I returned to the capital with Donna Vittoria after months at the ancestral estate in Palermo.

My car was stopped halfway to the compound by a delicate-looking woman with a swollen belly.

"I beg the Don's wife to grant me and my child a place inside the Family. I ask for no title, but the baby in my womb is the heir's own flesh and blood. He cannot be left out in the cold."

The Acting Underboss of the Moretti Family had been married three years without producing an heir of his own. And now, out of nowhere, someone claimed to be carrying his child.

The woman trembled as though she might collapse at any moment, the very picture of helplessness.

"The heir is away from the city. If his wife mistreats us, if she lets his own flesh and blood be cast aside, does she not fear he'll come home and dissolve the marriage?"

Dissolve the marriage? This woman was clever, I'd give her that. But she'd gotten one thing wrong.

I was not someone the Acting Underboss of the Moretti Family could cast aside.

——

"Please, I beg the Don's wife to show mercy. Save me."

My car had been stopped in the middle of the road. The woman's wailing outside shattered the quiet rest I'd been trying to take.

I had just returned to the city with Donna Vittoria from our months in Palermo. I'd left her residence and was heading back to the Moretti compound when, right at the gates, a woman's sobbing brought my armored sedan to a halt.

She had a coquettish face, dressed plainly, with only a thin silver chain at her throat and a belly round and heavy with child. Tears glistened in her eyes as she stared at the tinted windows, looking so pitiful that people on the sidewalk had already stopped to gawk. Two of our soldiers flanked the car but hadn't moved her. They wouldn't touch a pregnant woman without my word.

Through the window, she watched me sit motionless inside and dropped to her knees on the pavement, pressing her forehead to the ground. "My lady, please. Give Gianna Valenti a place to belong."

"The child I carry is the heir's flesh and blood. I am alone in this world. I need no title for myself, but the baby in my womb is the heir's only child. He cannot go unrecognized."

"My lady has been married to the heir for years without bearing a child. Surely you would not stand by and watch the Moretti bloodline die out? I beg you, show mercy."

"The doctor said I'm carrying a boy. If I'm allowed into the household, once the child is born, he can be registered under your name. He'll call you Mother."

"I want nothing for myself. But as a mother, I have to fight for my child."

"The heir's wife has never borne a child, so naturally she wouldn't understand a mother's heart."

I watched the tears stream down her face, but there it was, that faint glint of triumph in her eyes. How quaint. These little tricks.

My thumb found the underside of my wedding band and pressed. One slow turn.

"If you truly wanted nothing, why make such a spectacle of stopping my car in the middle of the street?"

"If you wanted a title, you could have come to the compound and discussed it properly. There are ways. So why drag this out for the whole neighborhood to see?"

"You're using that child in your belly as leverage to force me into letting you through those gates. Isn't that right?"

The woman called Gianna shook her head frantically, both hands cradling her belly. "No, my lady, Gianna knows nothing of such things. It was the heir who looked after Gianna all along."

"Before he left the city, the heir promised he would give Gianna a proper place when he returned. But the date has passed and he hasn't come back. My time is nearly here, and I'm terrified."

"I beg the heir's wife to be generous. Give this child a birthright."

"The baby I carry is the heir's firstborn son. He cannot be left outside the Moretti household."

"Unless my lady, unable to bear children herself, refuses to let any other woman give the heir a son. Do you mean to let the Moretti line end?"

Her words set the crowd of onlookers buzzing. Beyond the compound gates, I could see two more soldiers watching from the guardhouse, hands at their sides, waiting.

"Well, it's true. The heir's been married for years and there's still no child. That wife of his, not so much as a whisper of a pregnancy."

"You can't just let the Moretti name die out."

"I heard the heir's wife hasn't even arranged another woman for him. Jealous type, if you ask me."

"A woman ought to know her place. With jealousy like that, how can she run a household like theirs? Look at this poor girl, she's about ready to give birth."

Gianna dabbed at her tears, stealing a glance toward the armored sedan from the corner of her eye.

