Bianca's POV

I stiffened at the sound of his voice.

There was a time when just hearing Salvatore say my name made my heart flutter—when I was young and foolish enough to believe that a man who commanded death could also command tenderness. Now? The sound of it crawled across my skin like the cold touch of a mortician preparing a body.

I didn't turn around. My eyes were probably red and swollen, the evidence of weakness I refused to display. In this world, tears were currency you paid to your enemies.

"Nothing important," I said, wiping at my cheeks with the silk sleeve of my blouse. My voice cracked, so I cleared my throat and added, "Just making a call."

Salvatore stepped farther into the study. The floorboards groaned beneath his polished Ferragamos, and I could feel his eyes on me—studying me the way a butcher studies a carcass, calculating where to make the next cut.

"You look like a mess. Have you been crying?"

A lump formed in my throat, hard as a bullet casing.

"Something got into my eyes," I mumbled, rubbing at them with deliberate carelessness. "Probably dust. This house hasn't been cleaned properly in weeks."

He didn't believe me. I could tell by the weighted silence, by the way he stared without blinking. But he didn't press, because he didn't care. My suffering had never been anything more to him than background noise—the static between the stations of his real life.

His phone rang.

I didn't need to look. I already knew who it was.

Adriana.

Because of that stupid, soft ringtone he only used for her. It was a gentle tune, like a lullaby sung over a cradle—or a grave. He never had a special ringtone for me. For me, there was only the default tone. The sound of obligation.

Salvatore glanced at the screen, and his whole face changed. The granite hardness in his jaw melted into something warm, something human. It was like watching a snake shed its scales to reveal the man it had devoured.

He stepped into the hallway, his voice dropping to a register I had never heard directed at me—gentle, tender, almost reverent. It sounded like he had switched personalities, like the Don had stepped aside to let someone else wear his skin.

"Hey, Ana… yeah, I just got back."

I turned away, pretending not to hear anything, pretending the words didn't slice through me like a stiletto between the ribs.

He laughed at something she said. The kind of laugh that came from somewhere deep and real—the kind of laugh he had never shared with me. Not once in six years. I stood there, frozen in place beside the mahogany desk, wondering how I had been so blind. How I had mistaken ownership for love, possession for protection.

The man I had spent six years loving blindly was already in love with someone else. Someone he had introduced to the Family as his cousin. Someone who sat at our table during Sunday dinners, who kissed my cheek at the annual gala, who called me sister while she warmed his bed.

Salvatore glanced back at me briefly, his eyes flat and dismissive, as he continued speaking to her. "Yeah, I'll be there soon. I just need to take care of something here."

Something. That's what I was now. Not someone. Something.

He hung up and slid his phone into the inner pocket of his jacket—a custom-tailored piece that cost more than most men earned in a month. The fabric whispered against his silk shirt as he turned to face me.

"I need to head out for a bit. I want grilled lamb and mashed potatoes for dinner, with that rosemary sauce you make." His tone was the same one he used when ordering his soldiers to dispose of a body—flat, expectant, already moving on to the next thought.

That was it. No how are you? No what were you crying about?

He had only just walked through the door, and he was already leaving. Already running back to her.

As he turned toward the hallway, I called out to him.

"Hold on, before I forget," I said, pulling a manila folder from the drawer beside me. The paper was heavy, expensive—the kind used for documents that changed lives. Or ended marriages. "The Commission sent these over earlier. They've been asking for your signature all week."

He groaned impatiently, already checking his watch. "More damn paperwork?"

"Just a couple of pages," I said, handing him a Montblanc pen. "It won't take long."

Without even glancing at the contents, without reading a single word of what he was signing, Salvatore scrawled his name on the marked lines and thrust the folder back into my hands. His signature was sharp and careless—the signature of a man who believed his name alone was enough to make anything legal.

"Tell the Commission I handled it."

"I will," I said quietly, placing the annulment papers back into the drawer with steady hands.

"Have dinner ready by the time I get back."

