After Love Turned to Ashes, I Chose Myself

As I was being attacked by a stray dog gone rabid on the access road behind the Falcone compound while carrying a child no one in the Family knew about, it just so happened that Dominic Falcone's armored sedan was pulling out of the rear gate with his personal courier beside him.

I heard the tires slow on gravel. For one desperate, airless second I believed the car would stop. My voice tore out of me raw, barely human, the kind of sound a woman makes only when pride has already left her body. I screamed his name. I screamed for help.