How ironic.

I yanked the bedroom door open and stormed out. The moment I reached the main hall of the estate, one of the household staff hurried toward me, her shoes clicking fast against the stone floor. "Signora Rossetti, you're awake! The second Signora Rossetti went into labor suddenly. The Don took her to the hospital!"

I stopped dead. "'Second Signora Rossetti'? Who told you to call her that?"

I grabbed the Murano glass vase from the console table beside me and hurled it to the floor. It shattered across the marble in a spray of blue and gold. My chest heaved. The sound echoed through the hall, and somewhere deeper in the house, footsteps paused.

The woman flinched, her gaze dropping to the floor the way everyone's did in this house when the air changed. "It was Signora Ferraro's instructions. She said the Don agreed that she's also the lady of the house. You're the first Signora Rossetti, and she's the second..."

She was still talking when I snatched my keys from the hook by the side entrance and drove to the hospital. The two soldiers stationed at the gate didn't try to stop me. They knew better. But I saw one of them reach for his phone in the rearview mirror, and I knew Tomasso would hear I was coming before I arrived.

By the time I walked through the hospital doors, Catarina had already delivered.

The private suite was packed. Nearly all of Tomasso's inner circle had crowded inside, capos and associates and their wives, laughing and talking over each other like it was a celebration. Like it was a baptism feast already. Armed men stood at the corridor entrance, but they parted for me without a word. I didn't go in. Not yet. I stood just outside the doorway, and I listened.

"Tomasso, does your wife even know Catarina's had the baby?"

"Don't bring her up." Tomasso was leaning over the bassinet, teasing the sleeping newborn with one finger. A soft, doting smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "This kid's gorgeous."

"Seriously, Tomasso. If you look closely, he even looks a little like you!"

"Keep it down. If Giovanna hears that kind of talk, she'll overthink everything."

Catarina lay propped against the hospital pillows, her makeup still flawless. She didn't look like a woman who'd just given birth. She looked like a woman who had won something. "Overthink what? Whether she agrees or not, I'm keeping my promise. This child will carry your surname and be entered into the Rossetti bloodline registry."

The room shifted at that. Even the laughter dimmed for a half-second. Everyone in that room understood what entering a child into a Family's bloodline registry meant. It was not paperwork. It was a claim on inheritance, on territory, on the right to one day sit where Tomasso sat. And it required the Don's formal recognition.

"But you'd have to divorce Giovanna first. That doesn't feel right..."

"It's not a big deal. Once the baby's registered under my name, I'll formally sever the arrangement with Catarina and re-bind with Giovanna. Simple. If she won't agree, I'll just do it behind her back."

Catarina sniffled, dabbing at the corner of her eye. "Giovanna is so kindhearted. She'll say yes. I'd be so grateful to her. Honestly, however long I get to be your wife, even just on paper, I'd be more than happy."

"Relax. You all know how much she loves Tomasso. Remember when she went to that sit-down with the Calabrese Family and spent the whole evening charming their old Don, glass after glass of grappa, just so Tomasso could close that territorial arrangement?"

"And that time Tomasso got hospitalized for a stomach infection? She thought it was something serious. Got on her knees and begged the doctor, then knelt outside the operating room for hours until the surgery was over. She's crazy about him. She'd never leave. A little thing like this is nothing compared to losing Tomasso."

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Tomasso's lips curved. He pulled Catarina closer against him, his arm tightening around her shoulders. "No matter what it takes, I'll give Catarina and this child a home."

I stood in the doorway and watched the man I'd loved for seven years hold another woman in his arms.

My fingers curled at my sides until my nails bit into my palms.

He had it all figured out. He'd been planning to give Catarina a home all along. Divorce me, register the child, remarry me like a transaction, like shuffling territory on a map. And every person in that room had already accepted it as the natural order of things. Because that was what Giovanna did. Giovanna bent. Giovanna knelt. Giovanna loved him so much she'd swallow anything.

Well then. Who was I to stand in his way?

I stepped into the doorway and spoke quietly. "A boy? Congratulations."

The moment I appeared, every face in the room went white. The laughter died like someone had cut a wire. One of the capos set his glass down too carefully. Catarina's hand drifted toward the bassinet, a reflex she couldn't quite hide.

Tomasso released Catarina instantly and crossed the room in three quick strides. His voice turned gentle, almost tender. "What are you doing here? You're pregnant. You should be resting at home."

"I heard everything you just said."

I looked up at him. "You want to divorce me so you can register Catarina's baby under your name. Enter him into the Rossetti bloodline."

"Giovanna, I just feel sorry for her. You know she has nowhere else to go. I'm only doing this because she was Fausto's wife. He was like a brother to me. He saved my life..."