Salvatore didn't wait for a response. He was already through the door, his footsteps echoing down the marble corridor like the countdown to an execution.

I clenched my fists so tightly my nails bit crescents into my palms. I stared at the door—at the space where he had stood—and I couldn't help it. A bitter laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest, scraping against my throat like broken glass.

How hadn't I noticed all this time?

As I turned, my shoulder bumped the edge of the bookshelf, and a wooden box fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

I crouched and picked it up, my fingers tracing the familiar grain of the walnut wood. I recognized that box.

Salvatore had warned me once, months ago, to never touch it. He had claimed it contained sensitive Family documents—business records that were none of my concern. He had snapped at me the day I merely brushed my fingers against its surface, his eyes going cold and dangerous, like I had tried to steal from the vault itself.

Back then, I had apologized and backed away like the obedient wife I was trained to be. But now? Now I unlocked the box without hesitation, using the key Salvatore thought he had so cleverly hidden under a false bottom in his desk drawer.

Inside, documents and photographs were arranged with military precision.

The first thing I noticed was a folded sheet bearing an official stamp—the seal of the Church and the Commission's notary. I opened it, and my blood turned to ice water in my veins.

Marriage Registration for Don Salvatore Pini and Adriana DeAngelis.

I froze.

Salvatore had already been planning a future with her. A legitimate future. A blessed union. While he was still married to me.

My hands shook as I set the paper aside and picked up the next document.

My stomach twisted violently as I stared at the contents. Medical records. Clinical notes. Dates and dosages written in the cold, precise hand of someone who viewed human beings as inventory.

It contained everything about the miscarriages.

Every single one.

The dates of my "complications." The medications slipped into my evening tea. The samples harvested from my body while I lay unconscious in the back clinic, believing I had simply lost another child to fate's cruelty.

My name was listed as the donor. Adriana's name as the recipient.

"Termination successful… stem cells harvested… womb responding to treatment."

My hand covered my mouth.

I felt sick. The room spun around me, the walls closing in like the sides of a coffin. Every miscarriage. Every time I had wept in the darkness, blaming my own body, wondering what was wrong with me—it had been orchestrated. Calculated. Harvested.

My children had been murdered before they could draw breath, their cells extracted to repair the damaged womb of my husband's mistress.

This was evidence of everything Salvatore had done to me. Everything the Family's black clinic had helped him accomplish. A paper trail of horrors, filed away like receipts.

I clenched my fists so tightly my knuckles went white, and I stared at the documents before me as my eyes blurred with tears that I refused to let fall.

After staring at everything for several minutes—memorizing every date, every signature, every damning word—I calmly stood and returned everything exactly as I had found it. The box went back on the shelf. The key went back beneath the false bottom.

Then I walked to the closet, pulled out a leather suitcase, and I started packing.

I packed my clothes first. I folded them neatly—the way my mother had taught me, the way a Valente woman always conducted herself—and placed them in the bag with deliberate precision. I picked up the things we had collected over the years, the gifts, the decorations, the photographs in their silver frames, and I tossed them all into a cardboard box destined for the trash.

The diamond necklace he gave me on our first anniversary? Into the box.

The framed photograph from our alliance wedding, blessed by the Commission itself? Gone.

The candle he once said smelled like me—like jasmine and honey? Gone.

I lost track of time. The afternoon light shifted from gold to amber to the deep purple of approaching dusk, and still I packed. Still I purged.

Until I heard the door open again.

"What are you doing?"

Salvatore stood in the doorway, his brow furrowed as he surveyed the chaos of the bedroom. Clothes scattered across the bed. Boxes stacked against the wall. The closet doors thrown wide open like the gates of a prison.

I didn't even look up as I replied. "I'm reorganizing my closet."

He stepped inside slowly, his shoes silent on the Persian rug. "What about these ones here?" He gestured toward the box I was using to discard the remnants of our marriage.

I shrugged casually, folding another blouse. "I'm getting rid of old things."