Nana Agata, the old nursemaid at her side, stepped forward. Her rosary beads clicked once against each other as her fingers tightened around them, and then she let them fall against her chest. "Mrs. Enzo Moretti, bearing children for your husband is a wife's most basic duty. You can't conceive yourself, haven't produced a single child in years, and now our mistress carries the heir's flesh and blood. You ought to be down on your knees in gratitude, welcoming her through those gates with full ceremony."

"She's delicate. The young master never lets anyone cause our mistress the slightest distress. You stand there ignoring her, leaving her to kneel on the pavement outside the compound. If something happens to the baby because of you, can you bear that responsibility?"

Whispers rippled through the gathered crowd along the iron gates. I signaled Rosa to draw back the tinted window, then fixed a cold stare on the beautiful woman kneeling on the asphalt below. "How far along are you?"

Gianna answered with a demure blush. "This humble woman was taken in by the heir nine months ago. The child in my womb is eight months along."

I looked at her with undisguised contempt. "So for nine months, the heir hasn't brought you inside the compound. Why is that? Is your background too shameful to speak of? Or is the child not his?"

"If he truly treasured you, why would he keep you hidden away as a secret mistress?"

The crowd murmured in agreement. It was a fair point. If a man truly cherished a woman, he would have brought her home to the Family and given her a proper place long ago. Why wait until she was nearly due?

Gianna's eyes brimmed over, and she wept aloud. "Only because Gianna had to observe three years of mourning for her late father and could not marry during that time. That is the only reason it has been delayed. Gianna's virtue is beyond reproach. I am not that kind of woman."

"Why must you humiliate me, my lady? Is it simply because I come from a poor family that I must be a woman of loose morals? What do you take ordinary women like us for?"

"She's right. This is too much."

"Just because she's the heir's wife, she thinks she can look down on everyone?"

"So high and mighty, and she can't even give him a son. The heir ought to dissolve the marriage and be done with it."

The crowd's mood shifted, fed by Gianna's words, turning hostile toward me. People always resented the powerful. Now that someone had made this about Family wealth versus the common street, they were all too eager to see the privileged brought low.

Gianna wiped her tears again and spoke. "Now that the three years of mourning are complete, Gianna finally dares to come before my lady and beg entry into the household. The heir's firstborn son cannot be born outside these walls. If he were, the child's legitimacy would forever be questioned. Surely that would only invite ridicule."

Heads nodded throughout the crowd.

Rosa looked ready to breathe fire. "What a shameless little fox! My lady, say the word and I'll drag her out of here. She can't even find the right house to grovel at, and here she is running her filthy mouth." Her right hand had already drifted to her hip, fingers pressing against the shape beneath her coat.

I motioned for Rosa to pull the window shade aside fully. My face, half-veiled behind gauze, appeared before the onlookers.

I stepped down from the sedan, slow and deliberate, and came to a stop before her on the compound's flagstone drive. Nana Agata took one look at the veil covering my face and let a sneer curl across her lips. "So that's why the lady of the house won't let our mistress through the door. Afraid that once a younger beauty moves in, she'll steal whatever affection the heir has left for you."

"You are a few years older than our mistress, after all. Men prefer a pretty young thing in their bed. That's just the way of the world. Every household has its share of wives and women on the side. Why cling so stubbornly to something you've already lost?"

Gianna shuffled forward on her knees until she was right at my feet. She tilted her face upward, lovely as carved jade, and gazed at me. "I beg my lady's mercy."

The moment the words left her lips, she tugged the hem of my skirt from an angle no one else could see, then threw herself backward. Her hands flew to her stomach and she screamed, "My lady, please, spare my child! Don't kick my stomach!"

Agony twisted her features. She crumpled to the ground, both hands pressed tight over her belly, tears streaming down her face.

Nana Agata shrieked. "Mistress! What happened to you?!" The rosary beads rattled against her collarbone as she lurched forward.

Then she whipped around and glared at me, eyes blazing. "Even if you are the heir's wife, that gives you no right to lay hands on a person! She's about to give birth! You strike now, and you'll be killing two lives. Is that what you want?!"

"The heir isn't in the city. You think you can pull this kind of stunt and walk away clean? You don't think he'll come back and settle the score?"

