Every day, Dominic had cooked her food himself, the kind meant for a woman carrying the Falcone bloodline. He'd walked with her through the estate gardens, sent his men ahead to clear the shops so she could browse in peace, even cupped his palms to catch the sickness when it rose in her throat.

At every visit to the Family's private clinic, he'd stayed at her side, never straying a step, watching her the way a man watches something worth more than the whole territory.

I had begged Dominic so many times to give our child a name.

He always took forever to reply, the signet ring turning slow against his thumb.

"Adriana, a name is just a label. Pick any one, it doesn't matter. I have a sit-down to get to. We'll deal with it after he's born."

But the moment Vittoria Sabatini turned up carrying, Dominic had already dreamed up a hundred names for the baby in her belly.

"Vittoria, what do you think of Kingston for our boy? A name that promises great things."

"Or how about Bennett? Learned and far-reaching, a bright future ahead of him."

"No, let's just call him Matteo. I don't need him to rise above the rest. I only want him safe and sound, healthy for a hundred years."

After every visit to the clinic, he gave Vittoria a gift, either jewelry pulled from the Family's vault or a limited-edition car that never touched a public road.

"Our Vittoria made it safely through another checkup. We have to celebrate."

He even signed a villa on the coast into her name, to mark her smooth delivery.

And what did I ever get? Always the same single line:

"Adriana, thank you for all of this. I have a meet."

So this was how obvious love and its absence really were.

Heart gone cold, I set the phone down and bought myself a passage out of the country, a berth leaving in three days, far past the reach of the Family and its code.

Back in the clinic bed, I stared blankly up at the ceiling.

My chest full of desolation, I lay awake the whole night. Somewhere down the corridor a soldier shifted his weight against a wall, the faint creak of leather the only sound in a place too quiet to breathe in.

The next morning, Dominic, just as always, had his right-hand man carry in a tray of food built for a recovering woman.

Once, I would have been touched by his thoughtfulness, that even when he wasn't with me he still worried over what I ate.

But remembering how he'd stood in that kitchen last night in an apron, fussing over Vittoria, I finally understood it was nothing but a token gesture.

Tribute means nothing in the face of a true heart.

Seeing that I hadn't touched a bite, Dominic looked pained.

"Adriana, why aren't you eating? Is it not to your taste?"

"It's nothing. I miss the baby."

Dominic smiled.

"So you're missing Matteo. I miss him too. I didn't understand before, but now that I'm a father, I finally get it. I don't want to be apart from him for a single second. Our Matteo really is the most adorable child in the whole world."

"Mother's over the moon now that she has a grandson. She's holding a dinner at the old estate. We'll go collect Matteo shortly."

I said nothing. I'd already decided to walk away from the Family, so let him do as he pleased.

When the car brought us through the estate gates and I'd just stepped inside, I saw the dowager and Vittoria cradling Matteo between them, cooing over him.

Vittoria was dressed head to toe in limited-edition luxury, radiant, without the slightest worn look of a woman who'd just given birth.

Concetta doted on the child with one hand and spooned bird's nest broth into Vittoria's mouth with the other.

Top-tier treatment, truly, the kind reserved for the lady of the Family.

Vittoria spotted me and laughed a half-beat too fast, her fingers drifting to the hollow of her own throat as she said to the dowager in that snide, needling tone of hers:

"Godmother, you shouldn't be so good to me. People will start thinking I'm the daughter-in-law of this house. Adriana will get jealous. She's frail, so this broth should really go to her."

Concetta followed her gaze and looked me over, taking in the bloodstained clothes I was still wearing from the day it happened. Disgust crossed her face.

"Does my son not feed you or clothe you? Dressing like a bad omen at my table. Are you trying to disgrace this Family on purpose? Look at Vittoria. Both of you gave birth, and she's a hundred times the woman you are. Only you make such a scene."

"You couldn't sit still, running about while you carried our blood. How is it that fall didn't finish you? And you've still got the nerve to play the victim under this roof. Thank God my grandson's fine, or I'd have Dominic sever the alliance this instant."

