The second I opened the door, I heard a noise coming from the nursery, and my anger flared white-hot. Dante had renovated that room the moment he found out I was pregnant. He'd filled it with only the best. Every piece of furniture, every stuffed animal, every blanket. He picked them all out himself. For our baby.
And now he wanted to give that to Nicoletta?
Fury surged through me. I stormed down the hallway and swung the door open, only to find Nicoletta lying in the crib.
I yanked her up without thinking, rage burning in my chest. But before I could get a word out, Dante grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from her.
"What is wrong with you? You act like a lunatic the second you walk in," he snapped. But when he saw the tears in my eyes, he hesitated, his grip loosening just a little.
"Are you really giving her this room?" I asked, my voice raw and broken.
Dante frowned. "Nicoletta said she likes it. It's not a big deal if she stays here for a while."
"Do you remember…"
"Enough, Seraphina!" he cut me off, irritated. "Everything you've done these past few days has been disappointing. If you keep acting like this, I'll have to reconsider whether this alliance should even continue." He paused, eyes cold. "You don't want the baby inside you to be born without a father, do you?"
He was threatening me. Not with lawyers, not with paperwork. With dissolution. In this world, that meant exile. It meant my child growing up outside the protection of any Family name. It meant nothing.
Looking at his face, the side he always turned away when he was done with an argument, I felt the memories unravel. The promises, the whispered sweet nothings, all turning to ash in a matter of months.
He once said this room would always belong to our baby. He said he would treasure both of us for the rest of his life.
And yet here we were.
I didn't say anything else. I turned around and walked out, numb. My hand instinctively cradled my belly, feeling the faint flutter of life inside me.
"Don't worry, baby. We don't need that room. I'll make you a better one."
Behind me, Dante stood frozen, watching me walk away. That same flicker of guilt from the clinic flashed across his face again, sharp and quick, then buried.
But as Nicoletta called out to him from the nursery, he turned and walked back to her.
Later, when I was back in the master bedroom, my phone buzzed. I got a string of voice messages from Nicoletta.
I opened them one by one, and hearing Dante's doting tone in the recordings, I realized all their past affection was just practice for Dante.
He was practicing on me and our baby, all for the sake of Nicoletta's child.
Every nourishing soup I drank, every gift I received for the baby, every parenting tip Dante shared with me. It was all just practice for Nicoletta's baby.
Even the nursery itself was prepared by Dante for the child in Nicoletta's womb.
I and the baby were just tools for Dante's rehearsal. He didn't want Nicoletta to suffer through his learning curve, so I became the sacrifice.
I listened to the messages over and over, the pain swelling inside me until I laughed. Not because it was funny, because it hurt so much it pushed me over the edge. Everything I had been so proud of since the moment I got pregnant had been nothing but a lie.
Dante's tenderness toward my child? It didn't even come close to what he showed Nicoletta and hers.
I clenched my phone so tightly my hand shook. It hurt to breathe. All I could do was whisper over and over to myself that it was okay.
It was okay. Because soon, we'd be free of him. Free of the Morano compound, the enforcer at the gate, the locked rooms and the silence that passed for loyalty in this house. My fingers drifted to the inside of my left wrist, tracing the ridged skin there without thinking.
Just me and the baby. And we'd be just fine.
The baby kicked, like he could hear me. Like he understood.
I wrapped my arms around my belly and held it close.
I stayed that way for a long time, until I could finally breathe again.
