Hearing Lorenzo's words, a flicker of unease crossed Bianca's delicate face. She shrank her neck slightly, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as she fell silent. Her thumb moved once against the pads of her fingers, smoothing some seam only she could feel.

Bitterness welled up inside me, familiar and almost comforting by now. Half a year ago, Bianca had suddenly returned from her years in exile abroad. Lorenzo told me she was all alone, with nowhere left to run, no Family left to shelter her. Without even a word to me, he brought her behind the walls of our estate, past the soldiers at the gate, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

At first, I didn't mind. I even felt sorry for the fragile girl and cared for her in every way I could—seeing her plate was full at the long table, that she had warm clothes, that the stewards treated her as one of the blood. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be a good wife to the Don.

Until the night everything changed. Bianca picked up a glass of red wine, poured it over herself, then collapsed onto her knees in front of me, trembling and pleading for mercy. Her voice was so soft, so pitiful, that any soldier passing the door would've sworn I'd been tormenting her for days.

From that moment on, the way Lorenzo looked at me shifted. That night, he didn't even give me a chance to explain. His fury broke like a storm, and before I understood what was happening, two of his enforcers dragged me to the attic and locked the door. He left me there, hungry and freezing, for three full days. When he finally came back, his voice was colder than I'd ever heard.

"Adriana, you've really disappointed me," he said, his gaze filled with disgust. "You have no idea what Bianca means to me. If you dare lay a hand on her again, wife or not, I'll make you pay in blood."

After that, incidents like that kept happening—small, carefully staged moments where Bianca was the victim and I was the cruel villain. Each one chipped away at Lorenzo's patience, until his eyes held nothing but icy contempt whenever he looked at me.

I had planned to endure it, at least until the baby was born. Once our child arrived safely, I was going to ask him to dissolve the union and slip away quietly. But before I could, Bianca threw herself from a rooftop.

The reason for it? Hateful messages and vicious voice recordings—supposedly from me.

The words were brutal, cruel enough to drive anyone to the edge. But they weren't mine. Yet no matter how I pleaded, Lorenzo didn't believe me. All he could see was Bianca's pale, trembling form lying in the bed the Family physician had made for her, her tears falling one after another. His heart ached so much for her, his eyes turned red with rage.

Even with our baby almost ready to be born, his only concern was avenging his beloved.

"Don... the Signora, she... she seems... You should see for yourself."

Lorenzo's fingers froze around the pen in his hand. His brow furrowed, his expression a mix of irritation and indifference. "She's still throwing a tantrum after all this time?"

The soldier hesitated, his hands clasped nervously before him. After several seconds, he finally forced it out. "No, Don... It's not that. It's just... the Signora seems to have stopped breathing."

Lorenzo's large hands, the ones that had been holding Bianca so tenderly a moment ago, went still. For a moment, there was silence—too long to be casual, too short to mean anything real. Then a cold, careless laugh escaped his throat.

"She's really going that far to get out of an apology? Playing dead, just to avoid facing Bianca?"

His voice sharpened to an edge. "Tell her—even if she's dying, she apologizes first. If she refuses, don't say I didn't warn her."

Sweat glistened on the soldier's forehead. He wanted to say more, but the fury carved into the Don's face pressed the words back down his throat. In the end, all he could do was step back and withdraw, quiet as a man leaving a wake.

In Lorenzo's arms, Bianca tilted her head, her innocent eyes wide with concern.

"Lorenzo, maybe you should let it go," she whispered. "Even if Adriana hates me and makes things hard, she's still your wife. As long as I can stay at your side, I can endure it."

Lorenzo's arm tightened around her slender waist, drawing her closer against him.

"Bianca, you don't need to fear that petty woman. Adriana isn't worth a single one of your worries." His voice softened into something almost gentle. "This time, I'll make certain she learns her place. Only then will she understand exactly what she is in this house."

"But..."

"No buts. Just trust me."

A teardrop landed on the back of my hand, cold and weightless, yet cutting deeper than any blade. That was when I realized—I was already crying.

So even souls can feel pain.

Lorenzo said nothing more after that, but for the rest of the afternoon his mind was somewhere else. His fingers drummed restlessly against the desk, and every few minutes his eyes cut toward the door. By the time an hour had passed, he had looked more than ten times.

Finally, with a low, frustrated breath, he shut the ledger before him and pushed back from the desk. Running a hand through his hair, he forced a gentle smile onto his face and stroked Bianca's hair.

"I don't know what game Adriana thinks she's playing this time," he said softly, "but I'll go drag her back myself to apologize."

At the gates of the abandoned carnival on the edge of Moretti territory, Lorenzo's long strides carried him forward, impatience coming off him like heat in the still air. Even from a distance, his sharp gaze locked onto the drop tower rising against the grey sky.

Its rusted frame gleamed coldly in the sunlight—but the ground beneath it was soaked in red.

