I clutched my mother's hand as we stepped through the hospital doors into harsh daylight.
My mind raced, pieces clicking into place with sickening clarity. The mafia-crested cufflink on the hot spring locker. The muffled sounds behind that closed door. Three months ago. Exactly three months.
Beside me, my mother stopped walking. She turned her head slightly, her gaze traveling back down that long, polished corridor.
"Congratulations," she breathed. The word barely made it past her lips.
Her voice was hollow. Completely empty.
She squeezed my hand and kept walking.
From the far end of the hall, I heard my father call her name. "Sophia!" The single syllable bounced off the tiled walls.
She didn't break stride.
That night, he returned to the Moretti estate. He carried the cloying scent of cheap perfume failing to mask the bitter bite of hospital antiseptic.
He motioned for my mother to sit on the living room sofa. He stood over her and looked her straight in the eye.
"Elena is keeping the child."
Not a question. An absolute fact.
"Your body is too damaged to bear another child," he told her, his tone clinical, detached. "Elena's baby will be the only true heir to my Capo legacy."
My mother stared at him. Her expression gave nothing away.
"Once the child is born, I'll exile Elena and her son out of the country," he promised, leaning back as if offering some grand compromise. "You'll maintain your status as the official Moretti wife. Mia will keep her place as my daughter."
Silence filled the vast room.
My mother looked at the man she'd sacrificed her youth for.
"Okay," she said.
Her voice was eerie. Unnervingly calm.
My father looked relieved, believing he'd won. He walked over, gave me a brief pat on the head, took his tailored coat, and walked back out the front door.
The instant the heavy oak thudded shut, my mother went to her bedroom. She opened the locked bottom drawer and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers—a fully drafted divorce and severance agreement.
She looked at me. Her expression hardened into something fierce and certain. "We're going to live somewhere else, Mia. Far away from the Syndicate."
I nodded. For the first time in months, a quiet peace settled over me.
We slept tangled together in the same bed that night. The next morning, we were packing our suitcases, preparing to leave for the private airstrip.
Then a splintering crash shook the house.
My father kicked the bedroom door off its hinges. His face was twisted into something grotesque—a mask of pure, unhinged rage.
He marched across the room. His eyes landed on the luggage. On my mother's calm face. The silence stretched three seconds.
Then his right hand swung in a tight, heavy arc. The crack of flesh against flesh echoed before she even hit the floor.
"You ordered a hit on Elena!" he roared, spitting the words at her. "She was assaulted last night and lost my heir because of you!"