"You're throwing all this out?" His voice held genuine surprise—as if he couldn't comprehend why I would want to erase the evidence of our life together.

I nodded. "Yeah. I don't need them anymore."

He reached into the donation box and pulled out a small stuffed wolf—a ridiculous, sentimental thing I used to keep by the bed. He had given it to me during our first year of marriage, back when I still believed his rare moments of softness meant something. "Even this?"

I nodded without hesitation. "It's old."

He looked at it like he was trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces. "You loved this so much."

He was right. I had cherished it like a fool cherishes a lie. I shrugged, my face a mask of indifference. "Things change. People change. Love fades."

He frowned, his jaw tightening like he wanted to say something else—like some dormant instinct was warning him that the ground beneath his feet had shifted. But before he could speak, a voice called from the hallway.

"Salvatore? Where are you?"

His body tensed. Just slightly—just enough for me to notice. The tension of a man caught between two worlds, two women, two lies.

A second later, Adriana stepped into the room like she already owned it.

She was beautiful, I had to admit. The kind of beauty that men started wars over, that made other women feel like shadows. Her dark hair fell in perfect waves over her shoulders, and her dress—designer, of course—clung to curves that had never known the violence of forced terminations.

She rested a hand on Salvatore's arm, casual and possessive, her manicured nails pressing into the fabric of his jacket like claws marking territory. Her lips curled into a smile that didn't reach her eyes as she stared at me.

"Oh. Am I interrupting something?"

Salvatore didn't even hesitate.

"No," he said smoothly, as if nothing about this scene was strange. As if his wife packing her belongings while his mistress draped herself over his arm was perfectly normal. "You're not interrupting anything."

I didn't react. I simply turned away and continued folding a shirt, pressing it down into the suitcase like I couldn't hear them. Like they were ghosts. Like they were already dead to me.

Salvatore cleared his throat, trying to command my attention the way he commanded his soldiers. "Actually, Bianca… I meant to talk to you about something."

I continued folding. The silk whispered against my fingers. I counted the threads. I breathed.

He continued anyway, his voice carrying the casual authority of a man who had never been denied anything in his life.

"Adriana will be staying here with us for the time being."

Bianca's POV

I let his words settle in the air between us like smoke from a dying cigarette. Then, without acknowledgment, I reached for another silk blouse and folded it with deliberate precision, smoothing the fabric as though it were the only thing in this room that mattered.

"Adriana needs support," Salvatore continued, his voice carrying that practiced tone of reasonableness he used when he wanted something. "It's better for her child if she's somewhere stable. You know how difficult things have been for her."

A soft, bitter sound escaped my throat before I could stop it.

Salvatore fell silent.

"Bianca." The warmth drained from his voice, replaced by something harder, colder. He was growing impatient. "Are you even listening to me?"

I turned slowly, letting my gaze meet his without flinching.

"I'm listening, Salvatore," I said, my voice flat as marble. "Do whatever you want. It's your house, after all."

His mouth fell open for a fraction of a second before his expression darkened, shadows pooling beneath his cheekbones in the dim lamplight.

"I don't like your tone, Bianca." The words came out low, a warning growl from a man unaccustomed to defiance.

I arched one eyebrow. "What tone?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm trying to be civil here, and you're making this harder than it needs to be." His voice cracked like a whip against the silence of the bedroom.

I lifted another blouse—champagne-colored silk, a gift from my father's house that now felt like a relic from another life—and folded it with care that bordered on reverence. Only when it lay perfectly in the suitcase did I turn to face him again. My expression revealed nothing. A mask carved from years of survival.

"She needs support," he pressed on, his jaw tight. "She's pregnant and alone. I'm only trying to help."

"Why, Salvatore?" The question left my lips quietly, almost gently. "Is she carrying your child?"

Salvatore went rigid.

His jaw worked silently, muscles tensing beneath the tailored fabric of his shirt. His mouth opened, then closed. For a moment, the great Don of the Pini Family had no words.

