The Don's Heir Awakens in My Womb,My Revenge Begins

I was nothing more than a civilian. A nobody. A woman without Family, without name, without a single drop of blood that mattered in the underworld.

And yet I had survived for years in a world that devoured outsiders whole.

All because Dominic Valente, the Don of the most feared syndicate in existence, had consulted La Carte del Destino and the cards had named me. His fated match. The old Sicilian women who still read the cards whispered that if he and I were to produce an heir, the child would unite what no war, no treaty, no Commission ruling ever could. A bloodline capable of ruling every Family in the underworld.

Dominic brought me from my ordinary life into the heart of his empire. He hid me in his most secure safe house, restructured his entire security apparatus around my existence, and poured every resource he possessed into keeping me alive, unseen, and untouched. For years, I was sustained by nothing but his devotion and the invisible weight of everything he was willing to sacrifice.

But conceiving an heir with a civilian was something his world had never accounted for. Year after year, the doctors came and went. Year after year, nothing. And then, after so long that even I had stopped believing it was possible, I finally conceived.

Dominic was overjoyed. He crowned me his Queen on the spot, though the world would not know it until the child arrived. To him, I and the baby I carried were the most precious things in his empire. More valuable than territory. More valuable than loyalty. More valuable than the empire itself.

When his own sister accidentally brushed against my belly during a rare visit, he destroyed her. Erased every trace. She had been the only woman in the Valente bloodline, and he ground her memory to dust without a moment's hesitation.

To safeguard the heir, Dominic arranged for me to rest in the Forbidden Wing of the estate. A sealed corridor. Armed guards at every threshold. No one entered without his explicit word.

Ciro Marchetti, an old friend and trusted associate, stumbled into the Forbidden Wing one night, drunk and careless. Dominic killed him where he stood. No warning. No explanation. Then he mobilized his soldiers and struck the Castellano territories so hard that entire city blocks burned and the rivers of their supply lines ran dry with blood.

To end the war, Don Enzo Castellano had no choice but to offer the most coveted woman in the underworld as a bride to the Valente Don: his only daughter, Seraphina Castellano.

Seraphina, emboldened by her status as Enzo Castellano's princess, answered to no one. She forced her way into the Forbidden Wing with her personal guard at her back:

"What filthy outsider dares hide in the Forbidden Wing? Spreading her legs for Valente soldiers and getting herself pregnant?"

"Today, I'll clean house for the Don myself!"

She ordered her guards to hack off my limbs. Then she tore open my belly with bare hands and ripped the child from my womb.

As I lay dying, Dominic arrived with the most powerful figures in the underworld to witness the birth of the Valente heir.

Seraphina dragged me before him and held up the infant she had tortured to death, her face bright with triumph:

"I discovered a filthy outsider whoring herself out to your soldiers. This is the bastard she was carrying!"

"I humbly beg the Don to find the wretch who fathered this thing and grind his bones to ash, so the dignity of the Valente name remains unsullied!"

——

Three full years I had carried the child. The old women who read the signs had spoken of strange omens, patterns in the cards that hadn't appeared in generations.

The movements in my womb had grown fiercer by the day, the unborn stirring with signs that its arrival was imminent.

I was lying in bed, preparing for the birth, when a commotion broke out beyond the doors.

"The Don keeps coming here every other day. Today, I'm going to see for myself what precious little secret he's hiding!"

"But, my lady, I've heard that this wing is part of the Forbidden corridor. No one is permitted to enter without leave!"

"That's right, Seraphina. They say that when Ciro Marchetti merely wandered in here by accident, the Don executed him on the spot and it sparked a war between the Castellanos and the Valentes. Barging in like this... isn't it a bit reckless?"

"Reckless? I am the only woman in the entire underworld worthy of the Don's attention. He would never blame me."

Listening to the noise outside, I frowned. A cold sense of dread settled in my chest.

Dominic guarded me and the child with obsessive devotion.

After the incident where someone had accidentally touched my belly, he had dismissed every last soul from the Forbidden Wing. Every servant. Every guard. Every living thing that breathed.

Proud and untamable as he was, he came here himself each day to care for me. The most dangerous man in the underworld, spooning broth and adjusting blankets with hands that had ended dynasties.

Ciro Marchetti had once been an honored guest, on friendly terms with the Don himself. A man who raised his glass to Dominic across the room like they were brothers.

Yet a single drunken misstep into the Forbidden Wing was enough for Dominic to kill him without hesitation, igniting a war that left mountains of corpses and seas of blood across three territories.

If those people outside made it in here, another massacre was all but certain.

I hauled myself out of bed and hurried into the courtyard, hoping to warn them away before it was too late. My right hand drifted to my abdomen, cradling the weight of what I was about to lose and did not yet know it.

But the moment I opened the door, a face stared back at me. A face that looked seven-tenths like my own.

Before I could utter a word, a hand cracked across my cheek.

"Where did this wretched little servant come from, wearing my face in the Don's private quarters? What, are you trying to steal his favor from me?"