The warm, milky scent of the baby hit me, and my whole body went rigid.

But a second later, the child slipped from my arms and hit the floor hard, letting out a piercing wail.

Through the shrill crying, Dante burst into the room and shoved me aside.

I stumbled backward and watched him scoop up the baby, cradling it against his chest. He looked at me with an expression so layered it said everything his mouth didn't.

Serafina was crying beside him. "Mr. Vitale, I just wanted to let your wife hold the baby. I had no idea she would..."

Dante's voice was ice. "Rowan, Serafina is being discharged tomorrow. Since you clearly can't tolerate the children, go stay at the Westhill compound for now..."

I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted blood before I finally let go. I hadn't brought much when I left for the retreat, and packing up now was even simpler. One suitcase held everything I owned.

I sat in the empty compound, alone from nightfall until dawn. The security detail outside rotated shifts twice. I heard their boots on the gravel each time, but none of them knocked.

Maybe it was better this way. At least I wouldn't have to watch the four of them playing happy family.

The memories came flooding back.

Dante and I were promised to each other young, matched by our fathers before either of us understood what the Families expected. Married eight years. The union everyone in the five families pointed to as proof that alliances could hold.

Then came the night a rival outfit drugged him at a sit-down, and he slept with a college girl. He called me the moment he came to his senses, his voice shaking. "Rowan, I was set up! I already paid her off. She'll never show up again!"

I believed him.

But it wasn't long before the woman, Serafina Conti, appeared again. Her parents had died in an accident, and she tracked Dante down while he was drunk after a family dinner with the capos. That was the second time. The first could be called an accident. But the second?

Later, Dante was caught in a warehouse collapse during a supply run down south. It was Serafina, pregnant, who pulled him from the wreckage with her bare hands.

A life debt on top of the baby in her belly. After that, Dante could never shake her loose.

He knelt before me, sobbing. I laid out my terms.

"Dante, either we divorce."

"Or you get rid of her."

"I'm not divorcing you!" Dante grabbed me, his eyes bloodshot. "But I have to take responsibility for her..."

He wouldn't agree to a dissolution, and he wouldn't let Serafina go.

So I was the one who left. I went to a retreat house up in the mountains to clear my mind. I stayed until Serafina gave birth, and then Salvatore and Carmela Vitale ordered me home.

I pulled out my phone and typed the message I should have sent a long time ago, the screen glowing in the dark.

"Let's get a divorce."

Less than ten minutes later, I heard the front door fly open.

Dante rushed in, sweat still beading on his forehead. "Rowan! I will not agree to a divorce!"

I sat still on the sofa and let out a quiet breath. "Just let it go, Dante. I'm tired."

"I told you she would never come between us!" His voice cracked with desperation.

That was when his phone rang.

Serafina's tearful voice spilled through the speaker. "Mr. Vitale! The baby was shaken up from the fall earlier and spiked a fever. The doctor says she might need to go to the ICU!"

Dante's expression changed instantly.

He looked at me, then at the phone, and finally forced the words out.

"Rowan, I... I need to go check on them..."

My thumb pressed hard into the inside of my wrist, holding everything behind my face. I watched his panicked silhouette disappear through the door, and a laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

This was my marriage. My alliance. Even my own divorce had to wait in line behind another woman and her children.

I felt the bitter curve of my own smile. "Go. The baby needs you."

He rushed out, and the draft he left behind brushed across my cheek, as if he had never been there at all.

I sat alone in the darkness, tears sliding down without a sound. Somewhere outside the compound wall, an engine turned over and gravel scattered as his car pulled away. Then nothing. Just the silence of a house that belonged to his family, not to me.

I knew he might never marry Serafina. But he would be called away like this, again and again.

Days like these, if I didn't divorce him, how much longer could I endure it? A lifetime?

The familiar cramping seized my stomach.

I opened my phone. On Serafina's social media, Dante was pictured keeping vigil beside the incubator day and night. The haggard face in those photos wore an expression I'd never once seen him wear for me.

I hired a consigliere from outside the Family to draft the separation papers, then went to the front office on Mulberry to submit my resignation from the legitimate operations.

The woman behind the desk stared at me, stunned. "Mrs. Vitale, does Don Dante know you're stepping away?"

I gave her a thin smile. "He doesn't have time for things like this right now." I saw the pity flash through her eyes. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

I went back to the villa. The Westhill compound. We'd stayed there a handful of times after the alliance was sealed.

While packing, I found a yellowed note tucked between our things. "Rowan, I don't know when you'll find this. I imagine by then we'll have a few kids running around. I love you so much. No matter what happens, don't ever leave me."

Tears hit the paper. A bolt of pain ripped through my stomach. My vision went black, and I collapsed.

When I came to, my phone was ringing, shrill and relentless.

"Rowan Bellandi!" Dante's voice roared through the receiver. He almost never used my full name. "What the hell do you want?!"

"Serafina's been walking on eggshells around you! How many times do I have to say it? She's not a threat to your position! Why would you send those vile messages? Why would you curse my children?!"

I let out a bitter laugh.

He didn't even ask whether I'd done it. He'd already convicted me.

"Are you finished?" I asked, my voice level.

He went silent for a few seconds. "The christening feast is next Sunday. You will be there. Stop being difficult, alright?"

"Fine."

I hung up and stared out at the night.

On the day of the christening, I showed up bare-faced.

