On the day of my engagement ceremony, my fiancé Marcus Castellano abandoned me for his adoptive sister.

My family and I faced humiliation before Chicago’s most ruthless crime lords.

Three years passed in silence.

Now he’s back, staring at my swollen belly with pure rage.

“Whose bastard are you carrying?”

I caress my belly, lips curving into a dangerous smile.

“Someone from the Castellano, of course.”

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1

Marcus Castellano stormed in, his face twisted with rage. He yanked me off the sofa.

“You shameless bitch! I walked out on you and our engagement three years ago with Sophia. Three whole years, and I haven’t set foot in the Castellano estate. How the hell could that baby be mine?”

I almost laughed. I’d never said the baby was his. The Castellano family had more than one man.

“Of course, this isn’t your child,” I said, my voice dripping with ice. “You’re not even worthy of shining his shoes.”

Sophia Vale’s face drained of color. She stared at me, completely shocked.

“Ravenna Delacroix, Don Salvatore let you stay at the estate even after Marcus broke off the engagement! You’re a Principessa! How could you be so shameless as to get pregnant with some other man’s bastard?”

I shot her a cold look. “You’re an orphan the Castellano family adopted, yet you had the nerve to seduce your own adoptive brother. If we’re talking about shameless, who could possibly top you two?”

Sophia immediately crumbled, playing the victim as she hid behind Marcus.

“Marcus, we’ve had only each other these past three years. But her? She not only cheated on you, but she’s carrying a bastard to steal everything that should be yours!”

That hit a nerve. Marcus’s anger finally boiled over. He swatted the wine glass from my hand, sending red liquid and shards of glass splashing all over me.

“You whore! You get yourself knocked up and then try to pin this filth on me and Sophia? Get the hell out of my house, now!” he roared.

Sharp slivers of glass bit into my skin, a constellation of tiny stings.

Three years ago, Marcus and Sophia had eloped, leaving me alone at our engagement ceremony. I became the laughingstock of Chicago’s high society.

In a fit of rage, I had announced right then and there that I would marry any Castellano man present. The one who stepped forward was his own uncle, Vincent Castellano. He married me that very day.

In Chicago, everyone knew Vincent as “The Wolf of Chicago,” a ruthless Capo. The moment I married him, everyone began to treat me with a newfound respect, laced with a healthy dose of fear.

And when I got pregnant, he worshipped me. No one was allowed within ten feet of me.

At night, the same hands that had taken lives would gently trace every inch of my skin. He’d whisper in his raspy voice that the baby and I were his only salvation.

If he knew what Marcus had just done to me, this place would turn into a slaughterhouse.

To avoid a bloodbath, and for the sake of the child in my belly, my voice was pure ice. “If you both get out now, I’ll pretend this never happened.”

But they weren’t having it. Sophia shrieked.

“See, Marcus? She’s guilty! She’s trying to use that bastard to steal the Don’s title from you!”

That was it. Marcus completely lost it. “So that’s your game! Not a chance in hell!”

I wrenched my arm free. “The day you two ran off, Don Salvatore removed you from the line of succession. From that moment on, you have had nothing to do with this family’s power.”

Sophia scoffed. “He was just angry. Marcus is the only direct grandson. Do you really think he’d lose everything forever?”

A smug look crept onto Marcus’s face. “Grandpa always said everything in this family would be mine.”

I cradled my stomach with one hand, my voice turning to frost. “Not anymore. The child in my belly is also a legitimate heir to the Castellano family.”

I thought I’d spelled it out for them.

But Marcus just glared, his eyes blazing. “You want to pass off that bastard as Castellano blood? I’ll teach you what happens when you betray me!”

He shoved me hard. I lost my balance, crashing into the sharp edge of the marble coffee table.

A wave of panic washed over me as I saw the twisted pleasure on their faces. I couldn’t let them hurt my baby.

I cried out desperately, “He’s not a bastard, he’s…”

Before I could finish, Marcus grabbed a bottle of whiskey and brutally shoved the neck of the bottle into my mouth.

Then he picked up a heavy ashtray and brought it down, again and again, on the fingers I used to shield myself.

“While Sophia and I were hiding for our lives these past three years, you were here, playing the part of the Madre with a bastard in your belly! I’m going to make you feel some real pain!” he snarled.

The harsh liquor made me choke and cough, while a searing pain shot through my fingers.

I kicked out, trying to fight back, but Sophia lunged forward, her diamond-encrusted ring raking across the back of my hand.

The agony was so intense I couldn’t even scream. I just trembled.

After he had his fill of humiliating me, Marcus spit on my face and stood up.

My eyes were glued to Sophia’s hand as her ring, glinting menacingly, moved toward my swollen belly.

Fear seized me. I grabbed her wrist with all my might, desperately trying to stop her.

Vincent had been gravely injured in a gang war years ago. His enemies had tortured him, leaving him sterile.

