"Still lying there like a dog? If you want to beg for food, get out and do it somewhere else! This bloodline doesn't feed worthless, lowly women like you!"
"You don't even care about your own son, and you can't keep your husband's heart. I heard you'll never be able to carry another child? My son binding himself to you is the worst misfortune of his life. Get lost. Just looking at you takes ten years off my life."
Carmela's rosary snapped shut in her fist, that small final sound telling the whole room the matter was closed. Humiliation washed over me like a tidal wave.
I clenched my fingers around my phone, where I had long since prepared the severing of the blood pact.
Without a word, I struggled to my feet, limping toward the study upstairs, past the soldiers who lowered their eyes and pretended not to see the Don's wife dragging one ruined leg across the marble.
I retrieved the printed severance agreement and slid it into my bag before heading to the guest room to look for Salvatore.
But he wasn't there.
Instead, I saw the nanny holding Matteo, who had just finished feeding and was sleeping soundly.
Frowning in confusion, I suddenly heard noises coming from our bedroom. Sounds that made my stomach turn.
The door wasn't fully closed.
Through the gap, I saw Vittoria straddling Salvatore, her blouse wide open as she cooed in a sickly sweet voice. "Sal, I have too much milk... Matteo's appetite is too small, and I'm so full it hurts~"
"I feel awful... Won't you help me relieve it?"
Salvatore hesitated. "Vittoria, don't... You gave birth two days ago. Your body can't handle it. You already risked everything, hiding the pregnancy from your husband to carry my child. I can't put you in danger again..."
Vittoria grabbed his head and pressed him against her chest. Her fingertips brushed the hollow of her throat, and her voice quivered exactly on cue. "Silly Sal, I'm not afraid, so what are you afraid of? I wanted to give you a child. My husband is always away on the Family's errands; he doesn't even know. Come on, spoil me a little. Don't you want to taste the sweetness of a love that's bled for you?"
Salvatore finally lost control. He leaned in, his lips sealing over her skin.
The sounds inside grew more obscene, making my stomach churn with nausea.
I couldn't take it anymore. I turned and fled the house.
Only when I inhaled the crisp air of the estate grounds did the suffocating weight in my chest lessen. But the tears wouldn't stop falling.
Salvatore, you knew I was just downstairs. How could you do this? In our bedroom?!
I slumped onto the stone steps, dazed, not knowing how much time had passed. Beyond the wrought-iron gate, an enforcer stood with his back to me, a silent shape against the dark, saying nothing, seeing everything.
Then, without warning, a foul-smelling liquid was dumped over my head.
I gasped in shock as the stench filled my nose.
Vittoria stood before me, her lips curled into a smug smirk.
"Adriana, how does my son's piss taste? Did you enjoy watching Salvatore lose himself in me?"
So this was intentional. She had wanted me to see everything.
"Tsk tsk, just look at you now. Your son is dead, and you're hobbling around on one leg. If I were you, I'd have ended it already. What's the point of living?"
She bent down, whispering cruelly into my ear. "Even though you were bound to Salvatore before the Family and gave him a child, so what? He still smothered your son for me and my baby, and made sure the Marchetti line would never come from your body again."
My breath hitched.
Vittoria held up her phone, tilting the screen toward me. Her answer came a half-second too fast, that hair-thin eagerness slipping through the mask. "I even recorded it for you. Want to see how your baby's little face turned from red to purple? It's quite a sight."
My entire body trembled violently.
I stared at the screen as my child... my baby... struggled for breath.
And then, slowly, he stopped moving.
I felt like I was suffocating too.
How could she speak of murdering an infant so casually, as if the killing of a bloodline heir were nothing at all?
Fury erupted within me.
I raised my hand high, ready to strike her. But before I could, Vittoria suddenly pulled a knife and slashed it across her own chest.
Bright red blood soaked through her blouse.
She shrieked in agony, the knife clattering to the marble.
In the next second, a force slammed into me, knocking me to the ground.
Salvatore cradled Vittoria protectively in his arms.
His furious voice rang out, searing through the air. "Adriana, are you insane?!"
I opened my mouth to explain, but before I could speak, Vittoria burst into pitiful sobs, her hand at her throat, her whole body shaking against him. "Sal, I was only afraid Matteo would go hungry, so I came to explain things to Adriana. But she said I was trying to steal her child... She swore she'd cut the breast off me so I could never feed him again."
She trembled, burying herself deeper in his embrace. "I was only thinking about the baby! How could she do this to me?!"
