"Vitale, how dare you?!"

My voice trembled uncontrollably as I called out, "Gia?"

My daughter froze, then slowly lifted her head to look at me. She stared for a long moment, dazed, until her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Mama? You're back?"

The next second, her small figure broke down into tears. She cried out like she'd finally found someone to cling to after holding on for far too long.

"Mama, Aunt Serafina locked me in the dog cage. She didn't give me any food. Papa didn't do anything about it! I was so scared. The big dog bites real hard, it hurts so bad. Mama, please get me out…"

The word "Mama," spoken with such raw pain and trust, shattered me from the inside. But I didn't have time to cry, not with that hunting dog now awake, glaring at Gia like she was prey.

I grabbed an axe from the corner of the shed, ignoring the old steward's frantic protests, and brought it down hard on the lock of the cage.

Once the chain snapped, I rushed in, scooped Gia into my arms, and held her tight.

Then I turned back. I wasn't done. Raising the axe once more, I aimed it at the snarling dog.

"Signora, please! Don't be reckless!" Don Ricci begged, his hands smoothing the front of his waistcoat before he dared to step nearer. "That's the madam's favorite dog. Don Moretti gave it to her himself! If you hurt it, she'll be furious, and the master too."

Oh? So Vitale gave Serafina a dog... to mangle his own blood daughter?

I didn't even spare it a glance. As the beast lunged, I met it head-on, and with one clean, furious swing, I severed its head.

Still not satisfied, I turned to the cage that had imprisoned my child, and hacked it to splinters.

Vitale came in at the sound of the chaos, the noise cutting through the celebration in the main house. He started scolding me the second he opened his mouth.

"Adriana, you just got back and you're already making a scene? Do you want the men outside to start asking questions? Half the Family is here tonight."

"You scared Matteo half to death. He's crying his eyes out, and Serafina's been running herself ragged all day. Now she has to calm him down too? Can't you just stop causing trouble?"

"I know this past year hasn't been easy for you, and I will explain everything when I get a moment. But I won't let you ruin Serafina's name in front of every capo under this roof."

I let out a bitter laugh. Matteo, huh? Of course. His precious little heir.

And what were Gia and I to him, then? Disposable trophies, pawns spent and forgotten?

"So your heart breaks when her son cries, but not when your own daughter is locked in a dog cage? When she's bitten by some animal? Forced to eat slop like a stray? Tell me, Vitale. How twisted is your love?"

Vitale finally looked at Gia. When he saw the raw, bleeding wounds on her tiny arms and legs, confusion twisted across his face.

"What are you talking about? Gia's my daughter. I would never let something like that happen to her."

I froze for a beat. He… didn't know?

Vitale frowned and turned to the steward. "Bring Serafina here."

Serafina walked in moments later, already crying. The corner of her mouth tightened a half-second before the tears came, but no one in that shed was watching her the way I was.

"Vitale, you've got it all wrong… Adriana misunderstood me. Gia's such a sweet little thing. How could I ever hurt her?"

"You know how much she loves playing hide and seek. Just now, she begged me to play with her. I was busy seeing to the guests and couldn't find her in time. Who could've guessed she'd go and lock herself in a dog cage? That child has such an imagination…"

Vitale staggered back a step, more stunned by my rage than anything else in that room. He didn't apologize. He didn't even look at Gia. Instead, he turned to Serafina, like she was the one who needed comforting.

Serafina dabbed fake tears with a silk handkerchief, her voice trembling just enough to sound fragile. "Vitale… she's just making a scene. I know Gia's upset, but blaming me for something like this? You really think I'd hurt a little girl?"

Vitale looked torn for half a second. Just half. Then his jaw set, and his thumb went still on the signet ring.

"This isn't the time or the place for this," he snapped. "Adriana, if you want to talk, we'll talk later. But right now, Serafina and I are celebrating the birth of our son, in front of everyone who matters to this Family. Don't ruin that for us."

I stared at him, dumbfounded. He just watched as Gia stood there, shaking, her cheek already red and swelling. His daughter. His own blood. And he chose Serafina. Again.

Serafina slipped her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder like the doting saint she pretended to be.

"I'm not asking for much," she whispered, loud enough for the men in the doorway to hear. "I just want a peaceful home for our baby…"

Peaceful? She had locked my daughter in a cage.

I wrapped my arms around Gia and whispered into her hair, "It's okay, baby. Mama's here now. I won't let them hurt you again."