We had spent three years seeing the best doctors in the world before we were finally, miraculously, able to conceive this child.

Sophia looked down at me, a cold smile on her lips. “Ravenna, you look just like a bitch protecting her pup. Pathetic and cheap.”

Marcus frowned, his gaze fixed on my belly.

“If word gets out that I was cheated on, how can I ever be Don in this city? Sophia, do it. Let this bastard die before it’s even born.”

I shook my head wildly, blood and whiskey spilling from my lips. “The baby… the baby is Vincent’s…” I mumbled.

Marcus froze for a second, then let out a wild, unhinged laugh.

“Are you insane, Ravenna? Everyone in Chicago knows my uncle is a broken man. He can’t even touch a woman! The only one who can carry on the Castellano bloodline is me! That’s why Grandpa was in such a hurry for me to marry you and produce an heir!”

Sophia chimed in. “Marcus is the only heir. The Don only cut off his funds to force him to come home. Ravenna, you’re disgusting. You’ve been caught, and now you’re trying to drag Uncle Vincent into your mess?”

Marcus and Sophia had been cut off for three years. Don Salvatore was beyond disappointed; freezing their assets was his way of letting them fend for themselves.

But looking at them now, they were clearly not in their right minds. I didn't argue.

I just repeated myself. “I’m not lying. The baby is Vincent’s. If you don’t believe me, ask the Don.”

One hand protected my belly, while the other sneakily reached for the emergency alarm button on the wall.

If I could just press it, the estate’s Soldatos would storm in. My baby and I would be saved.

But just as my fingers brushed against the button, Marcus saw what I was doing. He grabbed a chair and smashed it over the alarm.

The red button shattered into pieces, and my heart sank with it.

He grabbed my chin. “My uncle has a temper. The entire Chicago outfit is terrified of him. If he finds out I can’t even control a cheating wife, he’ll think I’m a worthless piece of shit. I’ll never be his Consigliere. You’re trying to ruin me, aren’t you, Ravenna?”

I shook my head desperately. “No, the baby is…”

I never finished. Sophia’s diamond ring slashed viciously across my belly.

“Marcus, why waste your breath on her? Kill the baby, and then we’ll go to the Don and take the credit.”

A sharp, piercing pain shot through me. I could feel the baby lurch in terror inside me, and a new kind of fear, raw and absolute, consumed me.

I looked up at them, my voice a broken whisper. “Please… don’t hurt my baby…”

Sophia held up her phone, pointing the camera at me. “Get on your knees. Bark like a dog. Then tell me how cheap you are. Do that, and maybe I’ll spare your child.”

For my baby, I swallowed my pride. I turned and dropped to my knees.

I let out two shaky barks. “I’m… cheap.”

Sophia leaned down, a triumphant smirk on her face.

“Ravenna, do you remember when I knelt before you, begging you to give Marcus to me? Did you ever think you’d see this day?”

She had come to me back then, telling me she and Marcus were in love, asking me to call off the wedding.

But the marriage between a Castellano and a Delacroix was a union of two powerful families. My father had made it clear that if I backed out, he would snap my neck with his own hands. So I refused her.

I never imagined she would hold onto that grudge for so long.

But I had no strength left to argue about the past. I looked up at them and pleaded, “Please, call a doctor…”

Marcus brought his heel down hard on my back.

“Ravenna, you really are pathetic! You’d do anything for that bastard!”

I was slammed flat against the floor, my belly hitting the hard ground. He grabbed a silver candlestick from a nearby table and brought it crashing down on my belly.

“You said… you’d spare the baby…” I mumbled.

Sophia’s tone was casual. “I said I’d spare the child. Marcus didn’t.”

“You dare use that child and my name to claw your way into the Castellano family’s power. You think I’d let you off that easy? Dream on!” Marcus snarled.

Pain, sharp as lightning, ripped through me. Bright red blood began to run down my legs.

I could feel the baby inside me slowly stop moving. Despair flooded my heart, and the look I gave them was filled with a hatred as sharp as a blade.

“Marcus, Sophia, you will both burn in hell for this!” I screamed.

Sophia stood beside Marcus, her expression venomous.

“She’s still cursing us, Marcus. It looks like she hasn’t learned her lesson.”

Marcus let out a cold laugh. “We’ll see who goes to hell. Sophia, go get the cord from the curtains.”

She understood immediately, returning with the heavy, coarse rope.

I dragged my bloodied body backward, my eyes wide with terror. “What are you doing?”

Their twisted, gleeful faces were my only answer.

They tied my hands and feet together. Then they dragged me by the rope, all the way down to the estate’s cold, damp wine cellar.

They threw me onto the stone floor. Marcus picked up a bottle of aged red wine, ready to bring it down on my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the end as the shadow of death fell over me.

Just then, the heavy cellar door was kicked open with a thunderous bang.

Vincent rushed in, his gray eyes a raging storm. “Stop!” he roared.