His hand moved as he spoke, and I saw it. His fingers drifted to his right palm, tracing the faint scar there. The blood-oath mark. Fausto's name, invoked like a shield, the way it always was.

He scrambled to explain. I cut him off, my expression blank. "I agree. Let's get divorced."

"Really?"

His eyes lit up. He hadn't expected me to say yes that easily.

None of them had. I could feel the silence in the room behind him pressing against my back like a held breath. The Don's wife had just agreed to sever the blood-alliance between the Rossetti and Valente families, and she'd said it the way someone orders coffee. Tomasso didn't understand what he'd just been given. He wouldn't. Not yet.

His friends all wore expressions that said they'd seen this coming a mile away.

"Really."

I nodded. "Have the divorce papers drawn up and signed for me. Tomasso, the syndicate you run now is one we built together. If we're getting divorced, I'm taking half. That's fair, isn't it?"

"More than fair. Take all of it if you want. It's just a formality anyway!"

He shot his buddies a cocky look, and the whole group burst into applause and whistles. The sound bounced off the hospital corridor tiles, sharp and hollow, the way men celebrate when they think they've already won.

"Tomasso, you legend! Living the dream with a woman on each arm. Can't even be jealous!"

My eyes were ice. He didn't notice.

The men around him clapped his shoulders, grinning like soldiers after a clean hit. Not one of them looked at me. Not one of them understood what had just been set in motion. They saw a woman agreeing to step aside. They didn't see the Valente blood in my veins turning cold and quiet, the way it does before a reckoning.

Catarina said she was hungry. She wanted some soup.

Tomasso rounded up his friends and left immediately to get it for her. On his way out, he turned back to me. "Giovanna, are you hungry? Want me to grab you something?"

"I'm fine. Don't bother."

"Then take good care of Catarina for me, will you? She said her chest is sore from the milk coming in..."

The door clicked shut. The bodyguard posted outside shifted his weight, leather creaking faintly, and then there was nothing. Just the two of us now.

The fluorescent light hummed above us. Somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped in steady rhythm. The private wing Tomasso had secured for her was quiet as a confessional.

Catarina didn't have to pretend anymore. She turned to me with a look that was pure provocation. The softness she wore for Tomasso fell away like a mask lifted, and what was underneath had teeth.

"Well, well. I have to say, I'm impressed. Your husband is sleeping with another woman, talking about divorcing you to put someone else's baby under his name, and you don't even flinch? That's some next-level doormat energy."

I watched her in silence.

Her lips curled. One by one, she undid the buttons of her hospital gown, slow and deliberate, the way she tucked her hair behind her left ear when she was performing. Everything about this woman was choreography.

"You know what the difference between us is, Giovanna?"

The figure she revealed made my brow tighten.

"Your body? Let's see how long that lasts after you're done breastfeeding."

"Oh, I won't be breastfeeding. You think these are natural? Why would I ruin them? You know what Tomasso told me?" She tilted her chin up, the hospital light catching her collarbone like she was posing for a painting. "He said you're boring. No fun at all. And your body doesn't compare to mine. I'm an E cup, sweetheart."

So even her chest was fake.

Tomasso really had no standards. The Don of the Rossetti Family, the man I had built from nothing, couldn't tell the difference between a woman who would die for him and one who was performing for his wallet.

"Are you done?"

"Not even close. I'm telling you to get lost. Stop standing between us, or I'll make your life a living hell. My husband is dead. I need a new one, and Tomasso is the man I picked. I'm never letting him go—"

Before she could finish, my hand was already in the air.

The slap cracked across her face.

The sound was clean. Final. It cut through the hum of the fluorescent light and the distant beeping of monitors and left a silence so absolute that the room seemed to hold its breath. My wedding band caught the light as my hand fell back to my side. I turned it once with my thumb. Twice.

Then I stopped.

"You hit me?!" She froze, one hand flying to her cheek. The red was already blooming across her skin, vivid against the white hospital sheets behind her. She lunged to hit me back, but I caught her arm and swung again.

"You—"

"Yeah, I hit you." My voice was steady. Not raised. Not shaking. Steady the way my father's voice was steady when he passed judgment in his study, the way Valente women have always sounded when they've stopped asking and started telling. "That first one was for being shameless enough to seduce another woman's husband."

A second slap landed clean. Her head snapped to the side. The room was so quiet I could hear the bodyguard outside shift his weight again, uncertain, listening.

"That one's for climbing into a married man's bed when your own husband hasn't been dead five months and you were nine months pregnant. Fausto took a bullet for Tomasso, and this is how you honor his memory."

Then a third.

The sound of it hung in the air like the last note of a bell.