Inside, though, I was on fire. I pressed my thumb against the smooth stump where three fingers used to be, and let the softness bleed out of me. If they wanted peace, they should have thought of that before crossing a mother with nothing left to lose.

Vitale hesitated for a moment, but before he could say anything, Serafina broke into louder sobs, her voice trembling with a grief pitched for the whole household to hear.

"Forget it. I know I'm nothing but a burden under this roof," she cried. "It's all my fault, isn't it? Fine. I'll take Matteo and go. I'll lie down in the grave beside your brother and keep him company where I belong!"

Then she spun on her heel and fled down the corridor.

Vitale's eyes followed her retreating figure, heavy with worry. But before he went after her, he turned a venomous glare on me.

"This is the daughter you raised?" he snapped. "A child already old enough to lie, to twist people, to scheme. She's always tormented her aunt. What next? Was she planning to turn on her baby brother too?"

He stepped closer, his voice thick with a righteousness I had learned to hate.

"My brother died young. Serafina has no one in this world but me. Is it truly so much to ask that the two of you simply make room for her? You disappoint me, Adriana. You've forgotten every ounce of decency your father raised you with." With that, he turned and left us standing there, bloodied and bruised on the marble, and went after her.

Gia watched his back vanish through the doorway, her tiny hands clutching the hem of my shirt, her big eyes brimming with confusion and hurt.

"Mama," she whispered, "is it because I'm a girl? Is that why Daddy loves Auntie Serafina and Matteo more than us?" She went on, softer still, "I'm sorry… It's my fault. I made everything hard for you…"

Even after Vitale struck her, after all of it, my daughter didn't hate him. Not even a little. She blamed herself for having been born the way she was.

I knelt and pulled her into my arms, my heart shattering all over again.

"No, baby. None of this is your fault," I murmured, my voice thick with tears. "You're the best thing in my life. The kindest, bravest little girl I've ever known."

"Sweetheart," I kissed the top of her head and whispered, "you don't need that kind of father. Not anymore."

I carried Gia back to the guest room and asked Don Ricci to send for a doctor the Family trusted, one who asked no questions. He came quickly and gave her a rabies shot, his old hands steady, his eyes never once meeting mine.

From Gia, I finally learned the truth about the past year.

Vitale had poured all his attention into Serafina and her unborn child, leaving his own blood daughter to fend for herself in a house full of armed men who answered to him. Serafina, in the meantime, had tormented Gia in secret, and sometimes right under his nose. Every time the child tried to tell her father the truth, Serafina would twist it, brand her a liar, and Vitale would believe the widow without a moment's doubt.

It was the two of them, Vitale and Serafina, who had told Gia that I'd been taken and killed by "bad men."

Gia had cried herself to sleep night after night, clutching a small memorial card with my name on it as though it were the only thing left of me in the world. She had even let the dog sink its teeth into her rather than let it ruin the picture of my face.

After I finally coaxed her to sleep, I sat on the edge of the bed, but there was no peace anywhere inside me.

I had told her we didn't need that kind of father anymore. She hadn't agreed. She hadn't said a single word.

I knew. Deep down, she still ached for him.

No matter how often Vitale scorned her for being a girl, called her weak, called her worthless, she still longed for his love. Still saw him as her father.

Should I give Vitale one more chance, for her sake?

I was lost in thought when I felt myself pulled back into a warm embrace. The smell of milk and the sour sweat of the birthing bed clung thick around him.

"Adri," came his voice from behind me, trembling with feeling. "Thank God… you're alive. You found your way back to me."

Vitale pressed soft kisses along my neck, his voice low and coaxing. "I gave my brother my word I'd look after Serafina. That I'd give his line an heir. When she learned she was carrying, it went hard on her. Sickness, fainting, all of it. I had to stay at her side. That's why I wasn't there to pull you out."

"I turned over every stone looking for you. And then word came that you were dead… Adri, it broke me."

I pushed him off, swallowing down the nausea rising in my throat. My voice came out calm, but there was steel underneath it.

"I'm back now. Very much alive. And you still mean to bind yourself to her, don't you? You still plan to make her your wife."

Vitale let out a helpless sigh, as though I were the unreasonable one. "Of course not. You're my wife. You always have been. The union is only for the eyes of the Family. No blood oath will pass between us, no pact signed."

"I need to give Serafina and Matteo some standing, so the men stop whispering. That's all this is. A performance. You understand that. What's between us is the real thing. In every way that counts. You've always been the reasonable one, Adri. You won't make trouble over this… will you?"

