Three years bound to the Conti name, and not once did I carry a child.

It was my husband who finally pressed me toward the clinic, toward the needles and the doctors who answered to the Family, and after two years of it I was carrying at last.

Then, eight months along, I overheard Dario Conti speaking with one of his made men in the study below.

"You fed Elena Marchetti the pills for three solid years so she'd believe her own body was barren, then used that to steer her into the clinic, all so you could plant Carmela Volpe's egg inside her. That's cold, Don. That's ice."

Dario didn't sound troubled in the slightest.

"Ten months of carrying ruins a woman, and then there's the agony of the birth. I couldn't stand to put Carmela through any of that."

I stood at the top of the stairs looking down at that scheming man, and I didn't hesitate. I dialed the clinic's private line.

"Yes. I'd like to schedule a termination."

——

"Aren't you worried Elena will come apart when she learns the truth? No woman wants to raise another's blood. And she's carried this one ten months, only for it to belong to somebody else entirely."

Bruno Salvati watched Dario with a teasing grin, cracking the knuckles of his right hand one finger at a time.

"She's too stupid to ever piece it together. And if she did, what of it? She's eight months gone. You think she'd actually be rid of it? Look at her now, swollen as a sow. Who'd want her but me?"

"True enough. The whole life knows how the woman worships you. Clung to you like a leech for years." He paused. "Though I'll confess, I'm a little curious what a pregnant woman feels like."

Bruno's face twisted into something ugly, and he raised his eyebrows at the Don.

A flicker of disgust crossed Dario's eyes.

"Fat as a sow. One look at her and I can't even rise to it, never mind the rest. I'd sooner stare at the wall than at that belly of hers, big as a watermelon. The sight turns my stomach."

"Well, if you've no use for her, let me take a turn next time. I truly want to know what a pregnant woman's like."

When Bruno finished his filthy little remark, the two of them burst into laughter, and every laugh was a knife driven straight into my heart.

For the clinic's work I'd swallowed countless hormone pills these last two years, taken more injections than I could count, watched my body swell and lose its shape.

Once I was carrying, Dario was forever fretting that I wasn't getting enough, pushing food on me every single day, so the baby grew too large, and by five months my belly was already crawling with ugly marks.

I used to think it was because he ached for everything I was giving up. Now I understood. All he cared for was the thing in my belly, the piece of him and Carmela bound together into an heir for the Family.

I clenched my fists until my palms ached, cold sweat breaking out across my back, and I all but fled that suffocating room.

Once I'd steadied myself in the corridor, away from the soldiers stationed at the doors, I pulled out my phone without a second thought and called the clinic's appointment line.

I drove to the clinic that same night, past the gate guards who didn't dare question the Don's wife. One more second in that house and I was afraid I'd lose my mind.

The doctor on duty looked at my huge belly and asked me again, and again.

"You're already eight months along. Are you certain you want to terminate now?"

"And the child's father?"

"Dead."

Dario wanted this child so badly. Fine. I'd give him a gift he'd never forget.

The doctor saw the dead, ashen look in my eyes and stopped asking. He wrote the prescription quickly and pressed the appointment slip into my hand.

"Take the medication, then come in for the procedure in three days."

I carried the slip home, exhausted, only to find the keypad lock at the estate's side entrance kept flashing that my code was wrong.

I was reaching for my phone when the door swung open, and Carmela walked out in a sheer nightgown.

"Elena, the power went out at my place, and Dario didn't like the idea of me sleeping there alone, so he told me to stay here a while. He changed the door code to my birthday so I wouldn't forget it. You don't mind, do you?"

My eyes dropped to the strap sliding off Carmela's shoulder, to the marks on her chest, to the fact that she wore nothing underneath the silk.

"Elena's always so understanding. How could she possibly mind?"

Dario sat on the couch, his trousers creased, his shirt buttoned inside out. A wet stain was soaking into the cushion beside him. On the side table, a glass of his father's grappa sat untouched, the amber catching the lamplight.

He rose and pulled me against him, the way a man pulls something he means to keep where the world can see it.

"You went out this late without a word? You're still carrying our baby. What would I do if something happened to you?"

I looked at all that tender devotion arranged across his face, and a cold weight settled in me.

All this fussing over me in plain sight, while he kept his precious girl openly under my own roof, changing the code so I couldn't walk back in on what they did. In the life, they call that respect. There was no other word ugly enough for it.

I didn't waste my breath on him. I went straight upstairs.

Dario, who never touched milk at night, suddenly poured me a glass.

"You're in your third trimester now. You need to be careful about getting enough protein and calcium. Be good and drink it."

I stared at the glass he held out, and my expression went flat.

"I don't want it."

His face tightened at the refusal, but he kept his patience and coaxed me, the way he coaxed men into deals they'd later die regretting.

"I'm only doing this for you and the baby. Be good. Listen to me."

Then he tipped the glass to my mouth and made me swallow it, no room to argue.

The milk went down sweet and faintly sour, and within moments I was sinking toward sleep. Through the haze, I thought I saw two shapes beside me, tangled together.

