The doctor studied his clipboard with fascinating intensity, finding interest in the wall, the linoleum floor—anywhere but my face.
The room reeked of antiseptic and failure.
"We did everything we could, Mrs. Moretti," he said, his voice dropping to a practiced, professional murmur. "The hypothermia was severe. The stress on your body... the miscarriage was incomplete. We had to operate to stop the hemorrhaging."
I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling tiles. I counted the perforations. Anything to avoid the pity in his eyes.
"And?" I asked. The word scraped my throat, hollow and dry.
He hesitated. "There was significant scarring. It is highly unlikely you will be able to carry a child to term in the future. I am so sorry."
I didn't cry. I think I’d left my capacity for grief in the freezing mud outside the estate. Instead, a strange, cold lightness settled in my chest. The tether that bound me to Dante—the hope of a family, the biological imperative to love him—had finally snapped.
I signed the discharge papers myself.
Dante hadn't come. Mario, his head bowed, told me the Don was busy. Leo had a nightmare.
When I returned to the estate, the house was aggressively quiet. I walked past the living room and froze. There, framed by the archway, was a perfect domestic tableau.
Dante sat on the rug, piecing together a wooden train track. Elena was laughing, pouring tea from a silver service. Leo was clapping his hands, his face bright with joy.
They looked like a family. I looked like a ghost haunting my own life.
I walked past them without a word.
Dante looked up, his eyes narrowing as they swept over my pale, disheveled form.
"You're back," he said. His tone was dismissive, as if I had just returned from a grocery run, not the emergency room where his child had died. "You learned your lesson?"
I didn't stop walking. I didn't even look at him. I went straight to the master bedroom.
I threw open the closet doors. I pulled out every dress he had ever bought me. The red silk from Milan. The velvet from Paris. I ripped them from their hangers and threw them onto the floor.
I went to the jewelry box on the vanity. The diamond necklace from our first anniversary. The emeralds from my twenty-first birthday.
I dumped them into the metal trash can. The cacophony of gold hitting steel was satisfyingly final.
"What are you doing?"
Dante stood in the doorway. He looked annoyed, not concerned.
"Cleaning," I said.
He stepped into the room, his dark presence instantly filling the space. He smelled of tobacco and Elena's cheap vanilla perfume.
"Stop being dramatic, Sera. You embarrassed us. Elena is a guest. She saved my life. You will treat her with respect."
I ignored him and walked over to the wall where our wedding portrait hung. It was five feet tall, a monument to a lie. We looked so happy in oil and canvas. He was looking at me like I was the sun and he was a man starving for warmth.
I picked up the heavy brass letter opener from the desk.
"Sera," Dante warned, his voice dropping an octave.
I slashed the canvas. I drove the blade right through his smiling face, tearing the fabric down the middle. The sound of ripping linen was a scream in the silence.
He moved with terrifying speed. He crossed the room and shoved me.
I hit the vanity table hard. My hip slammed into the solid wood, knocking the breath from my lungs.
"You are insane," he hissed.
Elena appeared in the doorway, clutching a plush doll to her chest. "Oh God, Dante! Is she okay?"
She held the doll out to me, her eyes wide and innocent. "Leo wanted you to have this. As a peace offering."
I looked at the doll. Then I looked at Elena. Her eyes were dancing with malice.
I reached for the toy. As my fingers closed around the soft fabric, a sharp pain spiked in my thumb. I jerked my hand back. A bright bead of blood welled up instantly.
A needle. Buried point-up, deep inside the stuffing.
Elena gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh no! I must have left a sewing needle in there when I fixed it! I'm so clumsy!"
She didn't look clumsy. She looked predatory.
Dante grabbed my wrist, looking at the blood, then at Elena's tearful face.
"It was an accident, Sera," he said, his grip tightening to the point of bruising. "Don't you dare accuse her of anything."
I looked at him. I looked at the man who used to kill anyone who even thought about bruising my skin. Now he was the one doing it.
"I'm not accusing anyone," I said softly.
I wrenched my hand free. I didn't wipe the blood away. I let it drip onto the expensive carpet, a crimson stain on the pristine wool.
"I'm just tired, Dante. So tired."
