That was their child.

But my son was now a cold and lifeless corpse!

"Adriana, does your leg still hurt? Here, take something for the pain." Salvatore looked at me, his thumb rolling that heavy signet ring in slow circles the way it always did when he was calm, in control, sure of every card on the table. His eyes were filled with the same tenderness as always, but I knew now. It was all just an illusion meant to deceive me.

I looked at the pills in his hand and recalled what I had just overheard through the door of this quiet estate room, where even the walls kept the Family's secrets.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "Salvatore, the medicine is too bitter. Can I take it later?"

'You've already killed my child. Can't you at least leave me the right to be a mother?'

Salvatore hesitated for just a second before smiling and patting my head. "You're a mother now, yet you're still acting like a child? Giving birth was already hard on you, and now your legs are hurting. I couldn't sleep all night worrying about you, Adriana. Just take pity on your husband, will you? I still have a son to raise like a proper father."

"Don't worry. I put honey in the water. It's sweet. Come now, let me feed you."

'No. That is not my baby. It's yours and Vittoria's!' I screamed inside.

He brought the pill to my lips, leaving me no room to refuse, the way a Don leaves no room in a sit-down once he has already decided.

A chill spread through my body. I closed my eyes and swallowed the pill dry, refusing the honeyed water.

I didn't want that kind of fake sweetness.

The drug hit quickly. A searing pain burned through my lower abdomen, as though flames were consuming me from the inside, or as if someone were slicing me open with a knife. Blood gushed from between my legs.

"Adriana, what's wrong?!"

Salvatore shouted for the doctor, the Family's own man, the one who kept his mouth shut for a price. The pain was unbearable, and I passed out.

In my daze, I heard the doctor's voice.

"Don Marchetti, the drug has completely corroded her uterus. She will never carry a child again."

Salvatore let out a long, slow breath of relief.

When I woke again, his eyes were red, his face filled with grief as he gazed at me. "Adriana, the doctor said you lost too much blood after the birth... He said you won't be able to have children anymore."

"Don't be sad. Thank God we already have Matteo. He'll grow up to be a good son to you."

Matteo?

He had already given Vittoria's child a Marchetti name, this fast?

Salvatore wouldn't let the nurse clean me. Ignoring the fastidious cleanliness the whole Family knew him for, he fetched the hot water himself and carefully wiped away the blood.

He told me the matriarch, his mother, wished to see her firstborn grandson, the heir to the bloodline, and had already taken the baby to the main house.

By the time the estate went quiet, it was deep in the night.

I looked at his faintly tired face and forced a weak smile. "I'm fine. You've been on your feet all day. You should rest now."

Salvatore kissed my forehead. "All right. If you need anything, wake me. Tomorrow I'll take you to see Matteo. From now on, the three of us will live happily, as one famiglia."

After he fell asleep, I quietly picked up his phone.

To prove his devotion to me, Salvatore had never set a lock on it. That, too, had been part of the performance.

But I had never known he kept a second life inside it, a hidden system, and the code to open it was Vittoria's birthday.

The moment the screen changed, the wallpaper became a photo of the two of them from their university days, back before the vows, back before the alliance he'd sworn to me before the Family.

His messenger held a single contact. Vittoria.

I opened their thread. The first thing to load was a photo of her cradling a newborn.

[Salvatore, look at our beautiful boy. He's going to be as handsome as you when he grows.]

That baby looked exactly like the one Salvatore had carried to my bedside earlier that night.

The further I scrolled, the colder my heart became.

Through all eight months I carried his child, Salvatore had been forever away on "the Don's business." The days he had actually spent at my side I could count on my fingers.

I hadn't wanted to pull him from the work of the Family, so I bore the sickness and the exhaustion alone, going to every checkup by myself.

And now I knew. Those errands, those long shadow nights away, had only ever been the road to Vittoria, to her side, to her and the child growing in her.

Among the thousands of photos buried in that phone, every single one recorded Vittoria's journey from the first swell of pregnancy to the birth.