When I woke the next morning, my whole body ached so badly I could barely sit up.

After Dario left to attend to Family business, I opened the video on my phone.

Last night, the moment after he forced the milk down me, I'd started recording and hidden the phone in a flowerpot. A wife who married into this life learns young that proof is the only thing that keeps her breathing.

The instant the footage began to play, shame seized my heart and twisted it.

After I'd fallen asleep, Dario and Carmela had come in from the doorway already kissing, then tumbled down right next to me.

"Dario, you have no idea how much it kills me, watching you with this woman every single day."

He spat in my face. Then he kicked my body aside, the way men in this world kicked things they no longer counted as people.

"How could this fat cow ever compare to you? I'm only with her for the kid in her belly. If I didn't want to spare you the suffering, do you think I'd ever have bound myself to her? Next to you, she isn't worth a single hair on your head."

Carmela watched me with open amusement. Her smile sat too perfect at the corners.

"Are you sure you gave her enough to keep her under?"

She started peeling the clothes off me as she spoke.

"What if she finds out the truth after she's had the baby? We're better off keeping something on her, just in case. Insurance. Every family needs it."

Dario seemed to agree completely. He helped her strip me until I lay there with nothing on.

Then the two of them dragged me onto a chair and propped me facing the bed, my legs forced wide apart.

Dario snapped photo after photo while Carmela kept moving my body into different poses.

Once they had enough, they set on my unconscious body without a shred of restraint.

I watched it all play out on the screen, tears streaming down my face, my heart shredding with every frame.

I shut off the phone, picked up the pills the doctor had given me, and swallowed them without a second's hesitation.

"What are you taking?"

Dario's anxious voice came from the doorway. I met his concerned eyes and turned my wedding ring a slow half-circle around my finger.

"Just calcium tablets."

When I said that, Dario finally let his shoulders ease, and he started up the stairs.

"I forgot some papers. Let me grab them."

I watched him climb, every footstep swallowed by the thick carpet of the Conti estate, then I reached for the phone he'd left on the table beside his untouched glass of his father's grappa.

I keyed in Carmela's birthday, and the screen lit up with a wallpaper of Dario and Carmela locked in a kiss.

So his phone really did run two systems. One face for the famiglia, one for her.

I opened his messaging app fast. Pinned at the top was Carmela's photo, and right below it, the group chat with his men.

I tapped into the group, and what filled the screen made my heart lurch so hard the phone nearly slipped from my fingers.

It was wall to wall with the photos Dario and Carmela had taken of me the night before, my body bared and unconscious.

"Not bad, Don. Got to say, your wife's still got it."

"Honestly, a pregnant one's got a flavor all its own. Just wonder how she'd taste."

"For real, with that face, she'd earn more than any girl in the club."

Bruno and the others' filth left my mind blank, as if I were some animal stripped naked and paraded down a street, jeered at through a screen.

"Baby, why are your eyes red?"

By the time Dario came back down with his papers, I was sitting on the sofa again.

He brought over a blanket and tucked it around me, the gesture too gentle, too practiced.

"It's still a little cold out, and you're carrying. You have to take care of yourself."

"Tonight's Carmela's birthday. I'm throwing her a party here, invited a few of the men over. Dress up nicely."

At Carmela's name I gave the smallest shudder, and my face went cold.

"I'd like to rest at home today. I don't want to be disturbed."

His face darkened on the spot. In the silence, the ice in his untouched grappa shifted, the only sound in the room.

"Carmela's birthday only comes once a year. I'm celebrating it for her, and you're going to hold your pregnancy over me? I've made enough allowances for you these past months. This one thing I won't give you."

I hadn't said a word against her yet, and already Dario couldn't wait to leap to his precious girl's defense.

I should have understood long ago. Love and the lack of it really are that obvious.

In the end, Dario brought his pack of made men into the house to celebrate Carmela's birthday.

The moment I came downstairs, I felt every eye in the room land on me. The low talk died the way it does when something enters the room that men have already agreed to break.

There was mockery in those looks, contempt, and something uglier underneath.

"Elena, we're wearing the same dress! We really are on the same wavelength!"

Carmela came over, looping her arm through mine with false affection, and only then did I notice the red dress on me matched hers exactly.

"The dress looks better on you, Carmela. Elena's all bloated and ugly with that belly now. She doesn't have a fraction of your charm."

Dario heaped praise on Carmela and didn't spare an ounce of contempt for me.

"Don, you can't say that. The way I see it, a pregnant woman's got her own flavor."

Bruno cracked the knuckles of his right hand, one finger at a time, then caught my hand and ran his palm over the back of it, his eyes openly leering.

I yanked hard to pull free, but he only gripped tighter and arched a brow at me.

"This is exactly the type I like. Feels good to touch."

I shot Dario a look begging for help, only to find him watching me without the slightest concern.

"Look at the state of you. My brother paying you a compliment is a blessing. Don't be ungrateful."

I clenched my teeth, and my voice came out almost forced through them.

"Dario, I'm your wife."

Only then did Dario rise slowly from the sofa and pull me toward him.