Chapter 4

Bianca rushed over and helped Salvatore to his feet.

The commotion instantly drew a crowd. Made men from three Families, associates, the wives who traded whispers like currency. Every eye in the room turned toward us, and the low murmur of the gathering swelled into something hungry.

"She's heartless."

"Cold-blooded witch."

"How could a woman treat the man she's oath-bound to like this?"

"Don't blame her," Salvatore said to the room, voice trembling, eyes glassy with false humility. He smoothed the front of his jacket with both palms, slow and deliberate, the picture of a wounded man holding his dignity together. "It's my fault for not being a better husband. Don't blame her..."

Watching him play the victim made my stomach turn. I almost laughed from disgust.

"If you don't want to sever the union," I said, my voice low and even, "then don't blame me for bringing it before the Commission."

The mask fell off in an instant.

Before all of them, Salvatore's expression twisted with rage.

"Fine! You want to play dirty? Then don't blame me for putting you out with nothing!" he snapped.

"My child doesn't need a father like you," I shot back. "We sever the oath. I'll see you at the sit-down."

He thought I was still in the dark. He had no idea I knew everything.

I didn't waste another word. I left, handled the Family's affairs, and began preparing for the sit-down.

By the next day, the story had traveled through every corner of the underworld.

Every social club. Every back room. Every whispered exchange over espresso and cards. I had become the name they spat.

They called me a woman who'd betrayed the bloodline.

Said I'd forced my own child dead to fund some secret lover.

Claimed I'd been unwell since the accident, delusional, grasping for attention.

Even my own blood turned their backs on me.

"You've gone too far!" my father roared over the line. "From now on, I have no daughter!"

"You filthy disgrace," my mother spat. "I can't even bear to hear your name anymore."

I said nothing. I let them say their piece. I didn't explain, didn't defend myself.

I would wait.

Three days later, the room was packed.

Friends. Blood. Curious associates from neutral Families. Even the low soldiers who had come only to watch me fall.

They all came for a spectacle.

Salvatore leaned close and whispered with mock pity, "Are you really going through with this?"

"For the sake of everything we had, I'll give you one last chance. Apologize. I'll pretend none of this ever happened."

He smiled like a man convinced the verdict was already his.

"You've already lost," he murmured, straightening his cuffs as if the outcome were beneath his concern. "The whole underworld saw what you did. Do you still even have the nerve to keep living?"

Bianca sat beside him, smirking, satisfied. Her sympathetic smile held a fraction too long before it settled into something cold and pleased.

Even my parents, seated a few rows back, looked at me the way the Family looks at a rat awaiting judgment.

But I stood tall, expression unreadable. I turned my wedding band a half-turn on my finger, once, and waited for the presiding boss to open the floor.

Salvatore had spared no tribute, bringing in one of the silver-tongued Consiglieri from a powerful Boston Family.

They came with a script rehearsed, painting me as a reckless, selfish woman.

"If all my client did was look in on a widow's child at night," the Consigliere said smoothly, "that is no betrayal of the bloodline."

"In fact, on the evidence before this council, the one who brought this complaint"—he looked straight at me—"is the one who bears the weight of this union's ruin."

"If no new evidence is laid before us, this council will grant the severing in the defendant's favor and name the complainant at fault."

The room erupted.

Cheers. The scrape of chairs. The satisfied murmur of men who'd chosen their winner.

Salvatore and Bianca embraced, drunk on a victory they hadn't earned yet.

People sneered and whispered behind me.

"She deserves it."

"She's finally getting what's coming."

"Shameless woman."

I raised my hand. "With respect," I said, my voice clear and steady. "I have new evidence to lay before the council."

The presiding boss inclined his head. "Proceed."

"I present intelligence gathered from inside Bianca's home," I said. "And proof of bloodline, showing Salvatore is the true father of her daughter."

A deafening silence fell over the room. Somewhere a glass was set down too carefully, and the sound of it carried.

The room went still. The smirks vanished.