So that was it. He still expected me to live in the dark corner of his house, dead to the world outside, his in secret. Hidden. Forgotten. And then, with the same easy entitlement of a man who had never once been refused, Vitale began working open the buttons of my blouse.

"Serafina's already given me a son," he murmured. "We should make up for lost time, don't you think? A boy of our own, and with Gia… the three of them together would make a perfect little family. Harmony. Balance."

He wanted to finish his pretty family portrait. With me tucked away as the piece no one was ever meant to see.

There were milk stains on his trousers, just below the belt, still damp and threaded through with the lingering scent of Serafina's perfume. I didn't need to guess what the two of them had been doing.

My stomach churned.

Just then the wet nurse from Serafina's rooms came knocking, flustered, wringing her hands the way retainers did when they feared the Don's temper.

"Don Moretti, the lady's chest has swollen again. She's been holding back tears all morning. The baby hasn't fed, and she's hard as stone with the pain. Please, would you come?"

Vitale shoved me aside without a moment's thought. My ruined leg buckled and I went down onto the marble. He didn't so much as glance back.

"She's in that kind of pain and no one saw fit to tell me sooner? What do I keep this household for?" he barked, already at the door.

"From today she doesn't nurse at all. Hire as many wet nurses as it takes. I won't have Serafina suffer another minute, and my son does not go hungry."

And just like that he was gone, leaving me crumpled on the floor of his estate.

I sat there in silence, remembering.

When he first decided to take Serafina under this roof, Gia had only just been born. I was still bleeding from the birth when the word reached me, so angry and heartbroken that my milk dried up. My chest swelled until it felt packed with stones, the pain so terrible I couldn't sleep.

I'd begged him to bring in a nurse, someone to help.

But he'd only looked me over and said, "Adriana, you're a Don's daughter. You were bred to endure. What is a little pain to a woman like you?"

"I won't have strangers moving through my house. What if they're planted by a rival family? I won't gamble with Serafina's safety."

"So, no. No nurse. You'll feed the child yourself. You were always the sensible one. Hold out a while longer, will you?"

Vitale would move heaven and earth so long as Serafina was comfortable. When had that begun?

When had he gone from calling her his brother's widow, to Serafina, and now to my wife?

And me? What did that leave me?

"Mama, don't cry."

I hadn't noticed Gia wake. She slid off the bed and padded over, her small hand brushing my cheek.

Only then did I realize my face was soaked with tears.

She wrapped her arms tight around me, her little voice thick. "Mama, this is the hundredth time Papa left us to go be with her."

"I've made up my mind. We don't need him anymore. Let's go, just the two of us."

So she knew. She had known all along. She had kept giving him one more chance, and then another, until she finally ran out of them. Until she finally gave up.

I pulled her against my chest and held her there, my tears falling again, but this time I smiled through them.

"All right, baby. Mama will take you away."

The next morning Serafina appeared at my door wearing a bright, easy smile, as though nothing had happened. She invited me out to the shops, said it was her way of apologizing for "not looking after Gia better."

She threaded her arm through Vitale's and purred, "Vitale, you should come and settle the accounts. Adriana's had such a hard year. We owe her that much, don't we?"

Serafina wore the part of the lady of the Moretti Estate as if she'd been born to it, poised, entitled, entirely in command. So when I didn't answer at once, Vitale's face darkened.

"Adriana," he said, irritated, "Serafina is only trying to be kind. You and Gia upset her so badly yesterday she ached all night, couldn't even nurse Matteo. And still she holds nothing against you. The least you can do is not make this harder."

He must have forgotten how thin the walls were in that house. I'd heard everything the night before. Their moaning, their whispered oaths, the sickening sound of their bodies tangled together.

The memory turned my stomach, but I swallowed the bile and gave a small nod. I hadn't the strength to fight, not then. Under my sleeve, my thumb found the smooth stump where three fingers should have been, and pressed.

At the shops Serafina stayed fastened to Vitale's arm the whole time, parading him like a trophy. He wore his tailored suit like armor; she drifted beside him in a gown that cost more than most men earned in a year. They basked in the flattery of the clerks, drinking down the attention like royalty holding court.

And I limped behind them in a faded, cheap dress that had seen better days, if it had ever seen a good one at all. I caught the judgment in the clerks' eyes, the sneers they didn't trouble to hide. I didn't belong in their world.

Whenever someone asked who I was, Vitale would glance back at me, nervous, guilty, and say with a tight smile:

"She's our household help. My wife thought she could use some new clothes."