"You knew perfectly well you had to nurse the bloodline heir, and yet you dared to take those pills. If Vittoria hadn't stepped in to nurse him, you, you jinx, would have starved my grandson to death." She smoothed the black lace of her sleeve, two slow flat strokes, before she went on. "I'm announcing it right here, before the Family. I'm taking Vittoria as my goddaughter. From now on, just like Dominic, she'll call me Mother."

I'd always known the dowager didn't like me. In Concetta Falcone's eyes I wasn't fit to stand beside her son, nowhere near as charming as Vittoria Sabatini, the pretty, sweet-talking girl from the cadet branch who'd been his childhood sweetheart.

It was only after Vittoria was married off and sent abroad, and I fell pregnant with the bloodline heir, that she grudgingly acknowledged me as the Don's wife, and only for the child's sake.

Even then, every time we sat at the same table, there was no shortage of cold jabs, no shortage of quiet mockery meant for me to hear.

Back then Dominic would always speak up for me, smooth a few words over. He was the one who'd insisted on taking me out that day, past the family's storefronts on the protected streets, saying he wanted to buy something for the child who was almost here.

But now his eyes were fixed on Vittoria, brimming with a tenderness he made no effort to hide.

Vittoria carried Matteo over to his side and looped her arm playfully through his.

"Dominic, did you hear? The dowager is taking me as her goddaughter. So, my dear big brother, don't you have a gift ready for your little sister?"

Dominic pinched her cheek, helpless and doting.

"You little troublemaker. Don't call me big brother."

That was what he said. Yet he had a soldier bring out ninety-two designer fur coats, jewelry already matched to go with each one, laid out across the long table like tribute.

"I know you love pretty things, but you're still recovering. You can't catch a chill. Winter runs three months, ninety-two days, so you can switch them out."

Vittoria kissed him on the cheek, delighted as a giddy young girl.

"Half of these are pieces from the house's next three years, limited editions too. You actually got them for me ahead of everyone. Dominic, you really are the only one who spoils me."

"But you've given me so much. Won't Adriana be upset?"

When she said my name, her fingers drifted to the hollow of her throat, and her laugh came a half-beat too fast.

Next to those gleaming, priceless furs, my clothes with the dried blood still on them made me look more and more like a clown.

Dominic paused, as if only then remembering I was still standing there, and said awkwardly,

"Adriana, it's not what you think. Vittoria's used to living abroad, you know how it is. The customs over there are more open."

"And these clothes. I heard she just had a baby too, with her husband away. We did grow up together, after all. I only wanted to..."

Before he could finish, Matteo suddenly started crying. Vittoria gasped,

"Oh no, is Matteo hungry again? Mommy will take you upstairs and feed you right now."

Then she turned to me with a show of apology.

"Adriana, don't get the wrong idea. I'm just so used to soothing my own baby. And every time I say it like that, Matteo calms right down and gets so happy."

She started toward the stairs with the child. In her arms, Matteo went utterly still and stared at me across the room, unblinking, the way he always did when I came near, until the two women nearest me shifted uneasily under that gaze.

Then Vittoria sagged into Dominic's arms, her voice going faint.

"Dominic, I feel a little dizzy..."

Dominic shoved me away at once and caught her, his face taut with alarm.

"How could this happen? It must be the weakness after the birth. I told you to rest properly at the clinic. Come, I'll carry you up."

My right leg was still bandaged. With that shove I went down hard, landing on the floor, pain shooting through me.

But Dominic didn't spare me a single glance. In front of everyone gathered, in front of the whole Family, he swept Vittoria up like a bride and carried her and Matteo up the stairs.

Every one of them looked at me with scorn, their voices thick with contempt and disgust.

"No wonder the Don dotes on Vittoria. Pretty as she is, and so kind too, willing to nurse someone else's child. Not like this useless thing. Shabby, not fit to be seen at his table, can't even stand a little pain in her leg, so she takes medicine while nursing. Selfish through and through."

