They Said I Killed an Unborn Heir

The first thing I did after being reborn was buy fifty pounds of semolina flour and drag the whole family into making ravioli.

Because in my last life, my stepmother had been sleeping with another man and gotten pregnant with his bastard.

To keep my father from finding out, she deliberately walked into a doorbuster sale at the grocery store on the avenue, let herself get knocked down in the stampede, and lost the baby.

Afterward, she came home sobbing to my father: "If Bianca hadn't been so obsessed with saving a few pennies and dragged me to that sale, I never would have lost our baby boy..."

I tried to explain, but my fiancé stepped forward and backed her story.

"Bianca Valenti, I am so disappointed in you!"

"I already looked the other way when you'd skip out on restaurant checks and steal bulk snacks from the supermarket, but this time you got your own stepmother trampled into losing an unborn heir over some cheap groceries. I'm calling off the engagement!"

My father lost his mind on the spot. He chased me down and slapped me across the face dozens of times.

Afterward, he had his soldiers bind my wrists and hand me off to a recluse out in the countryside. I was locked in a pen, beaten and abused until I bled out and died.

It was only after I died that I learned the truth: my fiancé had been after my stepmother from the very beginning.

Getting engaged to me was nothing but a cover so the two of them could carry on their affair.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my stepmother went to that doorbuster sale and lost the baby.

——

The phone rang while I was still clutching my blanket, tears streaming down my face.

I answered out of reflex. Viviana D'Amato's voice crackled through the speaker. "Bianca, Christmas Eve is coming up and I want to go out for a bit. I won't be home to cook today, so be a dear and handle the chores, and make dinner for your father and your grandparents, okay?"

She said it like it was already settled, not leaving me a sliver of room to refuse.

"Don't tell your father where I went, either. Otherwise he'll come looking for me and I won't even get a moment to breathe."

"So it's a deal, Bianca! You're Mommy's little angel. I'll bring you back something yummy when I get home!"

Viviana hung up without a second's hesitation, then blocked my number.

Five or six calls in a row went straight to a busy signal. By then my head had cleared completely, and a cold sweat broke through the rage.

I had actually been reborn. Back to the day my stepmother went to that doorbuster sale and lost the baby.

In my previous life, Viviana had married my father because she thought the Valenti name still carried real money. A Don's household, the brownstone on the Family-controlled block, the fleet of black sedans parked curbside. She saw it all and assumed there was a fortune underneath.

It wasn't until after the wedding that she realized my father was just a retired Boss running on reputation, no pension from the old crews, no hidden accounts offshore. Everything he'd been flashing around was actually mine. My inheritance from my mother's side, held in trust, managed through the front businesses on Mulberry Street.

She was furious, but there was nothing she could do except grit her teeth and stick it out.

Last time around, on Christmas Eve, Viviana had called me with the same line: she'd been cooped up in the compound all year and needed some air, could I look after the house.

I said yes. Then something came up at the front business and I was out the entire day, not getting home until it was time for the holiday dinner.

The house was dead quiet when I walked in. The hallway smelled like cold tobacco. Viviana stood in the living room, weeping, while my father sat in his chair with one hand flat on the armrest, perfectly still, and glared at me with murder in his eyes.

Through her tears, Viviana choked out: "Bianca, this is all your fault. If you hadn't been so desperate for a bargain and dragged me to that sale, I never would have been crushed by that mob and lost the baby..."

I was floored. I immediately tried to set the record straight.

"Mom, what are you talking about? I was at the office all day. I never went anywhere near that store with you."

I was about to pull up my timecard as proof when my fiancé snatched the phone out of my hand, hurled it to the floor, and stomped on it.

He looked at me with disgust. Damiano Bellandi smoothed his tie flat with his whole palm, letting the silence hold for one more second before he spoke.

"I put up with you never paying your way and mooching off everyone around you, but getting your own stepmother trampled into losing an unborn heir? I can't take this anymore. The engagement is off!"

My fiancé's declaration was all my father needed. He sat there, sucking down the last of his cigarette with heavy, ragged breaths, then fixed me with a look that could kill.

"You worthless tramp! You cost the Valenti family its male heir!"