"And that's for destroying a family and not feeling an ounce of remorse."

Three slaps. She stood there, stunned stupid. Her cheek was scarlet and swelling. Her hospital gown hung open. The provocation was gone from her face, replaced by something raw and animal, the look of a woman who had never been hit back before.

The silence settled over us like dust after a detonation.

Then she screamed, clawing her way off the bed. "Giovanna, I'll kill you!"

She shoved me hard. I hit the ground, and a sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen. Not a bruise. Not a cramp. Something deeper. Something wrong. Dread flooded through me instantly, cold and total, like ice water poured into my chest. I gritted my teeth and dragged myself up, bracing against the wall to stay on my feet. My hand pressed against my stomach. My fingers were shaking.

She swung at me, her palm connecting with my face. "You hit me? You think I'm someone you can push around? Those three slaps? I'm paying them back double!"

She raised her hand for a second strike, but footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Multiple sets. Heavy. The sound of men returning.

Her arm froze mid-swing.

The rage vanished from her face so fast it was like watching someone change channels. In one fluid motion, she snatched the baby from the bassinet, dropped him onto the floor from a low height, then threw herself down beside him, curling over the infant and wailing as if the world were ending.

The transformation took less than three seconds. From fury to theater. From predator to victim. She tucked her hair behind her left ear with a trembling hand and screamed louder, the sound pitched to carry through the door and down the corridor to where Tomasso's footsteps were getting closer.

The baby's screams tangled with hers, filling the room.

I stood there clutching my stomach, my body locked in place. The pain in my abdomen pulsed in time with my heartbeat, but I couldn't move. I couldn't process what I'd just witnessed.

Catarina had hurt her own child.

He'd just been born. Hours old. Still wrinkled and red and smelling of new life. And she'd thrown him on the ground without a second thought, the way a soldier discards a spent cartridge. Not out of madness. Not out of desperation. Out of calculation. Because the footsteps were coming, and she needed a story, and her own newborn son was nothing more than a prop in the performance.

I stood against the wall with my hand pressed to my stomach, and I understood, with a clarity that cut through the pain like a blade, exactly what kind of woman had moved into my home.

"I'm sorry, Giovanna. I was wrong. I wouldn't dare dream of marrying Tomasso anymore. I'll take the baby and go far away. Please, I'm begging you, just stop hurting us, okay?"

"What are you doing? Putting on another act?"

The pain in my abdomen was getting worse. A dark premonition crept through me, cold and certain, the way you feel the air change before a storm rolls in off the harbor. Terrified that something was actually happening to my baby, I moved toward the door to find a doctor, but it swung open before I could reach it.

A crowd stood in the doorway. Soldiers. Associates. The inner circle of the Rossetti household, still dressed in the dark suits they wore to every formal occasion, still carrying themselves with the quiet vigilance of men who lived inside a world where doorways were always dangerous. And at the front, Tomasso.

The moment he saw Catarina and the baby on the floor, the infant screaming in raw, bloodcurdling wails that bounced off the sterile hospital walls and filled the corridor beyond, the color drained from his face. He dropped the bowl of porridge in his hands without a second thought. The ceramic shattered against the tile, and not a single man behind him flinched. He rushed over and scooped the baby up, cradling the child against his chest with hands that had broken bones and signed death warrants and never once trembled the way they trembled now.

"What happened? We were gone ten minutes. What the hell happened?"

"Tomasso..."

Catarina lifted her face. The handprints across her cheek were vivid and unmistakable. Three of them, layered, the kind of marks that told a story all on their own.

She was trembling, tears streaming down her face. She tucked her hair behind her left ear with a slow, deliberate motion, and when she spoke, her voice cracked in exactly the right places. "It's my fault. I never should have come to you for help. If I weren't so afraid my baby would grow up without a father, I'd never have degraded myself like this!" She turned her wet eyes toward the men gathered in the doorway, making sure every one of them could see. "Donna Rossetti, if you didn't want me and Tomasso to register the marriage and bring the baby into the Family name, then why did you pretend to agree and then turn around and try to force us out? Hitting me was one thing. But throwing a newborn on the floor?"

Her shrill sobs and accusations sent a chill through the room. The silence that followed was the particular silence of made men recalculating. I could feel it. The shift. The weight of judgment settling onto me like a physical thing, pressing the air from my lungs.

Everyone turned to look at me. "Giovanna, you..."

"Giovanna!"

Tomasso walked toward me with the baby in his arms and slapped me across the face.

The blow sent my vision black. I nearly passed out. The sound of it was worse than the pain. A sharp, flat crack that echoed in the small room, and behind it the absolute stillness of men who had watched their Don strike his wife and understood that no one was permitted to react.

