The slap came out of nowhere, so hard my skull rang like a struck bell.

"A civilian with no connections whatsoever. How did you even get inside the Valente compound?"

"She must have slept her way in with some low-level soldier on gate duty. That would explain the pregnancy."

"Outsiders really are pathetic. She thinks that just because she bears a passing resemblance to our Lady Seraphina, she can hide here and seduce the Don?"

It wasn't until I heard their venom that I realized who had barged in and struck me. The woman standing before me was none other than Seraphina Castellano, the one Don Castellano had offered to end the war between the Castellanos and the Valentes all those years ago.

For years upon years, the Don could have had his pick of countless women. Instead, he spent every day at my side.

He had never spared a second glance at any woman other than me.

That was why, when he agreed to halt the war on account of Seraphina, a thread of doubt had wound through my heart.

Now, seeing her in person for the first time, I understood. She bore a resemblance to me.

That was what had stirred his mercy.

At this moment, Seraphina's face was twisted with fury, her blazing gaze threatening to consume me whole. Her fingers drifted to the hollow of her throat, pressing there once before her hand dropped.

"You wretched outsider. You knew the Don was hopelessly in love with me, so you thought you could use that face of yours to lure him in? A face that only barely resembles mine?"

Her arrogance was suffocating, but since she clearly had no idea who I was, I chose not to hold the slap against her.

Instead, I offered a warning out of kindness.

"The Forbidden Wing is not a place any of you should be. The Don is away. Leave now, while you still can. If you stay, no one will be able to help you."

But Seraphina showed no gratitude. She seized my throat and snarled through clenched teeth:

"The Don adores me beyond measure. There is nowhere in the entire Valente estate I cannot set foot. You, on the other hand, you wretched outsider, putting on airs and trying to shoo me away. You're just afraid I'll expose your little scheme and ruin your chances of seducing him, aren't you?"

"Today I'll show you exactly what happens to vermin who try to steal the Don's affections."

With a flick of her pale wrist, she shoved me with a force that didn't belong to a woman her size. Two of her Castellano guards stepped forward and threw me sideways.

The force was immense, the impact brutal.

My body was hurled into the air and slammed back down against the cold marble floor.

I curled around my belly, shielding it with both arms, and looked up at Seraphina through the pain. My voice came out cold and steady.

"Do you really think the Don won't find out what you've done here?"

Seraphina scoffed, utterly unbothered. She smoothed the front of her dress as though I'd dirtied it by existing in the same room.

"I am the Don's one true love, the woman he fell for at first sight. A single glance from me was enough to make him end the war."

"Everyone across the Five Families knows how deeply he loves me."

"All I'm doing is disciplining a pathetic outsider. Even if he finds out, so what? You think he'd blame me over some insignificant nobody like you?"

The Castellano soldiers in her entourage sneered in agreement.

"Exactly. Everyone across the underworld knows the Don fell for Lady Seraphina at first sight. What are you? You're not even fit to be compared to her."

"The Don stands above every Family in the country. Of course there are shameless little tramps like this civilian crawling around, dreaming of climbing into his bed. My lady, we should make an example of her today. Send a message, and crush those delusions once and for all."

"That's right. Let every shameless wretch out there know that the Don's woman is not a title just anyone can claim."

Every one of them spoke with razor-edged malice, their eyes burning with a hatred so sharp it seemed they wanted to tear me apart where I lay.

I kept my expression grave. "You should go ask the Don himself who I am."

Seraphina lifted her chin, contempt dripping from every pore.

"You, a common outsider who snuck into the Forbidden Wing, think you're worthy of me inquiring about your identity?"

"I am the one closest to the Don's heart. I am Don Castellano's most treasured daughter. What are you? You think your status could ever compare to mine?"

She let her gaze drift across the darkened hall, the reinforced walls, the heavy silence that lived in this part of the estate. Her voice turned soft, almost idle.

"This wing is far too gloomy. It could use a splash of red."