Salvatore cooked for Vittoria himself every day, rich broths and hand-rolled pasta carried up to her rooms. He walked her through the estate gardens, took her into the city to spend without limit, and when the morning sickness came he cupped his own hands beneath her chin without a flicker of disgust.

He never missed a single visit from the family physician, staying at her side, his gaze filled with devotion as though she were the most precious thing the Marchetti bloodline had ever guarded.

I had begged Salvatore more times than I could count to choose a name for our child. He always took a long time to answer.

"Adriana, a name is just a label. Pick anything. I have business at the club. We'll settle it after the baby comes."

Yet the moment Vittoria was carrying his child, Salvatore already had a hundred names ready.

"Vittoria, what about Asha for our baby? It means a bright road ahead."

"Or Ethan? It carries wisdom, and a future that answers to no one."

"No. We'll call him Matteo. I don't care if he ever sits at the head of the table. I only want him safe. I want him to live a long life."

After every visit from the physician, he gave Vittoria a gift. A necklace off a jeweler's private tray. A limited car that never touched a showroom floor.

"Our Vittoria came through another checkup without harm. That calls for a celebration."

He gave her a castle in Europe when she was delivered of the child, safe and whole.

And me?

All I was ever given was a single line. "Adriana, thank you for the trouble you've gone to. I have a sit-down to attend."

So this was the distance between love and indifference.

I set the phone down, my heart cold and numb. Without a second thought, I booked passage out of the country three days from now.

I lay back against the hospital bed and stared at the ceiling, my chest filled with an unbearable emptiness.

I didn't sleep a single moment that night.

The next morning Salvatore, as always, had one of his associates bring me a proper meal.

I used to be touched by such thoughtfulness, believing that even when he wasn't beside me, he still cared whether I ate, whether I healed.

It wasn't until I remembered him moving around that kitchen the night before, cooking for Vittoria with his own hands, that I understood it was all for show.

I finally understood. This was not love. It was routine. A gesture that meant nothing.

Set against real affection, blood money was worthless.

Seeing that I hadn't touched a bite, Salvatore frowned, his voice filled with concern. "Adriana, why aren't you eating? Is it not to your taste?"

"It's nothing. I just miss the baby," I answered coldly.

Salvatore gave a low laugh. "You mean Matteo? I miss him too. I never understood it before, but now that I'm a father I can't stand to be away from him even a moment. Our Matteo is the most beautiful child in the world."

"My mother is beside herself now that there's a grandson to carry the name. She's been holding court at the old estate. We'll go and collect Matteo later."

I said nothing. I had already decided to leave, so none of it reached me anymore.

When we came to the old Marchetti estate, the moment we crossed the threshold I saw the matriarch and Vittoria at ease with the child, the two of them playing with Matteo like women who owned the place.

Vittoria wore something limited and expensive, her face bright, no trace of the exhaustion that childbirth leaves behind.

Carmela, doting on her grandson, was feeding Vittoria spoonfuls of bone broth from a good bowl, treating her like a daughter of the blood.

The moment Vittoria saw me she let a small smile cross her lips and turned to the matriarch, her voice dripping false modesty. "Zia, you really shouldn't spoil me like this. People will take me for your son's wife. Adriana might grow jealous. You ought to give her the broth instead. She's weak. She needs it more than I do."

Following her glance, Carmela looked at me, and her expression soured at once.

I was still in the bloodstained clothes from the day it all went wrong.

Disgust crossed her face. "Has my son ever let you go without food or clothing? Why do you present yourself like this? It's an ill omen. Are you trying to shame this family before everyone?"

"Look at Vittoria. She's only just given birth, and she carries herself better than you do. You're making a spectacle of nothing."

"You couldn't even conduct yourself properly while you were carrying, running around like a fool. It's a wonder that fall didn't kill you. And now you dare play the wounded one? If anything had happened to my grandson, I'd have had Salvatore sever the pact with you where you stood."

"You knew you were to nurse him, and still you took your medicine as you pleased. If Vittoria hadn't stepped in to feed him, my grandson would have starved because of you. You bring bad luck into this house."

