Exhausted, both physically and emotionally, Adriana and I returned to the small apartment I had lived in before the marriage.

The place was modest, but it felt strangely comforting, like returning to something real after a long illusion. Four rooms above a dry cleaner on Mulberry Street, no doorman, no security detail, no Falcone name on the buzzer. Just mine.

When I turned my phone back on, a series of missed calls from Dante immediately appeared.

After a moment of hesitation, I called him back.

The moment he answered, his voice exploded with anger. "Are you done with your tantrums yet?"

"I told you to stay home and rest! Now the house is a complete mess. I only found out because I went back to grab a gift for Viviana's baby!"

His words kept coming, sharp and relentless. "And Adriana? What are you dragging her into now? Luca can't even reach her. You've probably turned her against him too!"

"Do you have to ruin everything you touch? You've even destroyed their marriage now. Are you satisfied?"

Adriana's fists clenched tightly beside me, her anger barely contained. I gently reached out and held her back.

"Don't waste your energy on someone like him," I whispered softly.

Then I spoke into the phone, my tone calm and detached. "Dante, let's keep this simple. I want a divorce. I don't have time for your baseless accusations."

Before I could say more, Adriana snatched the phone from my hand, unable to hold back any longer.

"You know what, Dante?" she snapped. "Marrying into your family has been nothing but a curse!"

"Let me make this clear. Adriana and I want divorces because you and Luca are both fools. Do you understand?"

Without waiting for a response, she hung up and immediately blocked him on every platform.

The next morning, as we prepared to leave for the county clerk's office, we saw Viviana standing at the entrance of my building, holding her baby in her arms. Two of the Falcone soldiers who usually ran security at the family compound waited by a black sedan at the curb, which told me everything about who had sent her and how she had found the address.

Her face was pale, her expression fragile, as if she might collapse at any moment. She looked pitiful, like a delicate flower trembling in the wind.

The moment she saw us, she dropped to her knees, her movements sudden and dramatic.

"Bianca, Adriana, I'm so sorry," she said, her voice trembling with emotion. "I came to apologize on behalf of Dante and Luca. This is all my fault. Please don't blame them."

"They were only looking out for me as a single mother," she continued, her tone soft and pleading. "They stayed with me at the hospital because I was scared. I thought they had already explained everything to you. I even reminded them…"

"I never meant to cause any misunderstanding."

Even now, she maintained her act perfectly, presenting herself as the innocent victim while subtly showing off her closeness with the two brothers. The ward they had sheltered since childhood, the woman the whole Family treated like porcelain. The soldiers by the sedan watched without expression.

Seeing Adriana's anger rising, I stepped forward quickly, my gaze turning cold.

"Oh? Viviana," I said evenly, "do I need your permission to get a divorce?"

"Your little act doesn't work on us anymore. Save it."

Out of basic courtesy for the child in her arms, I bent down to help her up.

But just as the elevator doors opened behind us, her expression changed in an instant.

Without warning, she let herself collapse onto the floor, as if I had pushed her.

I froze in shock, unable to react immediately.

Before I could say anything, Dante rushed over and shoved me hard.

"Bianca! How can you be so cruel?" he shouted. "Stay away from her!"

Caught off guard, I stumbled backward and fell. Adriana quickly rushed to my side, helping me up.

"Bianca, are you okay?" she asked anxiously.

Only after confirming that Viviana was unharmed did Dante finally turn to look at me. He opened his mouth, clearly ready to lash out again.

But the moment his eyes fell on my flat stomach, his expression changed completely. His face went pale. The Falcone Underboss, the man who had held a scalpel steady inside dying soldiers, went absolutely still.

"Where's the baby?" he asked, his voice trembling slightly. "Bianca… where is our child?"

My thumb rubbed the pale mark where my wedding ring had sat. I said nothing.

At that moment, the elevator doors opened again. Luca stepped out, still talking on his phone.

"What's going on now?" he said impatiently. "I could hear you arguing all the way down the hall. You're going to scare the baby."

