My nails dug into my palms until the skin threatened to split. My eyes burned red. "Have you forgotten why I can't have children?"
Seven years ago, right before our wedding, one of Domenico's ruined rivals came for revenge. A capo from a family the Corsettis had dismantled, swearing vendetta. He wanted to kill Patrizia to make Domenico pay.
I was having afternoon tea with her at the estate when it happened. I didn't hesitate. I threw myself in front of her.
The knife meant for her heart went into my uterus instead.
That single wound took my fertility forever.
I knew a family like the Corsettis couldn't survive without an heir. Blood was currency. Lineage was power. So I choked down the pain and offered to end things.
Domenico fought to keep me. He stood in the rain outside the clinic all night, two of his soldiers watching from the car, too afraid to drag their Don inside.
By morning he'd collapsed with pneumonia, burning with fever, still murmuring that he'd never need children, that he only needed me.
That same man now stood in front of me, his voice cool and untouchable.
"Why dredge up the past? Let's talk about now and what comes next."
"Right now, Giuliana is carrying my child, and she's keeping it. As for what comes next, you'll raise the child. That's your duty as the Don's wife."
Calm as a sit-down over territory lines. As if this weren't betrayal. As if it were just another arrangement to broker.
My chest split open along a line I didn't know existed, and the pain went all the way down to the bone.
Then my medical assistant came half-jogging over, expression tight, and pressed Giuliana's blood panel into my hand.
Positive. Just as I'd expected.
I drew a long breath and looked Domenico dead in the eye.
"Fine. Let's only talk about now and what comes next."
"Right now, I'm telling you Giuliana has a disease. Whatever plans you had for the future? You might want to rethink them."
Domenico snatched the lab report from my hand. His face went dark.
He walked straight to Giuliana, fury barely caged behind his eyes. "Explain."
"Is it the gender results—"
Giuliana's gaze landed on the report, and the air locked in her throat.
After a flicker of panic, she threw herself into Domenico's arms, one hand drifting to her collarbone, eyes flooding on cue.
"This is a setup! I was a virgin when we got together — you know that! I'm carrying your baby, and you'd take her word over mine?"
Her tears fell one after another onto the sharp ridges of Domenico's knuckles, and just like that, his anger and his doubt washed away.
He was already wiping her cheeks with his thumb, his voice dropping soft. "There you go again, little crybaby. I believe you. Stop crying, okay?"
"No! No!"
Giuliana refused to let it go. One hand cradled her belly; the other pointed straight at me.
"This isn't over. My stomach is cramping because of her. She needs to get on her knees and apologize!"
Something in Domenico's gaze stalled, but in the end, he turned to me and gave the order.
"I know you're angry, and that's why you faked the lab results to scare Giuliana."
"But she's carrying my child. She can't take that kind of shock, and she shouldn't have to suffer."
"Just apologize."
A high-pitched ringing swallowed my skull, and the murmurs around us erupted.
"Isn't the Don supposed to be famously devoted to his wife? He actually broke the marriage pact?"
"And now he wants the wife to kneel and apologize to the comare? The world's turned upside down."
"So what if she hasn't given him an heir in seven years? La Mano Santa is still young. Why couldn't he just wait?"
…
A rust-iron taste flooded the back of my throat. I'd bitten clean through my lip.
My right thumb traced a slow circle against the pad of my index finger. Not a surgical assessment this time. A verdict.
I pulled my mouth into a smile and walked toward Giuliana.
"You're right, it was my fault—"
Crack.
I slapped her across that smug face with everything I had.
The clinic went silent. Not a breath. Not a shuffle. The two soldiers by the door didn't move. Nobody moved.
"You sleep with someone else's husband, get knocked up with a bastard, then waltz in here to humiliate the wife? My only mistake was not doing this sooner. I should've put you in your place the second you opened your mouth."
