The next day, I had no idea how Dante found me.

He stood in front of me and slipped off his coat, draping it over my shoulders. I looked up at him and forced a smile.

"Dante, that thing you wanted to talk about. I agree."

"What I mean is, you're free."

He smiled bitterly, and his hands went still.

"Lena… so you already guessed."

He lowered his head, opened another bottle, sat down beside me, and drank.

"It's not what you think. I just don't want to be trapped in this marriage anymore. I want to live my own life."

"But Lena, this isn't about not wanting you. I'll come back and remarry you."

I almost laughed. In his eyes, was I really that easy to fool?

Then again, he'd been fooling me for six full years.

That year, Lena Winslow had shown up at my house, drunk out of her mind, and told me she'd slept with some man and was carrying his child. Before that, back in the Catholic university lab, Dante had nearly been disfigured in an explosion. It was Lena Winslow who had stepped forward and pulled him from the wreckage. So I wanted to help her. But she'd buried her face and drained an entire bottle of wine.

"Don't bother. This is something I want to take to my grave."

And only now did I learn the truth: her child was Dante's.

They had deceived me again and again.

Two people, hiding it from me for six years.

I had gone to that discreet clinic countless times, let them push those thick needles into my belly. I hated myself for being so stupid, for believing every word he said.

Now I would rather he told me the truth to my face than be deceived one more time.

If he wanted a divorce, then I would give him his freedom.

I turned my head and slipped the ring off my finger. The motion felt natural, as though I'd rehearsed it in some quiet part of myself I hadn't known existed. I placed it in Dante's palm.

"This is the ring your mother gave me."

"Now it goes back where it belongs."

He stared at the ring, stunned, and something disbelieving flickered through his eyes.

"Lena Moretti." It was the first time he had ever called me by my full name. "I told you I'd come back and remarry you. Why don't you believe me?"

I searched his eyes, desperate to find the secret of his betrayal somewhere inside them. But there was nothing. Not a crack. Not a tell.

Dante, you really are that good at pretending.

Watching his expression twist, I gently pushed his hand away.

"I believe you."

"So… when do we sign the papers?"

He pressed his lips together in a smile, thinking I was being reasonable, and pulled me into his arms.

"Whenever you're ready. We can go anytime."

I closed my eyes, and the tears fell on their own.

After this was done, I, Lena Moretti, would belong only to myself.

He carried me back to the brownstone and, like always, had already cooked dinner. He pressed his face gently against mine, the clean scent of his sweat slipping into my nose.

"Lena, I'm going to shower. You eat first, alright?"

I sat at the table. The same dishes as always.

The snow peas were Lena Winslow's favorite.

And the braised pork trotters. The greasy kind I hated most.

He kept placing slick cuts of braised pork onto my plate. When I didn't touch them, he asked, "I thought this was your favorite?"

But the one who loved those dishes had only ever been Lena Winslow.

Looking at the food, I had no appetite left.

While I sat there, lost in thought, a knock sounded at the door.

I opened it and found the last person I expected. Lena Winslow, the woman who had vanished for six years.

She covered her mouth with one hand. Behind her, clutching a small doll with a ribbon twisted around her fingers, stood Lucia. Lena Winslow dropped to her knees in front of me with a heavy thud.

I had imagined her coming back a thousand times over the years.

But never once had I imagined she would appear as the other woman.

"Lena, you have to help me. I just got out of that place, and I have no one. No one."

"That man wants to take my child away from me. You're all I have left!"

She said it like it was the God's honest truth.

If I hadn't seen what I'd seen just moments before, I might have believed every word. I smiled, took one step forward, and blocked the doorway so neither of them could come any farther inside.

"Stop the act. I know everything."

"That year, the man who shared your bed was Dante. Wasn't it?"

Her fingers clawed the stone threshold, nails dragging until the skin split and blood seeped from the tips.

The pleading drained from her face like color from a dead man's cheeks. What replaced it was pure, undiluted hatred.

She braced a hand against the doorframe and rose slowly to her feet. Then she lifted her wrist and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with a deliberate, unhurried motion.

"If you already know, then why haven't you severed from Dante? You're content to watch me and my child be spat on? Humiliated?"

"All these years. Do you know how many times I've been called the kept woman? How many times Lucia came home from school crying because the other children said she was a bastard with no father?"

"You told me once you'd help me. Or have you forgotten that too?"

I laughed. I couldn't stand the sight of her face, the way she pushed forward as if she were owed something. I reached for the heavy door and started to close it.