His eyes flickered toward Adriana, who stood in the doorway like a specter draped in designer mourning clothes, then back to me. "She's my cousin, Bianca." His voice pitched higher, defensive, as though I had accused him of breaking Omertà itself. "Does it have to be my child before I offer her protection?"

I allowed myself a smile—thin, bitter, sharp enough to cut. "No. But it would explain a great deal."

Salvatore's eyes turned to flint. "Why must you be so cold, Bianca?" he snapped, his composure fracturing. "I've told you countless times—there's nothing between us. Adriana is family. She has no one else but me."

I turned away from him, my hands steady as I placed the last of my garments into the leather suitcase. "You don't owe me explanations, Salvatore," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "It's your house. You're the Don. Do as you please."

Salvatore's breathing grew heavy, filling the space between us with barely contained fury.

"Salvatore..." Adriana stepped forward, her voice dripping with carefully manufactured concern. "Perhaps I should go. I don't want to cause any more tension. It's clear I'm not welcome here." She paused, casting a demure glance at him through lowered lashes. "Besides... she's your wife. Your Donna."

Salvatore's arm shot out, catching her elbow with possessive certainty. "You're not going anywhere," he said, his voice brooking no argument. "This is my house. You're family. I don't give a damn if she wears my ring and carries my name. If anyone doesn't belong under this roof, it's her."

The words struck like a blade between my ribs.

I flinched—just barely, just enough—before I could steel myself against the blow. But I recovered quickly, smoothing my features into the blank canvas I had perfected over three years of this marriage. They would not see me break. They would not have that satisfaction.

Then, as though he hadn't just gutted me with his words, Salvatore turned to me with a frown creasing his brow. "Where's dinner?"

I blinked. "Dinner?"

"Yes," he said slowly, as though speaking to a child. "Grilled lamb, mashed potatoes, rosemary sauce. I told you before I left for the sit-down."

"Oh, Salvatore," Adriana breathed, her hand fluttering to her chest in theatrical delight. "That's my favorite meal. You remembered."

Something twisted in my chest—a knot pulling tighter, cutting off air. My eyes burned with moisture I refused to shed.

Salvatore's face transformed, softening into a smile I hadn't seen directed at me in years. Perhaps ever. "Yes, I did. How could I forget?"

Then his attention snapped back to me, the warmth vanishing like it had never existed. "So? Where is it?"

"Oh." My voice came out hollow. "No. I didn't make it."

His eyes flashed with barely contained rage, his nostrils flaring. "Why not?"

"I was occupied today," I said, my tone deliberately flat. "Perhaps Adriana can prepare something instead. Since she'll be living here now and all."

Adriana's smug expression faltered, her painted lips pressing into a thin line.

Salvatore's face flushed crimson, his eyes blazing with the kind of fury that had made lesser men disappear into the foundations of new construction projects.

"You ungrateful, bitter little—" The words came out like venom. "Is this how pathetic you've become? You can't even manage the one thing you're good for."

I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached. My nails bit crescents into my palms. But I didn't react. I didn't give him the satisfaction.

They weren't worth my pain anymore.

Salvatore shot a glance at Adriana, then turned back to me with a sneer that twisted his handsome features into something ugly. "Forget it. Adriana, we're going out. I won't stay in this house while she's being like this. Let her figure herself out."

Adriana nodded with saccharine sweetness, slipping her manicured hand into his arm. "Perhaps it's best to give her some space, amore."

The door slammed behind them with a finality that echoed through the empty penthouse.

I stood motionless in the silence they left behind, staring at nothing as tears carved slow, silent paths down my cheeks. It was only a matter of time now. I was leaving soon. Then all of this—the humiliation, the betrayal, the slow death of everything I had once hoped for—would end.

I woke deep in the night, my throat parched and my mind restless. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed an accusatory red: 12:43 AM.

I slipped from the bed, my bare feet silent against the cold marble floors as I made my way toward the kitchen. The penthouse was dark, the city lights of the skyline casting long shadows through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Then I heard it.

