"Still lying there on the floor like a dog. What are you doing? If you want a handout, get out and go begging on some corner. This Family doesn't feed low, useless women like you."
Concetta smoothed the black lace at her sleeve, two slow strokes, before she went on. "You can't be bothered with your own son, and you can't hold your husband's heart either. I hear you can't ever carry a child again? My son binding himself to a wife like you was the worst luck eight lifetimes over. Get lost. Every second I look at you takes ten years off my life."
Humiliation washed over me. Thinking of the severance papers already drawn up on my phone, the pact I meant to break, I said nothing.
I struggled to my feet and limped toward the study upstairs.
I slipped the printed papers into my bag and went to find Dominic in the guest room.
But they weren't there. Only the wet nurse remained, cradling a well-fed Matteo as he slept.
I was still puzzling over it when a strange sound reached me from the bedroom that belonged to Dominic and me.
The door hadn't been shut all the way. Vittoria sat astride Dominic, her blouse hanging wide open, her voice syrupy.
"Dominic, I have so much milk, and Matteo takes so little. I'm painfully full."
"It hurts so much. Help me draw it out, won't you~"
Dominic hesitated.
"Vittoria, don't. You only gave birth two days ago, your body can't take it. You already took enough of a risk carrying my child behind that man's back. I can't hurt you any more…"
Vittoria pressed his head down.
"Silly Dominic, if I'm not afraid, what are you afraid of? Bearing your child was my own choice. He's off running his territory across the water all year, he doesn't have a clue. Come on, comfort me. Don't you want a taste of something hard-won?"
Dominic couldn't hold back any longer. He opened his mouth and latched on.
The sounds from inside grew filthier by the second. My stomach turned, and I couldn't watch any more. I fled the old estate as if running for my life, past the soldier at the gate who kept his eyes carefully forward.
Only when I breathed the night air outside did the suffocating feeling ease a little, but the tears wouldn't stop falling.
Dominic, you knew I was right downstairs. How could you still dare do something like that? And in our own bedroom?!
I sank down by the door, hollowed out, and I don't know how long passed before a foul-smelling liquid was dumped over my head.
Vittoria appeared out of nowhere, smiling with a taunt.
"Adriana, does my son's piss taste good? Was it a pretty sight, Dominic losing himself in my body?"
So she'd meant for me to see it all along.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you now. Your son's dead, and you're limping on one leg. If I were you, I'd have put a bullet in my own head long ago. What's the point of living?"
"Even if you sealed the alliance and carried his child, so what? For me and my baby, he still smothered your son and made sure you can never bear another."
She laughed, a half-beat too fast, her fingers drifting to the hollow of her own throat. "I've even got the recording of your son dying. Want to see how that little face went from red to purple? It's quite the show."
I stared hard at her phone screen, watching my child suffocate to death, inch by inch.
My whole body shook without stopping. How could she speak of murdering a child as though it were nothing at all?!
I raised my hand high, but Vittoria pulled a dagger and dragged it hard across her own chest.
Blood seeped through her blouse, the dagger clattered to the stone, and she burst into a scream.
The next second, someone shoved me hard to the floor.
Dominic held Vittoria in his arms and whirled on me, roaring.
"Adriana, have you lost your mind?!"
Before I could get a word of explanation out, Vittoria was already sobbing.
"Dominic, I was afraid it would wound Adriana to see me nurse Matteo, since she's his mother, so I came to explain it to her. But she said I was trying to steal her child, and she was going to cut off my breasts so I could never nurse him again."
"Sob, sob, I only felt sorry for Matteo going hungry, my heart ached for the baby, that's all. How could she treat me like this?"
