Soldier's whistle Lorenzo had pressed into my hand, and shielded Celia Romano and the others as we crept into the back room of the cold east wing.
The Donna clutched her little boy and looked at me through tears. "Adriana Vitale, if not for you, I'm afraid today I would have—"
I swallowed the pain twisting through my belly and tried to calm them.
I don't know how long we held before, at last, the familiar sound reached us. Boots on marble. Men moving in formation.
Lorenzo's capo's voice came through the wall, muffled. "She must have gone this way. The lady."
Lorenzo didn't move on it. He only said, cold, "But Vittoria's hurt."
So they'd found Vittoria Falcone. I scrambled to the window and lit the Moretti signal, the flare our soldiers knew.
But no one came. Only Lorenzo's voice drifted in on the dark, flat as a closed door. "She's putting on an act. Leave her."
I plunged into ice.
Celia Russo hadn't caught those last words, and in her relief she ran for the door, calling Lorenzo's name into the corridor.
She was six months along, the same as me, and had taken a fall earlier. Red was already seeping faint through her skirts.
Before her voice had even faded, the door was kicked in.
Two Sabini gunmen, soaked in blood, came through it.
Several of the women shrieked, screaming Lorenzo's name, begging him to come save them.
But Lorenzo was long gone.
My nails dug into my palms. A dull ache spread through my chest.
When no answer came, the two men broke into vicious grins.
"That woman wasn't lying after all. The underboss's wife really is holed up in here."
"Not just her. Look over there. Those'll be the Don's women."
"Hahaha. Finally our turn."
The cold shot through me head to foot. They hadn't stumbled in by accident at all.
It was Vittoria Falcone. It could only be Vittoria Falcone.
I steeled myself. I turned my thumb once against the inside of my wedding band, the way I always did the instant before I decided I would not be a victim again, and snatched up the blade I'd taken off the floor on our way in. I planted myself in front of the others.
Watching those mocking grins, I clenched my teeth, swung, and charged.
The Donna's voice cracked across the room, sharp. "Retreat for what? Do as Adriana taught you. There are only two. One strike each and we turn them to pulp."
Thank God there were many of us. The gunmen went down fast, hacked to the floor before either could raise his piece.
The women's faces were streaked with tears, several of them so frightened their legs gave out and they crumpled where they stood.
The Donna was just stepping forward to check my wound when I saw the third one behind her, raising his blade.
I pulled her behind me and took the strike full on.
Thank God Celia Russo saw it coming and brought a heavy bottle down across his skull, glass shattering, both hands flying to her belly an instant after as if begging the child's pardon for the risk.
Both Sabini were dead. Dead beyond any doubt.
