Alessia POV
The nursery was painted a soft, buttercup yellow.
In this mausoleum of a house, it was the only room that dared to possess color.
I sat in the rocking chair, my hands resting on the hollow curve of my stomach.
It had been two years.
Two years of suffocating silence.
Two years of striving to be the perfect, pliable wife.
And the reward? Two tiny, fresh graves in the family plot.
The first miscarriage happened at three months.
I woke up in a terrifying pool of blood. The doctor—the same man who had watched my mother fade away—dismissed it as stress.
He told me my body was too weak, his voice void of sympathy.
The second loss occurred at four months.
I had been faithfully drinking the herbal tea Luca insisted on.
He claimed it was an old family recipe for fertility, but it carried the distinct, cloying aftertaste of bitter almonds.
Clara came to visit me after that second loss.
She sat on the edge of my bed, looking radiant, her chest rising and falling with an ease that mocked my own struggle.
"Poor Ava," she cooed.
She reached out, her fingers brushing my arm. They were ice against my feverish skin.
"It must be devastating to be so broken. Luca wants an heir so badly. It’s a shame you can’t give him one."
She stood up and began pacing the room, trailing her hands over my possessions as if cataloging her inventory.
"Maybe it’s for the best," she mused. "The Vitti blood is strong. It needs a strong vessel."
I watched her.
I saw the way she looked at Luca when he walked into a room—hungry and possessive.
I saw the way Luca hovered over her, checking her temperature, adjusting her shawl with a tenderness he never showed me.
"Why are you always here, Clara?" I asked, my voice a raspy ruin.
She smiled, a slow, predatory curving of lips.
"Because this is my house, Ava. You just live in it."
Luca entered then.
He didn't look at me.
His eyes went straight to Clara.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, concern etching his brow. "You look pale."
"I’m fine, Luca," she lied, her voice dropping an octave to a pitch of practiced helplessness. "Just a little tired. Ava was just telling me how sad she is."
Luca turned to me.
His eyes were hard, devoid of warmth.
"Stop upsetting her, Ava. You know stress is bad for her condition."
He helped Clara out of the room, leaving me alone in the bed with the cramps, the blood, and the suspicion that was starting to harden into certainty.
I stopped drinking the tea.
Instead, I started pouring it into the potted plant in the corner.
The plant withered and died within a week, its leaves curling brown and brittle.
Six months later, I was pregnant again.
I didn't tell Luca until I couldn't hide it.
I lived like a woman under siege. I ate only food I prepared myself. I drank only water from sealed bottles.
I grew big.
I felt the baby kick, strong and vibrant.
It was a boy. I named him Leo in the quiet sanctuary of my mind.
I made it to eight months.
I was huge, swollen, and terrified. But for the first time, I was hopeful.
Maybe a child would change things.
Maybe a son would make Luca look at me with something other than contempt.
I was wrong.
