I was an ordinary body collector from Millhaven, the forgotten neighborhood on the river where my family had performed the grim work of retrieving the dead for as long as anyone could remember. By chance, I pulled both Frederico Valente, heir to the most powerful syndicate in the Five Families, and the young capo Omero Rossetti from the water the night of a botched ambush. I became pregnant with Frederico's child.
On the day of our blood-bound union, Frederico never showed. He took his procession to the Volpe estate and married Chloe Volpe instead.
I tried to confront him, but Omero Rossetti stepped in my way.
He confessed that he was the one who'd gotten me pregnant that night. He said he was willing to marry me and take care of me for the rest of my life.
A month after the wedding, armed men descended on Millhaven. All one hundred and ten households were slaughtered. Not a single soul survived.
Standing before that mountain of corpses, I collapsed under the weight of my grief. I lost the baby.
Omero never left my side, never even changed out of his bloodstained clothes. It took a long time, but slowly, he pulled me back from the edge.
Three years later, I was pregnant again. I wanted to tell Omero the good news right away, but on my way to find him, I overheard a conversation between him and a friend in the back room of the social club.
"Omero, Frederico keeps undermining you at every turn. Doesn't that eat at you? Back then, you married Penelope Mancini for his sake and even claimed a child that wasn't yours."
"I didn't do it for him. I did it for Chloe. In the Families, the firstborn son inherits regardless of his mother's rank. If Penelope had given birth to a Valente heir first, how would Chloe ever secure her place in the compound?"
"We all know you're hopelessly in love with Chloe Volpe, but did you really have to massacre everyone in Millhaven to keep them quiet? The body collectors have been all but wiped out since then."
"I had no choice. The people in Millhaven knew too much. To eliminate any future threat, every last one of them had to die."
I had always believed that falling for Frederico Valente was the greatest mistake of my life. I never imagined that falling for Omero Rossetti would prove a far worse one.
……
"Just now, one of the maids from the compound came by. Your attendant turned her away, but I think I heard her say Penelope is pregnant..."
Omero's hand tightened around his teacup. It nearly slipped from his grip, but he was always composed. Within a breath, his expression smoothed over.
"I won't let her carry it to term."
"That's your own flesh and blood."
"Her womb carried another man's seed once. I find that repulsive. Besides, she spent her whole life handling corpses. Any child she bears could come out a freak."
Omero turned to the attendant standing nearby. "Tell Nora Bianchi to mix the poison into the lady's meals. Be careful about it. Don't let her find out."
His friend let out a sigh. "Penelope really is pitiful..."
Omero went still for a moment. His right hand moved to the inside of his left wrist and pressed hard against the pulse point, so brief anyone else would have missed it. His gaze turned dark and unreadable as he stared into his teacup. "I'll let her live out her days as my wife, comfortable and provided for. Consider it compensation."
I clamped a hand over my mouth and crumpled to the ground. Under the bewildered stares of the household staff around me, I scrambled back to the compound on my hands and knees.
In the darkness of my room, I wept alone.
So the man who had shared my bed that night was never Omero at all. And yet he had still married me, this tainted woman, willingly, all for Chloe Volpe.
He had even accepted a child that had nothing to do with him.
I remembered the day the soldiers slaughtered Millhaven. He had looked at my skirt, soaked through with blood, and wept until he could barely breathe.
He had sworn to me, voice shaking with conviction: "Penelope, I promise you, I won't let the villagers die in vain. And I won't let our child's sacrifice be for nothing."
He kept his word. Within three days, he tracked down the men responsible and killed every last one of them.
For years, I had been overwhelmed with gratitude toward him. It never once crossed my mind that all of it, every single piece, had been his doing from the start.
Nora Bianchi's voice came from outside the door. "My lady, your meal is ready."
"Leave it. I'm not hungry."
The food laced with poison. I didn't dare touch it.
When the Family doctor had last checked my pulse, he told me my body was weak, my womb cold and depleted. I needed to rest and take care of myself. If I miscarried again, I would never be able to bear children.
I wanted this child desperately. Before, it had been for Omero.
Now it was for the people of Millhaven who had died because of me.
I couldn't bring them back. Other than ensuring the body collector's legacy carried on, I didn't know what else I could do to make amends.