Pitying glances followed me everywhere. Soldiers by the doors, capos' wives at the tables, even the servers. At the center of the room, Serafina stood in a red dress, leaning into Dante's side like the donna of the house.

Carmela urged me forward. "Go hold the baby."

Dante placed one of the children in my arms and lowered his voice. "Rowan, I'm willing to let the messages go. After today, I'll send Serafina abroad. Both children will be registered under your name. You can't have children of your own. Isn't this the best of both worlds?"

His voice was thick with pleading, and the pain in my chest cut deep. Years ago, the ambush in the mountains. I'd shielded him with my body, and the blast destroyed my uterus. He'd fought his parents over it, swore before the whole Family he'd never sire heirs in this lifetime.

Now, everything had changed.

Without warning, the baby in my arms convulsed, coughing violently, foam spilling from its mouth.

"What's wrong with the baby?!" someone screamed.

Serafina lunged at me, her voice piercing. "Mrs. Vitale! If you want to hurt someone, hurt me! Don't take it out on the baby!"

Crack. Salvatore's palm struck my face so hard my vision went black. I hit the ground. My cheek burned white-hot, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. The room went absolutely still. Not one soldier moved. Not one wife breathed.

Dante reached for me on instinct.

Then the baby let out a wail and vomited a mouthful of blood. The room erupted into chaos.

"Dante!" Serafina shrieked, throwing herself between us, forcing her way into the space where his hand held mine. "The baby's dying! Save our child!"

Dante's hand trembled.

I watched the concern in his eyes drain away, replaced by something else entirely. Slowly, so slowly, his fingers loosened around mine. He let go. He turned and gathered the bleeding child into his arms.

The corridor of the private clinic was bone-cold. I stood there like a ghost. The separation papers I'd been carrying slipped from my pocket and fell to the tile floor.

Carmela spotted them instantly. She bent down, snatched them up, and threw them back at me.

Disgust twisted her well-preserved face. "What has this Family ever denied you? Hm? Dante went against us for years because of you, and we put up with it! Now you're trying to hurt the children too?"

"If you want a divorce so badly, then hurry up and sign! Stop clinging on and refusing to leave!"

I bent down in silence and picked the papers off the floor.

Dante walked out of the ICU, his eyes bloodshot. "The baby pulled through."

He looked at me with eyes so distant they belonged to a stranger. "Rowan, you really crossed the line this time."

My hands were shaking as I held out the separation papers. "Let's… end this."

His pupils contracted. "You're sure?"

"I'm tired." I fought back tears. "I don't know what else I'll end up doing if…"

"Fine! Great!" He snatched the papers and scrawled his name across them, then hurled the pen to the floor. "There. You got what you wanted!"

The silver lighter was in his fist. I hadn't seen him draw it. He stood there with the pen rolling across the tile and the lighter sealed in his closed hand, and something behind his eyes looked like it was dying, but his jaw was set and his mouth said nothing else.

When I returned to the bedroom that had once been ours, Elena Conti rushed toward me in a panic. "Ma'am! What happened to—" She saw my swollen face and my rain-soaked clothes, and her voice broke.

I looked around the room. My piano was gone. Our wedding portrait had vanished. Even the little keepsakes I had treasured were nowhere to be found.

Elena wrung her hands, stammering. She rubbed the stitched seam of her apron between her fingers. "Miss Conti kept bumping into things during her pregnancy, so Mr. Vitale had them…"

The door opened.

Dante walked in with Serafina.

Serafina blinked in surprise. "Mrs. Vitale, what are you doing here?" Her tone made it sound like she was the one who belonged. Like this room inside the Vitale compound had always been hers, and I was the one trespassing.

"Where are my things?" My voice shook as I turned to Dante.

Dante let out a cold laugh and pulled Serafina closer to him. "You're the one filing for dissolution. Why do you care?"

Serafina reached for my hand with a look of practiced concern. "Mrs. Vitale, Mr. Vitale was just worried I'd bump into things while I was pregnant…"

"Don't touch me!" I yanked my hand away.

She let out a small cry and stumbled backward.

Dante caught her in an instant, his voice tight with worry. "Are you okay?"

I watched the two of them pressed together and turned on my heel.

Even when I heard Dante calling after me, I didn't look back.

I refused to let them see the tears streaming down my face.

Outside, rain came down in sheets. The compound gates stood open behind me and the soldier at the guardhouse didn't move to stop me, didn't offer a car, didn't even look up from his phone. I was already no one.

I didn't know how long I walked before a group of street soldiers cornered me in a dark alley. The neighborhood was border territory, the kind of block where the Vitale name carried no weight after dark and nobody asked questions in the morning.

"Mrs. Vitale, right? Somebody paid us to teach you a lesson." The one with the scar across his face leered as he closed in. "The Don's Sinclair-in-law really is a looker. Little flat up top, but that face more than makes up for it."

Instinct took over and I dialed Dante's number. On the other end, I heard his voice, soft and gentle. "Serafina, if your head hurts, just go to sleep."

"Dante! Help—"

"I don't want to talk to you right now." The line went dead. When I called back, the phone was off.

Cold rain mixed with tears ran into the corners of my mouth, salty and bitter. My thumb pressed hard into the inside of my wrist. The pulse beneath it was the only thing still answering.

"Nobody's coming for you, sweetheart. So be a good girl and have a little fun with us."

A filthy hand gripped my collar. Rough fingers scraped across my collarbone.

I squeezed my eyes shut and dug my nails deep into my palms.