Don Salvatore De Luca arrived the following afternoon.
I knew before anyone announced him. The air in the private wing shifted—nurses straightened, guards adjusted their jackets, and the quiet hum of the hospital took on a sharper edge. Power had a scent, and the old Don carried it with him like cologne soaked into bone.
Marco stood when the door opened, his posture instinctive, respectful in a way he never was with me.
“Nonno,” he greeted. “You shouldn’t have come all this way.”
Don Salvatore waved off the concern with a flick of his cane. Age had curved his spine, but not his authority. His silver hair was slicked back neatly, his suit dark and immaculate, his eyes sharp as cut glass.
“My great-grandchild died,” he said simply. “Of course I came.”
His gaze moved to me.
“Elena,” he said, stepping closer. “My condolences.”
There was something genuine in his voice—grief, yes, but also ownership. The loss wasn’t only mine in his eyes. It was the family’s. The future he had been grooming for decades had vanished overnight.
“Thank you, Don Salvatore,” I replied, lowering my eyes respectfully. Not submissively—never that—but with the courtesy expected of a Don’s wife.
He nodded, then turned his attention back to Marco.
“I want to hear everything,” he said. “From the beginning.”
Marco exhaled slowly, as if burdened by the request rather than terrified of it. He gestured toward a chair, pulling it closer to my bed.
“There was a celebration,” he began. “Elena felt unwell. Bianca offered to take her home. It was late, the roads were slick—”
“Slick?” Don Salvatore interrupted sharply. “The weather report said otherwise.”
Marco’s jaw tightened. “It was an accident.”
Silence fell heavy.
Then Don Salvatore’s gaze shifted to the doorway.
“Bianca,” he called. “Come in.”
She appeared immediately, as if she’d been waiting just outside the room. She wore a pale dress, modest and unassuming, her arm still in a sling, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. If guilt had a costume, she wore it perfectly.
She bowed her head. “Don Salvatore.”
“Look at me,” he said.
She did.
“I heard you were driving,” he continued calmly. “After drinking.”
Her lips trembled. “I only had a glass or two. I swear. I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think,” he repeated, nodding slowly. “And because you didn’t think, my bloodline ended in a hospital bed.”
Marco stepped in quickly. “Grandfather, she didn’t mean—”
“Silence,” Don Salvatore snapped.
Marco froze.
The old Don leaned closer to Bianca, his presence towering despite his age. “Tell me,” he said, “did Elena ask you to drive?”
Bianca hesitated.
I felt Marco’s gaze flick toward her—warning, pleading, commanding all at once.
“She… she didn’t object,” Bianca said finally.
“I asked for the keys,” I said quietly.
All eyes turned to me.
I lifted my gaze, meeting Don Salvatore’s directly. “I told them I was sober. I said I could drive myself. Bianca insisted.”
The room went still.
Bianca’s breath hitched. “I was just trying to help—”
“Enough,” Don Salvatore said. He straightened slowly, turning to Marco with something cold and disappointed settling into his features. “You sent your pregnant wife home with a drunk woman.”
Marco swallowed. “I trusted her.”
“You trusted her more than your wife,” the Don replied.
It wasn’t a question.
Marco opened his mouth, then closed it.
Don Salvatore looked back at me, his expression softening by a fraction. “You should rest, Elena. Stress is dangerous.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He turned toward the door, clearly finished with Bianca. “You may go.”
Bianca hesitated, glancing at Marco.
“Go,” Marco muttered.
She left, her shoulders shaking, but her eyes flashed once as they passed me—resentful, calculating. She wasn’t afraid of Don Salvatore. Not really. She was afraid of losing.
When the door closed, the Don lowered himself into the chair Marco had placed earlier. He rested both hands on his cane and studied me carefully.
“You have been quiet,” he said. “Too quiet for a woman who lost a child.”
I kept my face neutral. “I am still in shock.”
“Shock fades,” he said. “Truth does not.”
My heart thudded.
“Tell me,” Don Salvatore continued, “is there something you wish to say to me? As the matriarch of my future household?”
Marco stiffened.
I felt my mother’s voice echo in my head: Smile. Pretend. Let them think you’re grateful.
So I did.
“I only want peace,” I said softly. “And time to grieve.”
Don Salvatore searched my face for a long moment, as if weighing the sincerity of my words. Finally, he nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Because this family cannot afford chaos right now.”
Marco relaxed visibly.
“You will come home once the doctors release you,” the Don continued. “You will rest. You will be protected. And this matter will not be discussed outside these walls.”
“Of course,” Marco said quickly.
Don Salvatore stood, tapping his cane lightly against the floor. “I will deal with Bianca later.”
The threat was subtle—but lethal.
After he left, Marco let out a breath he’d clearly been holding. He turned to me, placing a hand on the bedrail.
“See?” he said quietly. “This is why you don’t say reckless things. Everything is under control.”
Under control.
I stared at his hand. At the fingers that had held mine during vows, during public prayers, during nights when I begged him to choose me.
“How long?” I asked.
He frowned. “How long what?”
“How long do you expect me to pretend nothing happened?” I asked. “How long before you expect me to smile again?”
His eyes hardened. “As long as it takes.”
There it was again—that certainty that my life existed on his timeline.
“I need my things,” I said calmly. “My passport. Clothes.”
“You’ll get them,” he replied. “From the house.”
My pulse skipped. The house was watched. Controlled. A fortress with too many eyes.
“I want them here,” I insisted.
Marco studied me for a moment, suspicion flickering. Then he nodded. “Fine. I’ll send someone.”
That night, after he left, I lay awake listening to the soft beep of machines and the distant murmur of guards outside my door. Don Salvatore’s questions replayed in my head, each one tightening the knot in my chest.
He suspected.
Maybe not everything—but enough.
And if I left without proof, without leverage, Marco would rewrite the story until I became the unstable wife who fled grief and abandoned her duty.
I reached for my phone and opened my notes app, typing quietly.
Bianca. Drinking. Driving. Admission. Marco’s words. Hospital curtain.
Evidence.
I didn’t need revenge yet.
I needed survival.
And survival, in the De Luca family, always came at a price.