The rosary in her hand snapped shut with a sharp click. "I'll say it plainly, here and now. Vittoria is my goddaughter. From this day she calls me 'Mother,' the same as Salvatore does."

I always knew the Marchetti matriarch didn't like me.

She believed I wasn't good enough for Salvatore, that I could never compare to Vittoria—her son's childhood love from the Bellini branch, beautiful, sweet-tongued, effortlessly charming.

It was only when Vittoria married into a bloodline overseas and I became pregnant that Carmela reluctantly acknowledged me as her son's sworn wife—for the sake of the child, for the sake of the line.

Even so, every time we met beneath the estate's high ceilings, she never spared me from her sharp-tongued ridicule.

In the past, Salvatore would at least defend me a little. And it was the Don himself who had insisted on dragging me out the day of the accident, saying he wanted to buy gifts for the heir soon to be born to the Family.

But now, his eyes were locked onto Vittoria, filled with an undeniable tenderness.

Vittoria cradled Matteo in her arms and playfully clung to Salvatore's sleeve.

"Salvatore, did you hear? The Matriarch has officially named me her comare, her godchild! Dear brother, have you a gift ready for your little sister?"

Salvatore pinched her cheek, indulgent, half scolding and half spoiling. "You're incorrigible. Don't call me brother."

Yet even as he spoke, he had a soldier carry in ninety-two mink coats—each from the finest houses, every one paired with jewels laundered clean of any history.

"I know you love fine things, but you're still recovering. You need to stay warm. Winter runs three months—ninety-two days exactly—so you'll have a different one for each."

Vittoria giggled and pressed a kiss to his cheek, the picture of a pampered, innocent girl.

"Some of these aren't even released yet—all limited pieces! And you had them brought to me early. Salvatore, you truly spoil me."

Then she turned her gaze to me, feigning concern, her fingers drifting to the hollow of her throat. "But you've given me so much... Adriana won't be angry, will she?"

Standing there in my bloodstained clothes, I looked like a complete fool beside her dazzling, extravagant display.

For a brief moment, Salvatore hesitated, as if suddenly remembering I still stood in the room. He tried, awkwardly, to explain. "Adriana, it isn't what you think. Vittoria has lived away from the Family so long—you know how different their ways are out there."

"And the coats... I only heard she'd recently given birth herself. Her husband isn't here, and since we came up together, I only thought—"

Before he could finish, Matteo began to cry.

Vittoria gasped. "Oh, is Matteo hungry again? Mommy will take you upstairs to feed you."

Then she turned to me with a falsely apologetic smile.

"Adriana, don't misunderstand. I'm simply used to soothing my own baby. And every time I say it, see how happy Matteo becomes."

She cradled Matteo and started toward the stairs—only to sag suddenly against Salvatore's chest, murmuring, "Sal, I feel a little dizzy..."

Salvatore shoved me aside at once and caught her in his arms, his face full of worry.

"How can this be? You're weak after the birth. I told you to rest at the center. Come, I'll carry you up."

My right leg was still bandaged from the accident.

With that sudden push I lost my balance and collapsed to the floor, pain shooting through me like a knife. But Salvatore didn't spare me a single glance.

Right there before everyone, he scooped Vittoria into his arms—holding both her and Matteo—and carried her toward the stairs.

The room erupted in ridicule. The made men and their wives who filled the Don's parlor let their voices drop into that low, poisonous murmur that carries further than a shout.

"No wonder the Don dotes on Vittoria. Beautiful, and kind enough to nurse another woman's child. Not like this useless one—so cheap, so embarrassing. Can't even bear a little pain in her leg, and took medicine while nursing besides. Selfish."

"Does she even deserve to be a mother? If you ask me, Vittoria is more the boy's true mother—she cares for him more, and see how the child even favors her. He'd rather not resemble that disgraceful creature. Vittoria and the Don, such a perfect match. A shame they were never bound."

Instead of standing up for me, the Matriarch looked at me with even deeper disgust. She scoffed, and the rosary in her fingers snapped shut with a sharp click as she turned on me.