I was already unsteady on my feet. My body crumpled and I hit the floor. My knees struck the cold tile first, then my palms, and the shock of it traveled up through my wrists and into my shoulders. The fluorescent light above me buzzed. Someone's shoe leather creaked. No one moved to help me.

The pain in my abdomen sharpened. I pressed both hands against my stomach, hard, while cold sweat beaded across my forehead and rolled down my temples. The room tilted. I could hear the baby crying, could hear Catarina's practiced sobbing, could hear the low murmur of the men by the door. All of it reached me as if through water.

"I thought you were actually being generous when you agreed to the divorce! How can you be this two-faced? The baby is so small. He isn't even a day old, and you threw him on the ground!" His voice was a blade, each word precise and final, the voice of a Don delivering a sentence. "You're going to be a mother yourself. Aren't you afraid your own child will pay for what you've done?"

My cheek burned. I turned my head slowly and saw the hatred carved into his face. I could barely process what I'd just heard.

For the sake of Catarina's child, he had cursed ours.

The man I had loved for seven years. The man whose syndicate I had built from nothing, whose alliances I had secured with my own blood name, whose enemies I had kept at bay by being a Valente. He stood over me on that hospital floor with another woman's child in his arms and cursed the baby growing inside me.

"Yeah, Giovanna, how could you do that? She just gave birth. You shouldn't have hit her!" One of the soldiers' wives, someone who had eaten at my table, who had kissed my cheek at Sunday dinner.

"No wonder the Don says he's more comfortable with Catarina. Giovanna's temper is way too much." Another voice. Quiet, but not quiet enough.

They all talked over each other, a chorus of noise that split my skull open. My breathing turned shallow and ragged. The room pressed in. Every face was turned away from me or turned against me, and I understood, in that moment, how completely Catarina had constructed this. She had given them exactly the story they wanted. The jealous wife. The innocent widow. The helpless child.

I pressed my hands harder against my stomach and forced myself to speak.

"Enough! All of you, shut up!" My voice tore out of me with a force that startled even me. I saw two of the soldiers step back. "'Giovanna' and 'Catarina'? Do none of you have any sense of right and wrong? This isn't the old country. A man doesn't get to keep a wife and a mistress under the same roof and call it honor! Tomasso cheated. That's on him! And even if I did hit Catarina, she had it coming!"

My outburst stunned the room into silence. Real silence. The kind where men stop breathing because they are not sure what happens next.

"Tomasso was only kind to me and the baby because of my late husband!" Catarina sobbed, crawling to Tomasso's legs. She pressed her face against his knee, and the gesture was so perfectly calibrated, so precisely the image of a grieving widow seeking protection from her fallen husband's blood-brother, that I almost admired it. Almost. "The baby fell from a height. I don't even know if he'll survive. Tomasso, please, don't waste any more time. Call a doctor!"

"Don't be scared. I won't let anything happen to him." His voice dropped low, tender, a register I hadn't heard him use with me in years. He cradled the child closer.

Tomasso turned to leave with the baby in his arms.

And in that moment, I felt something warm and wet sliding down between my legs.

The sensation froze me with terror. Everything else disappeared. The voices, the faces, the fluorescent hum, the smell of antiseptic and spilled porridge. All of it fell away, and there was only the warmth spreading beneath me and the cold that followed it, a cold that started in my chest and moved outward until my fingers went numb.

I looked down. A shock of red was spreading beneath me. Bright against the white tile. Impossible to mistake for anything else.

"Tomasso, my baby... our baby!"

He didn't turn around. He didn't even slow down. His soldiers parted for him in the doorway, and not one of them looked back at me on the floor.

"Giovanna, I've never been more disappointed in you. Get yourself home. I'll be staying at the hospital with Catarina and the baby for the next few days." He paused in the doorway. The light from the corridor caught the edge of his jaw, and I could see the muscle there working, tightening. "And you'd better pray her child is all right. Because if he's not, I won't let you off."

Every last one of them followed him out the door. The room emptied the way rooms empty after a Don has spoken. Completely. Without hesitation. Without a single backward glance.

I stayed on the floor. The blood kept spreading. The fluorescent light kept buzzing. Somewhere down the hall, I could hear Catarina's voice rising in fresh sobs, and the low reassuring murmur of Tomasso answering her, and the quick footsteps of a doctor being summoned.

No one summoned a doctor for me.

I pressed my hands against my stomach and held on to what I was losing, and the tile beneath me grew warm and then cool and then warm again, and I understood, with a clarity that cut through everything else, that I was alone. That I had been alone for a very long time. That the name Valente, which had protected everyone in this building, could not protect the one thing I needed it to protect most.