Until I was truly gone, I didn't want to stir up trouble.
"The morning sickness has been pretty bad lately. I'm going to the hospital to get it checked out."
Luca visibly froze for a second.
As if it only just hit him that he hadn't spared a single thought for his pregnant girlfriend's wellbeing these past few days.
Something uneasy flickered in his eyes, and he hesitated, half-considering whether to stay.
But the next second, another message from Arianna lit up his phone, urging him to hurry.
That sliver of hesitation crumbled like it had never existed.
"Then go back to the house and rest. Don't stay out overnight."
He tossed out the instruction and was gone from the apartment before the words had settled. The bolt-lock on the safehouse door clicked behind him, and then I was standing in silence with nothing but the hum of the baseboard heater.
His choice didn't surprise me. I was used to it by now.
But I did need to go back to the Barone estate. My personal documents were still there, tucked in the dresser of the room I'd been given years ago, and I'd need them for tomorrow's procedure.
The next morning, when the housekeeper led me through the front entrance of the villa, I stopped dead.
In barely half a day, the place I'd called home for years had been gutted.
The matching couple figurines that used to sit on the entryway table were gone. The rug beside the sofa, the one Luca and I had picked out together, had been swapped for something new. The framed portrait on the wall, the one we'd taken months ahead of schedule as though we were already promised to each other before God, had vanished without a trace.
Even knowing what I knew, my chest seized before I could stop it.
I forced the feeling down and headed for the stairs.
That was when the smell hit me. Acrid. Burning.
"Miss Romano, these things... they belong to the lady of the house, don't they? Burning them doesn't seem right..."
The nanny's voice carried from somewhere nearby.
Arianna's reply came laced with undisguised malice:
"Lady of the house? Get your facts straight. I'm the future Donna of this family."
"This junk was an eyesore. So what if I burned it?"
My brain whited out. I didn't think. I just ran toward the courtyard.
Firelight danced against the stone.
A pile of belongings had been thrown into a bonfire pit near the garden wall, already half-consumed. The old iron grate the Barone groundsmen used for burning brush had been repurposed like a pyre.
These were Sister Bellandi's things. The woman who raised me at Saint Lucia's parish home. Her keepsakes. Her last traces on this earth.
I lost my mind. I lunged at the fire without a second thought, bare hands reaching straight into the flames.
"Bianca, are you insane?!"
Arianna stumbled back a step, startled.
I didn't spare her a glance.
Fire seared my skin, the pain boring down to bone, but I couldn't feel it. I clawed everything I could reach out of the blaze, dragging it free with both hands.
Blisters rose instantly across my palms.
I gritted my teeth and smothered the flames with my body, shaking so hard I could barely stay upright.
When I finally looked up, my eyes were raw and burning.
"What is wrong with you, Arianna? Why would you burn my things?"
Arianna stared down at me from where she stood, untouched. Her fingertips drifted near the inner corner of her eye, though no tears had arrived yet.
"They were an eyesore. So I burned them."
"Besides, who knows if this junk from some parish orphanage is even clean?"
"What if it carries diseases?"
One breezy sentence, and she'd insulted both me and the woman who raised me in a single breath.
The last thread holding me together snapped.
I swung my arm and slapped her across the face with everything I had.
The force knocked Arianna sideways. She opened her mouth to curse at me, but a voice cut through first:
"Bianca, what the hell are you doing?!"
Luca's voice cracked through the courtyard like a whip.
He stormed over and shoved me away without a heartbeat of hesitation. One of the soldiers posted at the garden gate took a single step forward, then stopped, reading the situation and pulling back against the wall.
I staggered backward, nearly falling into the still-smoldering fire pit.
He was already pulling Arianna into his arms.
"Why did you hit her?" His face was terrifyingly dark.
My voice broke. "She burned Sister Bellandi's things!"
Luca knew better than anyone what those keepsakes meant to me.
He knew the parish home director had been the closest thing to a mother I'd ever had. He had been there the day I told him about the worn holy card she used to press into my palm, thumb to skin, as if courage could be passed between us.
In that moment, I still believed that just this once, he would take my side.
But Luca only frowned, his tone clipped with impatience.
"It's just some old junk."
"Arianna thought it was trash and cleaned it out. She meant well."
"Why would you hit her over that?"
My heart stopped.
Right on cue, Arianna's eyes reddened, her voice going soft and wounded:
"I'm sorry, Bianca. I really didn't know those things meant so much to you..."
"I was just worried they weren't sanitary. I didn't want Luca getting sick..."
"You don't need to apologize." Luca cut her off, his voice hard as iron. "If anyone owes an apology, it's her."
He turned to me. His gaze went cold.
"Bianca. Apologize to Arianna. Now."
There is no grief greater than a dead heart.
I stared at the man in front of me, hollow with disappointment.
He looked like a stranger. The heir to the Barone name, the boy who'd pulled me out of Saint Lucia's, the man who'd sworn I was his. He looked like someone I had never met.
"I won't apologize." Each word fell from my lips, frozen solid. "I did nothing wrong."
"She did it on purpose. If you don't believe me, ask the nanny."
The nanny nodded quickly. "It's true, sir. Miss Romano, she..."
Luca cut her off without looking. "A nanny's word means nothing."
"Luca, my face hurts so much..." Arianna's tears spilled instantly. She cupped her cheek, sucking in a delicate breath.
His expression hardened.
"Since these things are causing this much trouble,"
he bent down and picked up the lighter from the ground,
"then get rid of them for good."
"Maybe then you'll stop acting like a lunatic."
The flame snapped back to life with a sharp pop.
Every muscle in my body locked. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
"Luca, what are you doing?!"
The scream tore out of me raw, and I threw myself toward the fire.
But he caught me from behind, arms clamping around me like a vice.
I thrashed against him, my voice cracking apart:
"I was wrong... I was wrong, okay..."
"I'll apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just put out the fire, please?"
"I'm begging you, Luca!"
This was the first time I had ever broken down like this. The first time I had begged him on my knees.
Something clenched in Luca's chest. His grip loosened, just barely.
I seized that split second, wrenched free, and threw myself into the flames.
Fire licked up my arms. The pain went past sharp into numb.
But in the end, the only thing I pulled out was a watch, blackened beyond recognition.
I knelt on the ground, hollowed out. Like someone had reached inside me and scooped out everything that made me whole.
The sounds around me faded to nothing. The soldier at the gate, the wind through the Barone estate cypresses, Arianna's theatrical sniffling. All of it gone.
I didn't register anything until Luca hauled me to my feet.
He looked at me, and for one instant, regret flashed through his eyes. The recognition that he'd gone too far. His signet ring was still against his knuckle, motionless.
But then his gaze landed on Arianna's swollen cheek, and that flicker of regret vanished as cleanly as if it had never been there.
"Let this be a lesson."
"Now you'll know what's acceptable and what isn't. You're supposed to be the future Mrs. Barone. You can't go around slapping people like some common shrew."
I didn't want to hear another word. I just stared at him, eyes bloodshot, looking at him the way you look at an enemy.
The look cut him. He flinched, glanced away. Then the flinch curdled into anger at my defiance.
"You still don't think you were wrong?"
He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the bedroom we used to share, locking the door behind him.
"Then sit in here and cool off!"
I couldn't fight him. All I could do was stand there, trapped, the scorched watch still clutched in my blistered hand.
My eyes burned. But not a single tear would come.