Sounds drifting from the guest suite. The one Salvatore had insisted Adriana would occupy "temporarily."

I froze in the hallway, my hand pressed against the wall for support.

I knew those sounds. The rhythm of them. The meaning behind them.

Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, to return to my room and pretend I had heard nothing. But something deeper—something wounded and desperate—drove me forward. I needed to see it. I needed to watch the last ember of hope I had foolishly harbored turn to ash.

I moved like a ghost through the corridor, my footsteps making no sound on the Persian runner. The door to the guest suite wasn't fully closed. A sliver of golden light spilled into the darkness.

I leaned forward, peering through the narrow opening.

And immediately wished I hadn't.

Salvatore was on top of Adriana, their bodies tangled in silk sheets that probably cost more than most families earned in a month. Her nails raked down his back. His mouth was at her throat.

In his own house. While his wife slept down the hall.

I pulled back from the door, pressing my spine against the wall as the world tilted beneath my feet. My hand found my mouth, stifling the sound that threatened to escape—something between a sob and a scream.

This was the man I had married. The Don I had bound myself to in a church ceremony blessed by the Commission itself.

And this was how little I had ever meant to him.

Bianca's POV

Don Salvatore's mouth traced the column of her throat, and his hands moved across her body with the desperation of a man who had never known restraint.

"God, Adriana..." He groaned against her skin. "I've always loved your body. You feel so good. No one else could ever feel like this. No one else makes me feel this way."

That was enough.

My heart didn't break—it shattered completely, each fragment cutting deeper than any blade the Family had ever wielded. But I didn't scream. I didn't confront them. Instead, I simply closed the door, softly, slowly, as though I were merely a servant who had stumbled upon something she shouldn't have seen.

I turned away.

My heart pounded against my ribs like a caged animal as I stumbled back toward my room. I barely reached the marble bathroom before I dropped to my knees and retched until there was nothing left.

I sat on the cold floor, trembling.

They hadn't just betrayed me. They had done it in this house—under this roof—without shame, without discretion, as though I were nothing more than a piece of furniture to be ignored.

I leaned back against the wall, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

My mind drifted to the last miscarriage I had endured.

It had started early that morning. I woke to searing pain in my lower abdomen, and when I pulled back the silk sheets, they were soaked crimson.

I called for Salvatore, but he never came. He was too busy celebrating Adriana's birthday at the family's private club downtown.

One of the household staff finally drove me to the black clinic—the one the Family kept for matters that couldn't involve hospitals or questions.

Hours later, when he finally appeared, he didn't ask if I was all right. He didn't take my hand. He simply stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his tailored chest, his expression carved from granite.

"Again?" he said coldly.

As if it were my fault. As if I were the defect in his bloodline.

He didn't comfort me. He barely looked at me.

When the doctor pronounced it another unexplained loss, Salvatore merely nodded and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

I had thought he was disappointed in me. I had blamed myself for failing him.

But now I understood the truth.

He wasn't disappointed. He was satisfied.

Because that child—like the ones before—had served its purpose.

He had gotten me pregnant, had me drugged, waited for the miscarriage, and harvested what he needed for Adriana's treatments. And I had apologized to him. I had actually whispered that I was sorry through my tears.

The memory made bile rise in my throat again.

~

I didn't sleep after that.

I spent the remaining hours before dawn arranging everything for my departure—documents, photographs, the few possessions that were truly mine and not bought with Pini money.

Eventually, when hunger became impossible to ignore, I made my way to the kitchen.

The house was silent. The staff wouldn't arrive for another hour.

I made a simple breakfast—scrambled eggs, toast, and tea—just for myself. I sat at the long mahogany dining table alone, eating in the heavy silence that filled these rooms like smoke.

My phone buzzed against the polished wood.

A message from my father.

Don Vittorio: I hope you haven't changed your mind again. The arrangements are already in motion.

Me: Never.

Footsteps descended the curved staircase, but I didn't look up.

"Mm, something smells good," Adriana's voice floated through the air, light and poisonous as arsenic in wine.