The stench of blood hung heavy in the air, mixing with the faint scent of rust and damp earth. This was the abandoned carnival at the edge of Moretti territory, where debts were settled far from witnesses, and now something had bled out into its cracked concrete. Lorenzo instinctively raised a hand to cover his nose, his expression twisted in discomfort.

"What the hell is that smell? What's Adriana up to this time?!" His voice was impatient, as if all of this was nothing more than another one of my childish games.

His enforcer stood to the side, forehead beaded with sweat. The man's hands clenched nervously, but his voice remained low, the way a soldier's does when he brings the Don something the Don does not want. "Boss... perhaps you should see for yourself."

With a stiff motion, the enforcer stepped aside, revealing the two shapes lying side by side on the bloodstained ground. Both were covered with white cloth. One larger. One heartbreakingly small.

Lorenzo's large hands hovered uncertainly between the two. His fingers curled and uncurled, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. His brows furrowed, confusion flickering in his usually cold eyes. The men around him had gone still, the way men go still when they feel the ground shifting under an oath.

I clutched my chest, though there was no heartbeat there anymore, only the hollow ache of something long gone. I knew what was about to happen and the knowledge was suffocating. Still, I couldn't look away.

After what felt like an eternity, Lorenzo finally reached out toward the smaller bundle. His fingers trembled slightly as he pinched the edge of the cloth, slowly lifting it.

A sharp, high-pitched scream cut through the air before he could see anything.

"Lorenzo! What are you doing?! You're not actually going to touch that, are you? That's a stray cat's corpse!"

Bianca's shrill voice rang out as she stumbled toward him, her body trembling as she threw herself into his arms. Her face pressed into his chest, her small hands clutching at his shirt. For half a breath her smile held a beat too long, and her thumb rubbed the pads of her fingers as if smoothing an invisible seam.

Lorenzo's body stiffened under her touch, but her words seemed to flip a switch in his mind. His expression darkened, disgust flashing across his face. Without another thought, his leg shot out, kicking the small bundle aside.

The tiny body rolled limply across the pavement, the once-pure white cloth unraveling just slightly, exposing a flash of soft, fragile skin.

"Get some dogs in here," Lorenzo barked, his voice cold and sharp. "Let them deal with it."

The order was carried out instantly, the way orders are in a Family where hesitation costs a man his life. Stray dogs, drawn in by the scent of blood and flesh, swarmed the area within seconds. Their teeth tore into the small corpse without hesitation, their low growls blending with the wet, sickening sounds of ripping flesh.

I screamed, the sound tearing out of me like a wounded animal. I lunged forward, trying to claw at Lorenzo, trying to push the dogs away, trying to hold what was left of my baby. But my hands passed straight through everything.

I couldn't touch anything. I couldn't stop any of it.

But the pain, oh, the pain was real. It burned and twisted inside me, a thousand times worse than the agony of childbirth.

What had I done wrong? What had my child done wrong?

The dogs didn't stop until there was nothing left but scraps of cloth and dark, wet patches on the ground. As the last of the flesh disappeared, I caught a glimpse of Bianca, standing slightly apart from Lorenzo. A faint smile curled at the corners of her lips, a sinister gleam flashing in her eyes before she quickly lowered her gaze.

"Enough with these games!" Lorenzo's furious roar broke the silence. "Where's Adriana?! Where the hell is she hiding?!" His fists clenched at his sides, veins bulging under his skin. "She drove Bianca to jump off a building and now she's trying to scare her with some dead cat? How did I never see how vicious Adriana really is?!"

He turned, voice dripping with contempt. "Adriana! Didn't you love that baby more than anything? If you don't crawl out right now, I swear, once the real baby is born, I'll cut you loose. I'll strip the Falcone name off you and put you out. And don't even dream about the child. You'll never see it again!"

I collapsed onto the ground, trembling with rage and heartbreak, my right hand curling against a belly that no longer held anything, fingers closing over the old scar as if I could still shield what was already gone. My silent laughter mixed with tears I could no longer wipe away.

My parents were gone, murdered, their dying wish a blood-bound pact that had chained me to this man. Lorenzo, the Don I had once trusted with my whole heart, had broken faith without hesitation for Bianca, the one who abandoned him when the Family was near ruin. The only thing I had left was my baby. And now, my child, our child, had been torn apart by dogs, thrown away like trash, and the man who fathered that child had stood by and watched.

Not even a body remained.

I swore, from the depths of whatever was left of my soul, that Lorenzo would rot in hell for this.

His voice rose again, loud and furious, demanding that I show myself. But there was no one left to answer him.

Finally, the enforcer, pale and trembling, forced himself to step forward. His hands shook as he reached down, slowly lifting the white cloth covering the larger form. His voice wavered, breaking the code that keeps a soldier's mouth shut before the Don.

"Boss... Madam is right here. And your child... you just fed it to the stray dogs."