"I have to get back to court," he added quickly. "There's a vendetta snatch job involving a pregnant woman who was stabbed. The prosecution is pressing charges."

As his gaze landed on me, he paused briefly before glancing at Dante.

"Hey," he said casually, "did she already give birth?"

That question seemed to snap Dante back to reality. Panic flooded his eyes as he grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

"Bianca, you had the baby, right?" he said urgently. "Don't scare me like this!"

Dante's questions came rushing out one after another, his voice trembling as his hands gripped my shoulders tightly. He shook me as if trying to force an answer out of me, his face filled with panic and desperation, as though he had just realized something he could no longer control.

But while he panicked, my heart felt like it was being torn apart all over again. The pain inside me ran just as deep, only quieter, heavier, suffocating.

I could still feel it so clearly, as if it were happening again in that very moment. The cold blade plunging into my stomach, the violent, tearing pain that followed, and the horrifying sensation of my baby slipping away from me.

That memory was carved into my mind, raw and vivid, something I would never be able to forget. It replayed again and again, each time bringing with it the same unbearable agony.

I had never felt hatred like this before. It wasn't just anger. It was something darker, something that consumed everything inside me.

If only he had answered the phone. If only he had spared me even a moment of his time. If only he had sensed that I needed him, just once.

Then maybe… just maybe… our baby would still be alive.

Now, looking at Dante and Luca standing in front of me, their faces filled with guilt and confusion, I felt nothing but disgust rising within me. The foyer of the house we'd shared was still and cold, the two soldiers posted by the front door staring straight ahead as if they'd been trained not to hear a word. They had been. That was how the Falcone household worked. You heard nothing. You saw nothing. You carried it to the grave.

"The baby is gone," I said, my voice flat and emotionless. "Not just mine. Adriana's too."

I paused briefly, letting the weight of my words sink in. "She had just found out she was one month pregnant. I told both of you. But you didn't listen."

"There's nothing left to say anymore," I continued quietly. "I want the separation. The alliance is done."

Dante staggered backward as if struck, disbelief flooding his expression. His lips trembled as he muttered, "So… you weren't trying to scare me. The baby… our baby is really gone…"

But then, as if refusing to accept reality, he suddenly snapped. His face twisted with anger as he shouted, "Bianca, you're not even human!"

"The baby was eight months along!" he continued, his voice rising uncontrollably. "And you just decided to get rid of it out of spite? She was fully formed!"

"Are you insane?" he roared. "How could you kill our child? Come with me to the police station. You have to pay for this!"

The room went very still. One of the soldiers by the door shifted his weight, then caught himself. Nobody moved.

A bitter smile slowly formed on my lips as I looked at him. There was sadness in it, but also something cold, something hollow. My thumb rubbed the pale band of skin where my wedding ring had sat, back and forth, the only motion in my body that I couldn't seem to stop.

"If you want to talk about killers," I said calmly, "you should look at yourself. And Viviana."

"I was attacked because of a surgery you performed," I continued, my voice steady despite the storm inside me. "A clandestine operation. It was revenge for a life you couldn't save on that table."

"They found me because of you," I said. "They beat me. They kicked me. They stabbed a knife into my stomach."

"And you call me inhuman?"

I took a step closer, my gaze locking onto his. "Do you know who led them to me?"

"It was your dear 'sister,' Viviana," I said coldly. "She told them that snatching me would get your attention."

"So tell me," I pressed, my voice trembling slightly, "who really killed our child?"

My voice shook under the weight of everything I had endured. "Do you think anyone feels this loss more than I do?"

Dante didn't answer. His hand had drifted to his wrist, his thumb dragging once across the face of his watch, but whatever truth he was measuring stayed locked behind his teeth.

"No… no, it wasn't me…" Viviana stammered, her face turning pale as she tried to defend herself. Her voice faltered, her usual composure slipping. One hand curled at her side, a fingernail pressing hard into the pad of her thumb until the skin blanched white.

Before she could say more, Luca suddenly turned toward me, cutting her off.

