That night, my father's absence turned the estate into a hollow cavern. The air sat still and cold, pressing against the walls.

By midnight, fever took hold of me. My skin burned to the touch.

My mother kept vigil at my bedside, pressing a damp cloth to my forehead while she dialed my father's burner again and again. Each call met the same dead void.

When dawn broke and the fever hadn't broken with it, she stopped waiting for the estate guards to stir. She hoisted me onto her back and marched into the biting morning air, carrying me to the Family-affiliated clinic downtown.

The hallway blurred past me. A ceiling vent hummed its low mechanical note. Somewhere, a wheelchair peeled across worn linoleum with a sticky, sucking sound. I drifted in a feverish haze, my heavy head resting against my mother's shoulder.

Then a familiar voice cut through the quiet.

Elena.

I forced my eyelids open. My father stood outside an examination room. Elena beside him. A little boy—Leo—clutched my father's hand.

My father was deep in conversation with the underground mob doctor. "Yes, I'm acting as Leo's guardian," he confirmed. "His biological father is out of the picture."

The words landed in my stomach like cold stones.

My father turned his head. His eyes met my mother's. The three of us stood frozen in that narrow corridor.

Elena stepped forward, her mouth stretching into something sweet and false. "Leo just had a little accident," she said, her voice dripping with airy innocence. "Vincent was only helping."

My mother's gaze passed over her like she was furniture. Instead, she raised her hand and gently pressed the back of it to my forehead.

Without warning, Leo dropped my father's hand, charged forward, and shoved me hard in the chest.

My feet tangled. I fell sideways. My hip struck the linoleum with a crack that echoed through my bones.

"You little bastard!" Leo yelled. "Stop trying to steal my father!"

Elena let out a sharp cry. Her own hand flew up and slapped her cheek with a theatrical crack. She collapsed into tears instantly, apologies flooding the hallway.

"I'm so sorry, Sophia!" she wailed. "The boy doesn't know the rules!"

My father shot my mother a look of profound irritation. "Stop giving them attitude, Sophia. You're making a scene."

Elena gasped. Her eyes fluttered closed. She began to swoon, her body tipping gracefully toward the floor.

My father lunged, catching her in his arms. His face arranged itself into manufactured panic as he rushed her into the examination room. He didn't look back.

Leo smirked down at me before running after them.

My mother said nothing. She reached down, took my trembling hand, and helped me to my feet. She turned her back on that examination room, and we walked out of the clinic together, leaving my prescription unfilled.

As we moved down the hallway, the doctor's voice drifted through the open door.

"Congratulations, Mr. Moretti. Elena is nearly three months pregnant."

I clutched my mother's hand as we stepped through the hospital doors into harsh daylight.

My mind raced, pieces clicking into place with sickening clarity. The mafia-crested cufflink on the hot spring locker. The muffled sounds behind that closed door. Three months ago. Exactly three months.

Beside me, my mother stopped walking. She turned her head slightly, her gaze traveling back down that long, polished corridor.

"Congratulations," she breathed. The word barely made it past her lips.

Her voice was hollow. Completely empty.

She squeezed my hand and kept walking.

From the far end of the hall, I heard my father call her name. "Sophia!" The single syllable bounced off the tiled walls.

She didn't break stride.

That night, he returned to the Moretti estate. He carried the cloying scent of cheap perfume failing to mask the bitter bite of hospital antiseptic.

He motioned for my mother to sit on the living room sofa. He stood over her and looked her straight in the eye.

"Elena is keeping the child."

Not a question. An absolute fact.

"Your body is too damaged to bear another child," he told her, his tone clinical, detached. "Elena's baby will be the only true heir to my Capo legacy."

My mother stared at him. Her expression gave nothing away.

"Once the child is born, I'll exile Elena and her son out of the country," he promised, leaning back as if offering some grand compromise. "You'll maintain your status as the official Moretti wife. Mia will keep her place as my daughter."

Silence filled the vast room.

My mother looked at the man she'd sacrificed her youth for.

"Okay," she said.

Her voice was eerie. Unnervingly calm.

My father looked relieved, believing he'd won. He walked over, gave me a brief pat on the head, took his tailored coat, and walked back out the front door.

The instant the heavy oak thudded shut, my mother went to her bedroom. She opened the locked bottom drawer and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers—a fully drafted divorce and severance agreement.

She looked at me. Her expression hardened into something fierce and certain. "We're going to live somewhere else, Mia. Far away from the Syndicate."

I nodded. For the first time in months, a quiet peace settled over me.

We slept tangled together in the same bed that night. The next morning, we were packing our suitcases, preparing to leave for the private airstrip.

Then a splintering crash shook the house.

My father kicked the bedroom door off its hinges. His face was twisted into something grotesque—a mask of pure, unhinged rage.

He marched across the room. His eyes landed on the luggage. On my mother's calm face. The silence stretched three seconds.

Then his right hand swung in a tight, heavy arc. The crack of flesh against flesh echoed before she even hit the floor.

"You ordered a hit on Elena!" he roared, spitting the words at her. "She was assaulted last night and lost my heir because of you!"