"Someone like that deserves to be a mother? To me, Vittoria's the one who's more like Matteo's mother. She loves him more, and he even looks a bit like her. The child must be ashamed of Adriana too, doesn't want to take after her. Vittoria and Dominic suit each other so well. Such a shame the alliance never joined them back then."

The dowager not only refused to defend me. She looked at me with even deeper loathing, smoothed the black lace of her sleeve with two slow, flat strokes, and snapped,

"Still lying there on the floor like a dog. What are you doing? If you want a handout, get out and go begging on some corner. This Family doesn't feed low, useless women like you."

Concetta smoothed the black lace at her sleeve, two slow strokes, before she went on. "You can't be bothered with your own son, and you can't hold your husband's heart either. I hear you can't ever carry a child again? My son binding himself to a wife like you was the worst luck eight lifetimes over. Get lost. Every second I look at you takes ten years off my life."

Humiliation washed over me. Thinking of the severance papers already drawn up on my phone, the pact I meant to break, I said nothing.

I struggled to my feet and limped toward the study upstairs.

I slipped the printed papers into my bag and went to find Dominic in the guest room.

But they weren't there. Only the wet nurse remained, cradling a well-fed Matteo as he slept.

I was still puzzling over it when a strange sound reached me from the bedroom that belonged to Dominic and me.

The door hadn't been shut all the way. Vittoria sat astride Dominic, her blouse hanging wide open, her voice syrupy.

"Dominic, I have so much milk, and Matteo takes so little. I'm painfully full."

"It hurts so much. Help me draw it out, won't you~"

Dominic hesitated.

"Vittoria, don't. You only gave birth two days ago, your body can't take it. You already took enough of a risk carrying my child behind that man's back. I can't hurt you any more…"

Vittoria pressed his head down.

"Silly Dominic, if I'm not afraid, what are you afraid of? Bearing your child was my own choice. He's off running his territory across the water all year, he doesn't have a clue. Come on, comfort me. Don't you want a taste of something hard-won?"

Dominic couldn't hold back any longer. He opened his mouth and latched on.

The sounds from inside grew filthier by the second. My stomach turned, and I couldn't watch any more. I fled the old estate as if running for my life, past the soldier at the gate who kept his eyes carefully forward.

Only when I breathed the night air outside did the suffocating feeling ease a little, but the tears wouldn't stop falling.

Dominic, you knew I was right downstairs. How could you still dare do something like that? And in our own bedroom?!

I sank down by the door, hollowed out, and I don't know how long passed before a foul-smelling liquid was dumped over my head.

Vittoria appeared out of nowhere, smiling with a taunt.

"Adriana, does my son's piss taste good? Was it a pretty sight, Dominic losing himself in my body?"

So she'd meant for me to see it all along.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Look at you now. Your son's dead, and you're limping on one leg. If I were you, I'd have put a bullet in my own head long ago. What's the point of living?"

"Even if you sealed the alliance and carried his child, so what? For me and my baby, he still smothered your son and made sure you can never bear another."

She laughed, a half-beat too fast, her fingers drifting to the hollow of her own throat. "I've even got the recording of your son dying. Want to see how that little face went from red to purple? It's quite the show."

I stared hard at her phone screen, watching my child suffocate to death, inch by inch.

My whole body shook without stopping. How could she speak of murdering a child as though it were nothing at all?!

I raised my hand high, but Vittoria pulled a dagger and dragged it hard across her own chest.

Blood seeped through her blouse, the dagger clattered to the stone, and she burst into a scream.

The next second, someone shoved me hard to the floor.

Dominic held Vittoria in his arms and whirled on me, roaring.

"Adriana, have you lost your mind?!"

Before I could get a word of explanation out, Vittoria was already sobbing.

"Dominic, I was afraid it would wound Adriana to see me nurse Matteo, since she's his mother, so I came to explain it to her. But she said I was trying to steal her child, and she was going to cut off my breasts so I could never nurse him again."

"Sob, sob, I only felt sorry for Matteo going hungry, my heart ached for the baby, that's all. How could she treat me like this?"