Aria POV:

The mention of the pregnancy struck my chest with the force of a physical blow, a cold weight that settled deep in my veins.

Petra scrambled to her feet, feigning a frantic dash for the front door, crying out that she was going to end it all rather than ruin his life.

"No!" Silas yelled, his voice cracking with a panic I had not heard in years.

I stepped forward to block his path. I had to have him to look at me, needed him to explain the six years of hell he had put me through for this woman.

Silas didn't even hesitate.

He raised both hands and violently shoved me backward with a force that jarred my bones.

My heels caught on the edge of the Persian rug, and I went flying toward the massive stone fireplace.

I crashed onto the marble floor, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. My head whipped back, and the sharp, unforgiving stone edge of the fireplace hearth caught me just below the jawline.

A sharp, searing pain sliced across the side of my neck, and the air vanished from my lungs.

I gasped, bringing my hand to my skin, and my fingers came away covered in thick, warm blood.

I had narrowly missed the shattered glass of the ruined wedding portrait, but the jagged stone had done more than enough damage.

"You are toxic, Aria!" Silas shouted, standing over me without a single ounce of pity in his cold eyes. "Petra suffers from severe depression because of your constant shadow!"

My vision started to blur, the edges of the room turning dark as my blood pooled on the white marble.

"If anything happens to my new family," Silas warned, his voice dropping to a dangerous, guttural rumble that spoke of his Cosa Nostra origins, "I will enact a Vendetta on you that will make the last six years look like a joke."

I tried to speak, to tell him I was bleeding out on his floor, but my throat wouldn't work.

The last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me was Silas barking orders at Paulie.

"Dump her at a low-profile civilian clinic. Scrub this floor clean immediately-I don't want Petra distressed by the sight of blood."

I woke up to the acrid smell of cheap bleach and stale hospital food.

I was lying on a stiff cot in a crowded, noisy ward, a rough, scratchy bandage taped to my neck.

Two nurses were standing near the privacy curtain, speaking in hushed tones.

"Did you see the woman in the VIP wing?" one nurse whispered. "Her husband rented out the entire floor just because she had a mild panic attack."

"Yeah," the other replied. "Treating her like royalty. Meanwhile, the guys who dropped this one off didn't even leave a name for the billing."

I closed my eyes, a single tear slipping down my cheek and soaking into the thin, paper-like pillow.

He had treated his mistress like a queen, and discarded his bleeding wife like so much refuse.

The curtain was suddenly ripped open, the metal rings screeching against the rod.

Silas stormed into my ward with the fury of a cornered Capo.

His face was flushed red, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked near his ear.

"You broke Omerta," he hissed, leaning over my bed, his presence a suffocating weight.

I turned my head away, the movement pulling painfully at my stitches.

"I don't know what you are talking about," I rasped, my throat completely dry.

Silas shoved a phone directly into my face.

"Look at it!" he demanded.

The screen showed a viral social media post, exposing his faked mafia hit and labeling Petra as a homewrecking mistress.

The comment section was a warzone, tearing apart his pristine, legitimate business facade piece by piece.

"I didn't do this," I said, staring blankly at the glowing screen.

"You are a manipulative snake," Silas spat, pulling the phone back and glaring at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. "You always play the victim."

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a cruel, mocking whisper.

"You lost our baby six years ago because you were crazy and hysterical back then, just like you are now."

The room spun around me.

He was weaponizing the darkest, most agonizing memory of my life to protect the woman who had destroyed it.

I was suddenly back in that old apartment, opening the bedroom door to find him and Petra tangled in our sheets.

I remembered screaming, and I remembered Silas shoving me out of the way to protect her dignity over my safety.

I remembered falling down the stairs, the blinding, world-ending pain, and waking up to the doctor telling me my child was gone forever.

I stared at the man leaning over my hospital bed, his face twisted into a cruel sneer as he prepared his next threat, and saw, for the first time, the man he had always been.

Aria POV:

"Never speak of my dead child again," I commanded, my voice shaking with a fury that burned in my throat.

Silas simply smiled-a cold, calculated expression that belonged to the criminal underworld he claimed to have left behind.

"Then fix the mess you made online," he said, straightening his suit jacket. "Or maybe I should pay a visit to your adoptive mother."

My throat closed.

My mother was a fragile civilian woman who had scavenged the streets to feed me when I was a starving orphan.

She was currently lying in a different hospital across town, hooked up to an array of machines, desperately waiting for a heart transplant.

Silas had sworn on his life to protect her when he had first proposed to me.

"I know the underground broker handling her donor list," Silas continued casually, inspecting his fingernails. "It would be a shame if that heart accidentally went to a higher bidder."

"You wouldn't," I whispered, my chest tightening so hard my ribs ached with the pressure.

"Watch me," he replied, his eyes completely devoid of humanity.

I was cornered, suffocating under the weight of his extortion.

He held the only life that mattered to me in the palm of his hand.

"I'll do whatever you want," I choked out, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.

Silas snapped his fingers toward the doorway.

His consigliere stepped into the room, holding a printed script and a recording camera.

"Read it," Silas ordered, pointing at the paper.

I took the script, the paper feeling weightless in my hands, the typed words blurring before my eyes.

The consigliere pressed record, the red light blinking like a warning siren.

I looked into the lens, swallowing my pride, and began to speak.

"My name is Aria," I said, my voice monotonous and dead. "I have been suffering from severe psychotic delusions for the past six years. Silas's death was a hallucination created by my own mental illness. Petra is a good woman, and all the rumors online are false."

I finished reading and dropped the paper onto my lap, feeling entirely empty.

Silas nodded in approval, reaching into his inner pocket.

He pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and tossed the slip of paper onto my chest.

"One million dollars," Silas said. "Hush money. Transfer to another hospital immediately-I don't want you breathing the same air as Petra."

He turned and walked out, his consigliere following closely behind.

I sat alone in the quiet ward, staring at the check until the ink blurred through my tears.

I packed my few belongings, signing the discharge papers against medical advice.

As I walked out into the hospital corridor, my phone rang.

It was my boss from the legitimate accounting firm where I worked.

"Aria, we are terminating your contract effective immediately," my boss said, his tone entirely professional and cold. "We received a call from upper management. You are a liability."

Silas had used his legitimate empire to cut off my only source of income.

I hung up, leaning against the cold hospital wall for support.

I opened social media and saw my coerced confession trending at the top of every page.

The public was calling me a psycho, praising Silas for his patience, and clearing Petra's name entirely.

My phone buzzed again, this time with a text message from an unknown number.

It was a picture of Petra smiling in a luxurious hospital bed, holding a glass of sparkling water.

The text below it read: "You always were trash."

Before I could even process the message, the screen switched to an incoming call from my mother's hospital.

I answered it, my hand gripping the plastic phone case so hard my knuckles turned white.

"Aria," a nurse said, her voice frantic and loud over the background noise. "You need to get here right now. Your mother is crashing."