The heavy iron door of the basement groaned open.

I was shivering on the bare concrete, clutching my bleeding stomach. The damp air clung to my skin like ice, making my teeth chatter.

Raphael stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at me like I was a rat that had infested his beautiful mansion.

“You will stay down here until the baby is born,” he said. His voice was flat. Empty.

I stared up at him, my vision swimming with tears and pain. “What? Raphael... it’s freezing down here. I’m sick and pregnant.”

“Which is exactly why you’re staying down here,” he replied, stepping down one concrete stair. “You look like death, Elena. Your sickness, your constant crying... it’s stressing Beatrice. I won’t have her or my true heir put at risk because of your dramatics.”

My chest caved in. “Why are you doing this? I am your wife! This is your baby!”

Raphael stopped. His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

“I’m not sure about that anymore.”

The words hung in the damp air.

“What does that even mean?” I choked out, trying to push myself up, but my arms gave out.

He reached into his tailored suit jacket and pulled out a stack of glossy photographs. He threw them. They fluttered down the stairs, landing in the dirt around me.

I looked down.

It was me and Harold. My best friend. The only person who had ever treated me like a human being in this mafia cage. Photos of him holding my arm when I was dizzy. Photos of him putting me in his car when I was bleeding to death yesterday because my own husband wouldn't look away from his mistress.

“You’re always with him,” Raphael sneered, his eyes dark with a twisted, hypocritical possessiveness. “He was the one who rushed you to the hospital. He’s the one who held your hand. For all I know, that bastard growing inside you is his.”

“Are you insane?!” I screamed, my voice tearing my throat raw. “I have never touched another man! This is yours! He is yours!”

Raphael didn't even blink.

“If he’s Harold’s, he dies the moment he takes his first breath. If he’s mine... I’ll take him and raise him with Beatrice. Either way, you are nothing to me now.”

He turned his back.

“Raphael, please!”

The heavy iron door slammed shut.

The lock clicked.

Total darkness.

I was left alone on the freezing floor. The cold seeped into my bones, but it was nothing compared to the ice in my heart.

I curled into a ball, wrapping my trembling arms around my swollen belly. My tears soaked the concrete.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the dark. “I’m so sorry.”

A weak flutter answered me from inside. My baby. Still fighting. Still alive.

“I promise you,” I sobbed, rocking back and forth. “We will leave here. I will not let them take you. I will not let anything happen to you.”

Then, the pain hit.

A sharp, blinding agony ripped through my womb. The cancer. The stress. The bleeding. It was all too much.

My breath hitched. The darkness closed in completely, and I fainted.

When I woke up, I wasn't on the concrete floor anymore.

The blinding glare of surgical lights burned my eyes. The smell of bleach and iron filled my lungs.

I tried to move, but thick leather straps bound my wrists and ankles to a cold metal table.

Panic exploded in my chest. “Help!” I rasped. “Where am I?!”

“Keep her still,” a voice ordered.

I turned my head frantically. It was the syndicate’s underground clinic.

The doctor stood beside me, pulling on surgical gloves. Behind him, standing on the other side of the glass observation window, was Beatrice. She was smiling, sipping from a crystal glass.

“What are you doing?!” I screamed, thrashing against the restraints. “My baby! Don't touch my baby!”

The doctor picked up a scalpel. He didn't look me in the eye.

“The Boss gave the order, Donna Elena,” he said quietly. “He said the child is Harold's.”

My blood ran completely cold.

“No...” I breathed. “No, Raphael wouldn't—”

“He already signed the consent forms,” the doctor interrupted, his voice dead. “We are removing your womb today. I'm sorry, but your baby won't survive the procedure.”

My heart shattered into a million jagged pieces, piercing my lungs from the inside. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even scream.

The doctor held up a clipboard. At the bottom, in bold, black ink, was Raphael’s unmistakable signature. The exact same handwriting that had signed our marriage certificate.

The same hand that used to trace the curve of my stomach in the dead of night, whispering soft promises to our unborn child.

I looked through the glass window. Beatrice raised her crystal glass in a mocking toast, her red lips curling into a triumphant, venomous smile.

"Please," I sobbed, thrashing wildly against the thick leather straps. The metal buckles dug into my skin, drawing warm blood down my wrists, but I didn't care. "I'll sign the divorce papers! I'll leave the country! Just let me keep my baby! Please, he's innocent!"

A tiny, frantic kick fluttered against my ribs. My baby was fighting. He knew.

"Hold her down," the doctor ordered the nurses, his voice devoid of pity. "Administer the anesthesia."

A freezing liquid burned through the IV line in my hand. Panic clawed at my throat as the edges of my vision began to darken. The room spun into a sickening vortex of blinding white lights and Beatrice's laughing face.

"I'm sorry, little one," I wept, my voice fading into a weak, broken whisper. "I failed you."