"Wait," he said, his voice unsteady. "Adriana was one month pregnant? Then what happened to her baby?"

"I thought only one person was kidnapped," he continued, confusion and unease creeping into his tone. "What does any of this have to do with her?"

At that, Adriana stepped forward without hesitation. Her hand rose swiftly, striking his face with a loud, sharp slap.

The sound cracked through the sitting room like a pistol shot. Not one of the soldiers standing along the wall moved. Not one of them breathed.

"You have no right to ask that!" she shouted, her voice filled with rage and pain.

"If either of you had bothered to answer your phones, we wouldn't have been caught in that landslide!" she continued, her eyes blazing. "We wouldn't have been trapped there. And our baby wouldn't have died!"

Her voice broke slightly, but she forced herself to continue. She smoothed the seam of her sleeve flat with two precise strokes, and when she spoke again, her words carried the cold clarity of a verdict read aloud.

"Maybe it's better this way."

"You two never deserved to be fathers. Or husbands," she said bitterly. "Wasn't it obvious that you cared more about Viviana and her child?"

"Now you can finally have your so-called 'real family.' Whatever happens to our children doesn't matter to you anyway."

Luca stood frozen, one hand still touching his cheek where the mark of her slap remained. His expression was blank, as if he couldn't process what he had just heard. The Consigliere of the Falcone Family, the man who could talk a federal judge into a continuance without raising his voice, stood there with nothing.

Dante, on the other hand, seemed to finally grasp the full weight of the situation. His face turned pale, his body stiff with shock.

"You're saying… Bianca was actually kidnapped?" he asked, his voice trembling. "Why didn't you call me?"

"You got caught in a landslide trying to save her?" he continued, panic creeping into his tone. "Why didn't you tell us?"

But it was too late. Far too late for questions, for regret, for anything at all.

I looked at him calmly, my voice steady but cold. "When you ignored my first seven calls, I was tied up, being beaten."

"When you finally answered the eighth call, I was already worthless to them," I continued. "They decided my baby's life wasn't worth sparing."

"You could have saved us, Dante," I said softly. "At first, the kidnapper only wanted money. He never planned to kill our child."

Those words shattered him completely. Dante collapsed to the ground, burying his face in his hands as he began to sob uncontrollably. The Underboss of the Falcone Family, the man whose hands had pulled bullets from living men without flinching, knelt on the floor of his own house and wept like something inside him had finally been cut that couldn't be sutured back together.

Viviana rushed forward instinctively, trying to comfort him, wrapping her arms around him.

But this time, he pushed her away without hesitation. The force sent her stumbling back, her hand scraping against the floor, leaving a streak of blood behind.

Her eyes widened in shock. It was the first time she had ever been rejected like this. Her fingernail pressed into the pad of her thumb until the skin blanched white.

Ignoring her entirely, I turned to Luca, my gaze cold and unyielding.

"Do you know something interesting?" I said. "The kidnapping case you're handling… the victim and the plaintiff are right in front of you."

The silence in the room changed. It thickened. Even the clock on the mantle seemed to hold its breath.

The realization hit them both at once. Their expressions changed instantly as suspicion flickered in their eyes, both of them turning to look at Viviana.

"N-no, it wasn't me!" she stammered, panic rising in her voice. "I swear, it wasn't me!"

"I was at the mall that day too," she continued hurriedly. "I was a victim as well! How could it be me? How would I even know it was Bianca who got kidnapped?"

In the past, her tears would have been enough to soften their hearts immediately. They would have rushed to comfort her without question.

But this time, neither of them moved.

Instead, they exchanged a silent glance, their expressions darkened by doubt and something that looked dangerously close to realization. Two brothers raised in the same house, trained by the same Don, and for the first time in years they were looking at the same truth from the same side.

I stepped closer, my voice calm but carrying a final, undeniable weight. My thumb rubbed the pale mark where my wedding ring had sat.

"I never told anyone where it happened," I said slowly. "Or when."

I looked directly into her eyes.

"So tell me, Viviana… how did you know I was at the mall?"