But in the last second, she shoved Lucia's small hand into the gap.

Lucia screamed. A raw, piercing wail that bounced off the corridor walls. I tried to push the door open again, but it wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I threw my weight against it.

Listening to that child's broken crying, I couldn't stop myself from confronting Lena Winslow:

"She's your own daughter! You'd use your own child like this?!"

Her grip only tightened. Lucia was sobbing so hard she could barely draw breath.

"Six years ago, I carried that child for Dante. She's the one who keeps saying she wants a father." Her voice was flat, mechanical. "I'm granting her wish. I'm helping her."

She was insane. Completely, irreversibly insane.

Finally, her hands loosened.

But I fell hard. My back hit the floor and the impact traveled straight through me. In an instant, my stomach seized with a tightness so sharp it stole my vision.

I curled into the corner, both arms wrapped around my belly, holding on as if holding on could keep anything safe.

That was when Dante walked out of the bathroom, steam still clinging to his shoulders.

I reached out a hand toward him. My fingers were shaking.

"Save me…"

"Save my baby…"

He started toward me. Two steps, maybe three.

Then Lena Winslow's voice cracked through the hallway like a gunshot.

"Dante, can't you see what she's doing? She's playing you for sympathy."

The tears poured down her face, fast and unbroken, like beads snapping free from a string.

"Lucia came inside to find her. She was being sweet, being kind. And this woman, this viper, she slammed the door on my daughter's hand."

"Look at her fingers, Dante. Look. They're nearly broken."

Blood dripped steadily from the girl's small fingers. Dante's eyes went red.

His gaze drifted back to me. Slow. Heavy. The signet ring on his right hand was perfectly still.

"Lena Moretti." He bit down on every syllable of my name. "So you knew all along. You were just playing with me. Does that amuse you?"

I tried to explain. My mouth opened. Nothing came out. All I could do was press my hand against my stomach and cry out from the pain.

Dante noticed something was wrong. He took a step toward me.

Lena Winslow grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

This time it was Lucia who cried louder. She dropped to the floor, cradling her injured hand, and looked up at him.

"Papa… it hurts… it hurts so much."

One word. Papa. It stopped him cold.

He turned. He lifted Lucia into his arms and held her against his chest, turning her gently as if she might break further.

"Lucia, Papa already called the driver. He'll take you to the clinic. Just hold on, okay?"

Lucia nestled into his shoulder, quiet now, obedient. Her small head rested against him as though she had finally found the only safe place in the world.

I was losing feeling in my hands. The pain in my belly was swallowing everything else. The edges of the room softened, then blurred. My thumb pressed hard against my ring finger where the wedding band still sat, pressing and pressing until the skin beneath it went white, and then I couldn't feel that either.

Crumpled on the floor, Lena Winslow's shrill voice cut through the ringing in my ears:

"I did lie to you back then, but what did the child ever do wrong?"

"I protected you for all those years. You couldn't even share one man with me?"

"Besides, handing him off to someone else would be worse than handing him to me."

She decided she was the wronged party, and the tears came with sound.

Dante just looked down at me, cold as stone:

"Lena. What exactly are you performing for me? What is there left to perform?"

"Nobody here would hurt Lucia except you. Or are you going to claim her own mother did this to her?"

"You already knew the truth. So why stage this little scene?"

Their voices crashed over each other, one after the other.

I reached out, used the last strength I had:

"Dante, I'm carrying a child!"

Lena Winslow cut me off instantly:

"Lena Moretti, Dante is sterile. So where exactly did this child come from?"

"After he and I got together, he had the procedure done. How could you possibly be pregnant?"

Dante's brow creased slightly. His eyes shifted to me.

My throat locked. I couldn't force out a single word.

I tried to brace against the wall and stand. My legs wouldn't hold. I tried again. Nothing.

My fists clenched so tight the blood ran out between my fingers.

My face turned to the side. Tears fell, one by one.

This was my first child.

This baby, bought with how many needles, how many injections, how many silent mornings on that clinic table.

I couldn't let anything happen to him.

I gathered everything I had left and pushed myself up, palms flat against the floor, crawling toward Dante one step at a time.

"Dante."

"The baby was conceived through clandestine treatments. At the family clinic."

"This child... is your child."

The words had barely left my mouth when a stack of documents slid off the top of the refrigerator and hit the floor.

The two of them saw what had spilled out, and the color drained from both their faces.