"Tesoro, they're only having a little fun with you. You take everything too much to heart." Dominic's voice slid over me, smooth as oil.
I shook his hand off my arm, cold to the bone, and forced the words through my teeth. "Enjoy yourselves. I'm going upstairs to rest."
I turned to leave, but Dominic was already holding out a glass of milk. "Drink this first. For the calcium. Late in a pregnancy the body needs it. Drink, and then go rest."
I looked at the pale glass in his hand, and my body trembled for no reason I could name. "What are you trying to do?"
"I'm only worried you're running low so late along. I want to keep you strong." Concern sat on his face like a well-tailored suit. "Don't you trust your own husband?"
I pushed the glass away. "I don't want it."
Dominic's face went cold in the space of a breath. The men near the bar quieted, sensing the shift the way soldiers always do. "I've shown you plenty of respect tonight. This is for your own good. Drink it. Now."
"Dominic, don't be so hard on her." The voice came from behind me. "If Adriana doesn't want the milk, don't force it down her throat. She's carrying a child. A man ought to give a little ground."
Vittoria came drifting over at precisely the right moment, pressing a cup of hot water into my hands. "Adriana, drink a little of this first."
I held the cup and stared at the clear water inside. "May I go upstairs and rest, once I've finished it?"
I drank it in one swallow. The warm water slid down my throat, and then my body began to grow hot, as if countless worms were crawling and gnawing beneath my skin.
"What did you put in this?"
The moment the question left me, my legs turned as heavy as if they'd been poured full of lead, and then my body softened and fell into a strange embrace. My eyes blurred. All I could make out was Marco's face, ugly with impatience, hovering over me, his hands moving across my body without pause.
"Vittoria, you're a cold one, I'll give you that. Afraid the photos alone wouldn't hold her, so you drug her and let her throw herself into a man's arms. Even if she uncovers the whole business of the bloodline, she won't dare breathe a word with that hanging over her. You'll have her collared for good."
"Let go of me." I screamed it out with what sanity I had left.
But there was no strength anywhere in me. I could only look toward Dominic, searching for the last flicker of conscience in the man I'd married.
Dominic had his arm around Vittoria. He gave me one cold glance, then turned to Marco. "Gently. She's still carrying. That's my child and Vittoria's inside her."
Marco's hands kept roaming over me, restless, greedy. "We know our limits, brother. On my word, not a mark on the child."
Then he lifted me and carried me toward the stairs.
I looked at Dominic in something past despair. "You'll regret this."
"Along with the drug that has your blood running hot, I put a measure of something else in that water," Vittoria said, lifting her wine glass, savoring it. "It buries the worst of what a person feels. When you wake tomorrow, you'll still be the little lapdog curled at Dominic's feet, remembering nothing."
"Sleep sweetly tonight," she finished.
The next second, my world went black.
In the dark, I felt only something tearing me open, until I thought it would tear me into pieces.
When I came to again, I was lying naked on the floor, and beneath me the blood was pouring out in great dark sheets.
"Help me."
I dragged myself toward the door and pounded against it.
Laughter answered from the other side.
"Quit the act. You were louder than any of us in there. Get some rest, sweetheart. You won't remember a thing come morning."
Then Dominic's voice, easy and unbothered. "The business here is settled. Let's move on to the next."
Then a heavy slam as the door closed, sealing me alone inside my despair.
I forced the door open and crawled out. The bright red blood trailed after me down my back, winding into a bloody path, a sight that would have stopped a hardened soldier's heart. I dragged myself down the stairs, found my phone, and called for a doctor.
When I woke once more, I was already in a room heavy with the smell of disinfectant.
"Mrs. Marchetti, we couldn't save the child. What would you like us to do with the body?" The nurse looked at me with pity soft in her eyes.
I looked calmly at what she held out to me. "Arrange a courier for me, please."
Dominic and his friends came home after their night of pleasure.
The moment the door opened, they saw it: a shocking road of blood winding down from the upper floor into the sitting room.
"What in God's name. Adriana?"
Dominic tore up the stairs like a man gone mad. The room held no one, only a great pool of blood.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
"Good evening. Am I speaking with Mr. Bruno? I have a courier delivery. It requires your signature in person."