The Castellano soldiers understood instantly. One by one, they drew their belts free, the leather hissing through the loops.

And they lashed into me without mercy.

I was flesh and bone with no Family behind me, no soldiers, no name. I had no way to withstand an assault from this many of them at once.

I was beaten to the ground, curled into myself, my skin split open in ribbons of blood.

Through the blinding agony, I locked both hands over my belly and screamed with everything I had left:

"Stop! I am the Don's wife!"

At those words, the Castellano soldiers froze mid-strike.

Seraphina stood off to the side, eyes narrowing as she studied me.

"What did you just say? That you're the Don's wife?"

I met her gaze without flinching. "That's right. If Dominic Valente finds out what you've done to me, none of you will walk away from this."

I laid the truth bare, certain that Seraphina would stop.

Instead, they burst out laughing in unison.

"This filthy civilian has lost her mind! She actually thinks she's the Don's wife?"

"Just because she looks a little like Lady Seraphina, she has the nerve to claim our lady owes everything to her?"

"Everyone across the underworld knows the Don adores Lady Seraphina and no one else. You're nothing but a wretched outsider who snuck in here, and you dare call yourself his queen? Do you have a death wish?"

Seraphina's lips curled into a vicious smile.

"I assumed that since you managed to slither into this estate using that face of yours to seduce the Don, you'd have at least some cunning. Turns out you're just a brainless fool."

"I've been married into the Valente household for ages, and I've never once heard of a so-called queen. You're a civilian without a single connection to any Family. What could possibly qualify you for that title?"

"If you were truly the Don's wife, why would you be living alone in the Forbidden Wing, where not a single soul dares to tread?"

With that, Seraphina touched the hollow of her throat, a gesture that looked like feminine delicacy, and turned to the other soldiers with her order:

"Cut off this wretch's limbs. Let's see how long that sharp tongue of hers lasts."

The soldiers drew their blades and closed in on me.

None of them knew the real reason the Forbidden Wing stood so desolate.

It was because the Don forbade any living creature from coming near. Even a stray associate who wandered too close to the perimeter had been found skinned and strung up along the fence line, left there for days before the body was cut down.

He had kept my identity hidden because he wanted to wait until our child was born.

Then, before the entire underworld and every Family with a name worth speaking, he would crown me in a ceremony no one would ever forget.

And the reason he was absent today was precisely because he had divined through the old ways that this was the day our child would arrive.

He had gone personally to summon the most powerful men across the Five Families and beyond, so they could witness the birth of the Valente heir.

To welcome the future sovereign of the empire he had built.

And now, every one of those precautions had become the very reasons Seraphina refused to believe me.

Watching them close in, panic seized me. I screamed, "I am the Don's wife! If you don't believe me, go ask Dominic Valente yourself!"

They didn't even pause. Blades rose and fell.

Agony tore through me, bone-deep and blinding, as my limbs were severed one after another.

My whole body convulsed. Every breath came thinner than the last.

Seraphina clapped a hand over her mouth, laughing. "Oh, look at her! No arms, no legs, just that swollen belly. She looks like a turtle pulled into its shell!"

The others doubled over with laughter, clapping and cheering. The sound bounced off the stone walls of the Forbidden Wing and came back hollow.

I glared at them through a haze of red, my voice raw and shaking. "You will regret this."

Seraphina stepped closer and looked down at me.

"In all the underworld, no one has ever made me regret a thing."

"But I can certainly teach you what regret feels like."

The moment the words left her lips, she shaped her hand into a blade and sliced my belly open.

A fresh wave of agony swallowed me whole.

Through the blur of fading consciousness, I watched Seraphina reach inside me and pull out a blood-soaked infant boy.

He was alive. His tiny fists swung on instinct, batting at Seraphina's arm as if in protest.

Seraphina stared at my son, eyes widening.

"A mongrel born from a civilian, and his life force is this strong?"

"What a pity. You're still nothing but outsider filth. Leaving you here would only taint the Valente name. Today, I'll clean house on the Don's behalf."