The doctor raised the scalpel, the sharp silver blade gleaming mercilessly.

But just as the cold metal pressed against my bare stomach, a deafening gunshot shattered the clinic's silence.

Warm blood splattered across my cheek.

The doctor’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed dead onto the floor.

Through my fading, drug-heavy eyes, I heard Beatrice scream behind the glass. And then, the heavy steel doors were kicked completely off their hinges.

Before I could even process what was happening, the observation glass shattered. It exploded inward, raining down like jagged diamonds.

Beatrice shrieked, a high, piercing sound, as the shards tore into her arms and face. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing and clutching her bleeding cheeks.

Through the thick smoke, a shadow moved. A man in a dark suit. I couldn't see his face. He didn't speak. He just stepped up to the surgical table, took a combat knife, and sliced through the thick leather straps binding my wrists and ankles.

Then, he pointed to the open door and vanished into the chaos.

I didn't wait. I didn't look back at Beatrice crying on the floor.

I slid off the table, my legs buckling, but the pure, animal instinct to save my baby forced me upright. I stumbled through the smoke, up the hidden stairwell, and out into the freezing, pouring rain.

I ran until my lungs burned. Until my bare feet bled on the asphalt.

There was only one place I could go. One person in this entire rotten city who actually cared if I lived or died.

Harold. When he opened his apartment door, he took one look at my pale, blood-stained hospital gown and caught me before I hit the floor.

“Elena! My god, what did he do to you?”

He carried me to the guest room. He brought me warm blankets, water, and locked every door. For the first time in months, I closed my eyes and actually felt safe.

But the safety didn't last.

I woke up hours later to my phone vibrating violently on the nightstand.

99 missed calls.

All from Raphael.

My hands shook as I picked it up. Before I could even unlock the screen, another call came through. I answered it, pressing the phone to my ear.

“Where the fuck are you?!” Raphael’s roar rattled the speaker.

He didn't ask if I was okay. He didn't ask about the baby. He didn't ask about the surgery he had ordered to rip my child from my womb.

“You hurt her, Elena,” he snarled, his voice dripping with venom. “Beatrice needs stitches. She’s terrified. Who the hell shot up my clinic? Who helped you run? Was it Harold? Tell me right now!”

My chest hollowed out. I stared at the blank wall, feeling the last, pathetic thread of my love for him snap.

“I don't care, Raphael,” I whispered, my voice completely dead. “I don't care about her. And you don't care about me.”

“Don't play games with me! Tell me where you are!”

“Just divorce me,” I said flatly. “You have your heir. You have your mistress. Let me go.”

“Divorce?!” he screamed, the sound unhinged, possessive, and furious. “You don't get to leave me! You are my wife! Come back to the estate NOW!”

I pulled the phone away from my ear. I didn't even blink as I pressed the red button and powered the device off completely.

The room went silent.

I rested both hands on my stomach. A soft flutter answered my touch.

“We’re never going back there,” I whispered to the dark room, tears finally sliding down my cheeks. “I promise you. We’re going somewhere far away. Where he can never find us.”

I looked down at my hands. The massive, flawless diamond engagement ring still sat on my finger. Around my neck was the Costa Famiglia’s antique diamond necklace.

Millions of dollars sitting on my skin.

It was my ticket out. I would sell them tomorrow. I would buy fake passports. I would disappear.

But tomorrow brought a different kind of hell.

The bedroom door slammed open just as the sun rose.

I flinched, sitting up.

Harold stood in the doorway. He looked like a ghost. His hands were trembling, his face pale and slick with cold sweat. He wasn't looking at me with pity anymore. He was looking at me with pure terror.

“Harold? What’s wrong?” I asked, my heart dropping to my stomach.

“You need to leave,” he choked out, his voice cracking. “Elena, you have to leave right now. Or... or you have to go back to him.”

I froze. “What? Why? You said I was safe here.”

Harold let out a broken sob, running his hands through his hair. “I shouldn't have taken you in. I'm so sorry, Elena. I'm so fucking sorry.”

“Harold, what did he do?” I begged, throwing the blankets off.

“He’s ruining my business,” Harold wept, refusing to meet my eyes. “His men burned down my two main warehouses an hour ago. And... and he has my parents, Elena. He has my little sister.”

The air vanished from the room.

“Raphael called me,” Harold whispered, tears spilling down his face. “He said if you don't walk through the front gates of the Costa estate by noon... he’s going to kill my entire family.”

I didn't fight. I didn't scream.

I walked through the towering iron gates of the Costa estate at exactly 11:55 AM. The guards at the entrance didn't bow their heads in respect like they used to. They smirked. One of them spat on the gravel near my bare feet.

I was wearing one of Harold’s oversized coats over my blood-stained hospital gown. I looked like a ghost. I felt like one, too.