Settle the score with me? If he didn't come looking for me first, I'd be looking for him. Keeping a secret mistress. Dragging the Moretti name through the gutter. The acting underboss of the Moretti Family, stooping to something this disgraceful.

Rosa charged forward and slapped Nana Agata clean across the face. The crack rang out sharp and loud, cutting through the murmur of the crowd like a gunshot. "Insolent old hag! How dare you speak to my lady that way. How dare you slander her."

Nana Agata shrieked, one hand flying to the rosary at her neck, the beads clicking together as her fingers closed around them. "You dare strike me? Mistress, you must stand up for this old servant! Have the heir throw this vicious woman out!"

"Otherwise, once you enter the household, who knows what torments she'll put you through."

I let out a cold laugh. "Have the heir cast me out? My status is not something the heir has the authority to revoke."

My thumb pressed against the underside of my wedding band and turned it once. Slow. Deliberate. Because this girl and her nursemaid had no idea what they were playing at.

Gianna bit her lip and stared at me. "If my lady wishes to beat or kill someone, direct it at me. Why strike my nursemaid? Are you truly not afraid the heir will punish you when he returns?"

"Cruel as you are, the marriage may have been brokered by the Commission itself, but if you harm the heir's child, he can still dissolve the alliance all the same."

I smiled. "Miss Valenti puts on quite the performance. Perhaps she should take it to the Southside dinner theater."

"If the heir wants to champion your cause, by all means, send him to me. I won't run from it."

The crowd of onlookers grew indignant. "You've gone too far! Just because her station is lower than yours, she deserves to be humiliated?"

"Exactly! She's seven or eight months along, about to give birth. A kick like that could kill her!"

"She knows the Commission's ruling protects her from being cast aside, so she acts without fear."

Gianna straightened up, trembling, both hands pressing over her pregnant belly as though it were the only thing keeping her upright. She looked at me through her tears. "I know my station is lowly. I came specifically to beg my lady's mercy. I never imagined she would try to end my life."

"The heir told me that while he was away from the city, no matter what I had to do, I was to protect myself at all costs. Even if it meant overstepping."

"Since that's how it is, my lady, don't blame me."

Gianna rose to her feet with Nana Agata's help and shouted, "Guards!"

Several armed soldiers emerged from behind her. They moved the way Moretti men moved, hands already positioned near their waistbands, shoulders squared, faces emptied of anything resembling hesitation. Gianna pointed at me. "Bind her. I want to see whether the heir, once he learns his own wife tried to murder his child, will dissolve the marriage or not."

I jabbed a finger at my own chest. "Dissolve the marriage? Does the heir have the nerve? Tell him to try."

The lead soldier approached with a stony face. "My lady, why must you bully a helpless woman?"

"The heir gave orders. No one, not even his wife, is to mistreat his woman. Forgive the offense."

He moved to seize me.

Rosa threw herself in front of me, her right hand dropping to her hip where the folding knife sat beneath her coat. "You wouldn't dare! Do you have any idea who my lady is?"

The soldier shoved Rosa aside. She hit the cobblestones hard but was already scrambling back up. "Doesn't matter who she is. She's wronged the heir's woman, and she'll kneel and apologize for it."

Nana Agata clutched her swollen, reddened cheek and screeched, "Guard! This vicious woman can't bear children yet still clings to the position of the Don's wife, tormenting our mistress!"

"Once the mistress delivers the heir's firstborn son, she'll surely be elevated. Then it's the mistress who'll be the true lady of the house!"

"A barren woman like her should be thrown out of the compound. Go on, hit her! The mistress will answer for it."

Gianna spoke in that soft, fragile voice of hers. "My lady, even someone as high and mighty as you must own up to her wrongs. Just apologize to Nana, and we can put this behind us."

I let out a cold laugh. "Apologize to her? You think either of you are worthy of that?"

Gianna sighed. "If that's how you want it, I can't help you." She shot Nana Agata a look. The old woman's fingers released the rosary. She lunged forward and struck me hard across the face.

"Forgive me, my lady. This old servant is petty by nature. You don't beat the dog without checking who its master is. Since you hit me first, it's only fair I return the favor."