How ironic.
I yanked the bedroom door open and stormed out. The moment I reached the main hall of the estate, one of the household staff hurried toward me, her shoes clicking fast against the stone floor. "Signora Rossetti, you're awake! The second Signora Rossetti went into labor suddenly. The Don took her to the hospital!"
I stopped dead. "'Second Signora Rossetti'? Who told you to call her that?"
I grabbed the Murano glass vase from the console table beside me and hurled it to the floor. It shattered across the marble in a spray of blue and gold. My chest heaved. The sound echoed through the hall, and somewhere deeper in the house, footsteps paused.
The woman flinched, her gaze dropping to the floor the way everyone's did in this house when the air changed. "It was Signora Ferraro's instructions. She said the Don agreed that she's also the lady of the house. You're the first Signora Rossetti, and she's the second..."
She was still talking when I snatched my keys from the hook by the side entrance and drove to the hospital. The two soldiers stationed at the gate didn't try to stop me. They knew better. But I saw one of them reach for his phone in the rearview mirror, and I knew Tomasso would hear I was coming before I arrived.
By the time I walked through the hospital doors, Catarina had already delivered.
The private suite was packed. Nearly all of Tomasso's inner circle had crowded inside, capos and associates and their wives, laughing and talking over each other like it was a celebration. Like it was a baptism feast already. Armed men stood at the corridor entrance, but they parted for me without a word. I didn't go in. Not yet. I stood just outside the doorway, and I listened.
"Tomasso, does your wife even know Catarina's had the baby?"
"Don't bring her up." Tomasso was leaning over the bassinet, teasing the sleeping newborn with one finger. A soft, doting smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "This kid's gorgeous."
"Seriously, Tomasso. If you look closely, he even looks a little like you!"
"Keep it down. If Giovanna hears that kind of talk, she'll overthink everything."
Catarina lay propped against the hospital pillows, her makeup still flawless. She didn't look like a woman who'd just given birth. She looked like a woman who had won something. "Overthink what? Whether she agrees or not, I'm keeping my promise. This child will carry your surname and be entered into the Rossetti bloodline registry."
The room shifted at that. Even the laughter dimmed for a half-second. Everyone in that room understood what entering a child into a Family's bloodline registry meant. It was not paperwork. It was a claim on inheritance, on territory, on the right to one day sit where Tomasso sat. And it required the Don's formal recognition.
"But you'd have to divorce Giovanna first. That doesn't feel right..."
"It's not a big deal. Once the baby's registered under my name, I'll formally sever the arrangement with Catarina and re-bind with Giovanna. Simple. If she won't agree, I'll just do it behind her back."
Catarina sniffled, dabbing at the corner of her eye. "Giovanna is so kindhearted. She'll say yes. I'd be so grateful to her. Honestly, however long I get to be your wife, even just on paper, I'd be more than happy."
"Relax. You all know how much she loves Tomasso. Remember when she went to that sit-down with the Calabrese Family and spent the whole evening charming their old Don, glass after glass of grappa, just so Tomasso could close that territorial arrangement?"
"And that time Tomasso got hospitalized for a stomach infection? She thought it was something serious. Got on her knees and begged the doctor, then knelt outside the operating room for hours until the surgery was over. She's crazy about him. She'd never leave. A little thing like this is nothing compared to losing Tomasso."
"Exactly what I was thinking."
Tomasso's lips curved. He pulled Catarina closer against him, his arm tightening around her shoulders. "No matter what it takes, I'll give Catarina and this child a home."
I stood in the doorway and watched the man I'd loved for seven years hold another woman in his arms.
My fingers curled at my sides until my nails bit into my palms.
He had it all figured out. He'd been planning to give Catarina a home all along. Divorce me, register the child, remarry me like a transaction, like shuffling territory on a map. And every person in that room had already accepted it as the natural order of things. Because that was what Giovanna did. Giovanna bent. Giovanna knelt. Giovanna loved him so much she'd swallow anything.
Well then. Who was I to stand in his way?
I stepped into the doorway and spoke quietly. "A boy? Congratulations."
The moment I appeared, every face in the room went white. The laughter died like someone had cut a wire. One of the capos set his glass down too carefully. Catarina's hand drifted toward the bassinet, a reflex she couldn't quite hide.
Tomasso released Catarina instantly and crossed the room in three quick strides. His voice turned gentle, almost tender. "What are you doing here? You're pregnant. You should be resting at home."
"I heard everything you just said."
I looked up at him. "You want to divorce me so you can register Catarina's baby under your name. Enter him into the Rossetti bloodline."
"Giovanna, I just feel sorry for her. You know she has nowhere else to go. I'm only doing this because she was Fausto's wife. He was like a brother to me. He saved my life..."
His hand moved as he spoke, and I saw it. His fingers drifted to his right palm, tracing the faint scar there. The blood-oath mark. Fausto's name, invoked like a shield, the way it always was.
He scrambled to explain. I cut him off, my expression blank. "I agree. Let's get divorced."
"Really?"
His eyes lit up. He hadn't expected me to say yes that easily.
None of them had. I could feel the silence in the room behind him pressing against my back like a held breath. The Don's wife had just agreed to sever the blood-alliance between the Rossetti and Valente families, and she'd said it the way someone orders coffee. Tomasso didn't understand what he'd just been given. He wouldn't. Not yet.