I gave no reaction. They walked in together, bold as brass, without an ounce of shame between them.

"I hope you slept well, Donna," Adriana continued, the title dripping with barely concealed mockery. "I had a wonderful night, thanks to Salvatore here."

Salvatore cleared his throat, shifting his weight. "Bianca," he muttered, clearly uncomfortable with the transparency of her taunt. "What Adriana means is that she couldn't sleep alone last night. Nightmares. I stayed with her until she could rest."

A small smirk curved Adriana's painted lips, her dark eyes gleaming with triumph.

I continued eating, completely unfazed.

Adriana's gaze swept across the table. There was only one place setting. Her brows lifted in false surprise.

"Oh. No breakfast for us?" she asked, her voice sugary sweet, like honey laced with cyanide. "I suppose we're on our own now."

I kept chewing. I didn't say a word.

Salvatore's attention fixed on me now, irritation bleeding into his aristocratic features. "Bianca. Where's our breakfast?"

I took a slow sip of my tea. "I didn't make it," I said flatly.

There was a pause—heavy, dangerous.

"What do you mean, you didn't make it?" His voice hardened, each word precise as a bullet leaving a chamber.

I shrugged.

Salvatore stepped closer, his presence filling the space between us like a gathering storm. "You are the Donna of this house. Your duty is to support your husband and this Family—and that includes maintaining this household. Or has that become too difficult for you?"

I stood and rinsed my plate quietly, my back to him.

"I asked you a question." His voice rose, cold fury threading through each syllable. "Has it become too difficult?"

I turned around slowly, meeting his gaze without flinching. "You can always eat out. Like last night."

He stepped forward, eyes narrowing to slits. "What the hell is wrong with you lately? You've been acting like a spoiled brat, and it's becoming very tiresome."

I didn't respond.

I reached for the glass teapot filled with hot water, but Salvatore's composure finally snapped.

He snatched the teapot from my hands and slammed it down on the marble counter with enough force to crack the base. The scalding water splashed across my hand and wrist in a burning wave.

I hissed and stumbled backward.

The teapot shattered on impact, and a large shard of glass flew into my forearm, embedding itself in the flesh. Blood welled up instantly, running down my arm in crimson rivulets. I cried out before I could stop myself.

Salvatore blinked. He hadn't meant to do it—not quite like that.

When he saw the blood, his expression softened. For one brief, stupid second.

For one pathetic moment, I thought maybe he would care.

But it didn't last.

Because immediately, Adriana's voice whined from behind him.

"There's no breakfast, and I'm starving, Salvatore. I think I'm feeling faint."

Salvatore gave me a cold, dismissive look—silently blaming me for the entire scene. He glanced at my injured hand with a scowl carved deep into his handsome face.

"You're a Pini wife. You'll survive." He said it like it was nothing. Like I was nothing.

"Remember that the Family Gala is this evening at eight. Get dressed appropriately. I'll send someone to collect you." He adjusted his cufflinks without meeting my eyes.

I pressed a kitchen towel to my arm without a word.

Salvatore didn't apologize. He didn't even have the decency to look guilty as he walked out with Adriana on his arm, her laughter echoing through the marble halls.

~

An hour later, the moving truck arrived.

The men my father had sent were quick and professional—they knew better than to ask questions when a Don's daughter needed something handled quietly.

I stood by the window as they carried out box after box—everything that belonged to me, everything that proved I had ever existed in this gilded prison.

What remained was thrown into the trash.

When they finished, the house looked as though I had never lived here at all. As though Bianca Valente had been nothing more than a ghost passing through these halls.

When Salvatore returned to prepare for the gala, he barely noticed that anything was missing.

I preferred it that way.

Before we left, I glanced around the bedroom one final time—at the silk drapes, the crystal chandelier, the bed where I had lost three children to his greed.

I had already made my decision.

Tonight was the last night I would spend under the Pini name.

After the gala, I would leave. For good.

He wouldn't even realize I was gone until it was far too late.