Terror flooded every fiber of my being. My voice came out barely above a whisper.

"He is the Don's child. You must not harm him."

Seraphina's brows twisted together, and she fixed me with a look of pure contempt.

"You wretched civilian. To save this bastard, you'd tell a lie that absurd?"

"The Don's power is beyond measure. A woman with no Family blood could never carry his heir."

The other soldiers chimed in.

"Exactly. The Don's reach is so vast that anyone outside the bloodlines would be destroyed just trying to get close to him."

"You're a nobody. You don't even have the standing to be with him, let alone bear his child."

"This bastard is obviously the product of some affair with a low-ranking guard. And you have the audacity to pass it off as the Don's heir? The nerve."

They weren't entirely wrong. The gap between a civilian and the head of the Valente empire was vast beyond reckoning.

The Don, above all, was a man no outsider should have been able to touch, let alone conceive a child with.

That was why he had given me everything, day after day. His resources, his protection, the full invisible weight of his empire restructured around my survival.

It kept me hidden and untouchable, and it remade my life until the barrier between our worlds slowly dissolved.

Even so, it had taken us years of failed attempts and quiet grief to conceive this child.

"Everything I've said is true. If anything happens to this child, no one here will survive the Don's wrath. He will reduce the Five Families to ash and ruin!"

Under the Don's protection, my body had long surpassed anything a civilian should have endured.

But now, broken and bleeding, I could feel my life draining away with terrifying speed.

I poured every last scrap of strength into those words, praying Seraphina would spare my child.

She only gave a cold, thin smile.

"The harder you beg for this bastard's life, the more I want to kill him."

She raised my son high and hurled him at the ground.

"No!"

The scream ripped from my throat. It changed nothing.

All I could do was watch as my son slammed into the stone.

"He's still alive?"

Seraphina stared at the infant still squirming on the ground, murmuring to herself.

"Let's see just how hard this little mongrel is to kill."

She lifted her foot and brought it down on him.

The impact shook the floor.

The blow carried her full, devastating force.

It cratered the stone beneath him.

Every soldier there was certain the child was dead.

But his tiny hands still moved, waving as though nothing had happened.

"I refuse to believe I can't kill one worthless mongrel!"

Seraphina's composure shattered. She called for white phosphorus and sent it crashing down on my son.

White-hot flames engulfed him in an instant.

I was close enough to feel the searing heat scorch my skin.

Fear and anguish devoured me from the inside out.

My child was not just the future of the Valente bloodline.

He was the culmination of years of hope between the Don and me.

Three years I had carried him in secret. My own flesh and blood.

All those years, the Don and I had treasured him more than our own lives.

And this tiny, newborn boy had never even been held. Not once.

He was swallowed by merciless flame before he ever knew what an embrace felt like.

Tears streamed down my face, covering every inch of it.

Seraphina looked at the charred, motionless body and let a smile play across her lips.

"The little mongrel is finally dead."

The other soldiers beamed.

"A civilian's mongrel, tough as leather. Thank heavens Lady Seraphina is so resourceful!"

"Exactly. One look at the brat and you can tell his lowly guard father was just as worthless and disgraceful."

"Congratulations, Lady Seraphina, for ridding the Valente name of this stain!"

Bathed in their praise, Seraphina lifted her chin and cast a sidelong glance at my dead child, admiring her handiwork.

Satisfaction spread across her face.

"Don't worry, little bastard. I'll find your bastard father soon enough. Your whole wretched family can reunite in death."

The words had barely left her mouth when the iron gates of the estate compound blew inward with a sound like cannon fire. A voice rolled across the grounds, shaking the walls of the Forbidden Wing itself:

"What have you done?"

Dozens of armored SUVs tore through the courtyard, headlights cutting the dark like falling stars, doors already opening before the vehicles stopped.

The Don had arrived.

And with him, the most powerful men across the underworld, every one of them summoned to witness the arrival of the Valente heir.