The heavy mahogany doors of the mansion swung open before I even reached the steps.

Raphael stood in the foyer. He wasn't relieved to see me alive. He didn't look at my pale face or my trembling hands. His dark eyes were pure, unadulterated ice.

Before I could even open my mouth to ask about Harold’s family, Raphael closed the distance between us. His hand shot out, wrapping around my throat.

He didn't squeeze hard enough to kill me, but hard enough to steal my breath. He shoved me backward until my spine slammed against the marble wall.

"You stupid, selfish bitch," he hissed, his face inches from mine. "Did you really think you could embarrass me? Did you think you could run?"

"Harold's... family..." I choked out, clawing at his iron grip.

"They live. For now," Raphael sneered, dropping his hand. I collapsed to the cold floor, gasping for air, clutching my stomach. "But you? You are going to pay for what you did."

He grabbed me by the hair, dragging me up, and forced me into the grand living room.

Beatrice was lying on the velvet sofa. Her face was bandaged where the glass from the clinic had cut her. But it wasn't the cuts that made the room feel like a graveyard.

It was the silence.

Beatrice was sobbing hysterically, clutching her flat stomach.

"Look at her," Raphael barked, throwing me onto the rug at Beatrice's feet. My knees hit the floor hard. "Look at what your little escape stunt cost us."

I looked up, trembling.

"The shock," Beatrice wailed, her voice shrill and venomous. "The explosion at the clinic... the stress of you running away! I lost my baby, Elena! I lost Raphael's true heir because of you!"

The room stopped spinning. Everything went dead still.

She miscarried.

A tiny, pathetic part of my broken heart expected Raphael to realize the truth now. To realize that the only child he had left was the one growing inside me. To finally protect us.

Instead, Raphael knelt beside Beatrice, kissing her bandaged forehead. Then, he turned to me, his eyes burning with a hatred so deep it paralyzed me.

"You took my child," Raphael said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "So now, you owe us one."

My blood ran completely cold. "What?"

"You heard me," he said, standing up and looming over me like a god of death. "You are going to stay locked in the east wing. You will eat what we tell you to eat. You will take the vitamins we give you. And the moment that bastard child is born... it belongs to Beatrice."

"No," I gasped, scrambling backward on the rug. "No! He's mine! You can't do this!"

"I can do whatever the fuck I want," Raphael snapped. "Beatrice will raise the child as her own. And you? Once the baby is out, I don't care if your cancer rots you from the inside out. You will be dead to this Famiglia."

Beatrice sniffled, looking down at me with a twisted, victorious gleam in her tear-filled eyes. "Give me the necklace, Elena."

I froze.

"The Costa diamond," Beatrice demanded, sitting up slightly. "It belongs to the mother of the Don's heir. That's me now. Take it off."

I looked at Raphael, begging him with my eyes. Pleading for just one ounce of mercy. One shred of the man I thought I married.

He just held out his hand. "Give it to her. Now."

My hands shook violently as I reached behind my neck. I unclasped the heavy diamond heirloom—the necklace he had pinned on me under the moonlight, promising me forever.

I dropped it into his palm.

Raphael didn't even look at me. He turned and fastened it around Beatrice's neck. It sparkled against her skin, a glittering monument to my destroyed life.

"Guards," Raphael commanded without looking back. "Take the incubator to the east wing. Lock the doors. Board the windows."

Two massive men grabbed my arms, hauling me off the floor. I didn't fight them. My soul had already left my body. I was just an empty shell, a walking coffin for my own baby.

They dragged me down the long, dark hallway and threw me into a cold, barren room. The heavy door slammed shut. The deadbolt clicked.

I crawled to the corner of the room, curling my body around my stomach. I had traded my life for Harold's family, and now, my baby was going to be raised by the monsters who killed me.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the darkness to take me.

But then, a soft buzz vibrated against my thigh.

I froze. They had taken my coat, but they hadn't checked the hidden pocket of my hospital gown.

I pulled out the burner phone Harold had slipped me before I left his apartment.

The screen lit up the dark room. One new message.

Unknown Number: I didn't cut your restraints at the clinic just to watch you walk back into your own grave. Look out the window.

My breath hitched. The phone nearly slipped from my numb fingers.

My trembling legs barely supported me as I dragged myself off the cold floor. I stumbled toward the only window in the room, my hands gripping the thick iron bars Raphael had installed to keep me caged.

There, standing just beyond the estate's heavily guarded perimeter, at the edge of the dark tree line, was the silhouette of a tall man in a dark suit.

Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating his face for a fraction of a second.

He was holding a phone to his ear, and his piercing, dangerous eyes were looking right up at my window.

The burner phone in my hand vibrated again.

Unknown Number: Are you ready to burn his world down, Elena? Or do you want to die in that room?