Marco stayed just long enough to make sure I didn’t explode.
He sat beside my bed with the patience of a man waiting out a storm, offering water I didn’t want, brushing my hair back as if tenderness could erase what I had heard through a curtain. Every gesture was deliberate, public-facing, designed for the nurses who drifted in and out and the guards stationed in the hall. The De Luca name bought privacy, but it also demanded performance. A Don’s heir did not bring shame into a hospital wing. A wife did not fall apart in front of strangers.
So he played the grieving husband, and I played the broken wife.
When the nurse left and the room fell quiet again, Marco leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his expensive watch catching the sterile light.
“Don Salvatore is going to come,” he said, voice careful. “He’ll ask questions. You know how he is.”
I knew. The old Don didn’t ask questions for answers. He asked to measure loyalty, to smell deception. If he sensed weakness, he pressed until bone showed.
“He’s already lost patience with Bianca,” Marco continued. “The accident embarrassed the family. The baby…” His jaw tightened. He didn’t say our baby. He said it like it was a failed deal.
I stared at the ceiling, letting him talk himself into comfort.
“I heard what you said,” I told him quietly.
Marco stilled. For half a second, I saw panic—pure and sharp—flash behind his eyes. Then the mask settled back over his face, smooth as polished stone.
“Heard what?” he asked, as if he didn’t know.
“You said you didn’t want the baby,” I said. “You said you only needed an heir to keep your grandfather off your back.”
A long pause. Marco’s gaze moved to the door, to the hallway, to the guard’s shadow passing under the threshold. Then he sighed like a man forced to deal with inconvenient emotions.
“Elena,” he murmured, “you were under heavy medication. You’re traumatized. You heard fragments and turned them into something else.”
I almost laughed.
“Ninety-nine times,” I said. My voice came out thin but steady. “Ninety-nine times, I told myself I was imagining things. I told myself you were just busy, just stressed, just surrounded by wolves. I told myself you still chose me.”
His expression hardened at the word wolves—not because it was wrong, but because he recognized the accusation underneath it.
“I did choose you,” Marco said, leaning in. “I married you. I brought you into my house. I gave you my name.”
“You gave me your name,” I repeated, tasting the bitterness of it. “Like a collar.”
He flinched, irritation tugging at the edges of his composure. “Watch your mouth.”
There it was—his real voice. The one he used when he wanted obedience.
My fingers curled beneath the blanket. My nails dug into my palm until I felt something sharp and grounding. Pain was honest. Marco was not.
“I want a divorce,” I said again, clearer this time.
The word landed between us, heavy and final.
Marco’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He stood slowly, as if rising too fast might trigger something violent. He paced to the window, then back, as though the room was suddenly too small for the consequences of what I’d said.
“You can’t,” he replied. It wasn’t a plea. It was a statement of ownership.
“I can,” I said.
Marco leaned over the bed, close enough that I could smell his cologne—expensive, familiar, nauseating now. His voice dropped into a whisper.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re grieving. You’re in shock. This is not the time for tantrums. If you say that word again in front of anyone, you’ll make this worse. For yourself.”
“For myself,” I echoed. “Is that a threat?”
His gaze held mine. No warmth. No remorse. Only calculation.
“It’s a warning,” he said softly. “You know what happens to people who embarrass the family.”
I stared at him until he looked away first.
There was a time that would have broken me, that quiet, effortless cruelty. There was a time I would have apologized, would have swallowed my pain and tried to be worthy of the De Luca name again.
But my son was gone, and with him went my obedience.
Still, I didn’t lash out. I didn’t scream. I didn’t let him see the rage coiled tight inside my ribs like a loaded gun.
Because rage without strategy was suicide.
Marco’s phone buzzed. The screen lit up on the bedside table. He tried to tilt it away, but I saw the name flash across it.
Bianca.
He didn’t answer. Not immediately. He stared at the phone, jaw working, then set it facedown and looked back at me, forcing gentleness.
“Rest,” he said, smoothing the blanket as if he hadn’t just threatened me. “We’ll talk when you’re stronger.”
He walked out like a man leaving a room he still believed he controlled.
As soon as the door closed, my body shook. Not from fear—though fear lived in me now, sharp and constant—but from the sheer effort it took not to tear the IV from my arm and crawl out of the hospital with my bare hands.
I pressed my fingers to my throat and swallowed hard, forcing my breathing to slow.
Think.
I needed options. I needed exits. I needed someone Marco couldn’t buy, threaten, or charm into silence.
My gaze drifted to my purse on the chair in the corner of the room. The nurse had placed it there with my clothes neatly folded on top. I stared at it for a long time, calculating the risks of moving too fast, of drawing attention.
Then, carefully, I shifted, ignoring the ache deep in my abdomen. The loss left a dull pressure inside me, a constant reminder that something had been ripped away. I reached for the call button.
