Chapter 4

"Because she was stupid. The moment word reached her that something had happened to you, she went and borrowed against everything she had."

"Serafina, let me make this plain. As long as I draw breath, don't even dream of the Vitale name being yours again. And forget about ever standing beside Lorenzo."

"You—!"

I stared at her, helpless.

Adriana dropped to the floor without warning, crying out in pain.

"Lorenzo, my stomach... it hurts so bad..."

Blood began to pool between her legs, dark against the marble.

Lorenzo came out of his study fast, and the moment he saw her on the ground he crossed the room and slapped me across the face.

"Serafina, how can you be so cruel!"

"Hear me. If anything happens to Adriana, I'll never forgive you."

At the private clinic the Family kept for men who couldn't be seen bleeding in public hospitals, panic filled Lorenzo's bloodshot eyes. I had never seen him like that.

"Doctor, save her. I can't live without her."

"Name your price. Whatever it costs, save her."

Watching him come apart, I finally asked the question I had buried for so long.

"Lorenzo, aren't I your wife?"

"You said I pushed her. Did you even look at the cameras your own men keep on every door?"

Tears streamed down my cheeks.

Lorenzo went still. Maybe because he had never seen me cry like that.

Then his hand closed around my throat.

"Don't play innocent with me now."

"If I hadn't wanted Adriana jealous, do you think I'd have ever taken you as a bride?"

The door swung open and a nurse stood there, white-faced.

"Family of Adriana? We couldn't save the baby, and the mother is losing too much blood. She's in critical condition."

The moment the words left her mouth, Lorenzo drove his foot hard into my stomach.

A sudden warmth spread between my legs.

I reached down. Blood.

"Lorenzo..."

I clutched my stomach, my face going pale.

"I think I'm pregnant. Please, get a doctor..."

He slapped me across the face.

"Even now you're still trying to work me?"

"Then hear the truth of it. Those pills I handed you? They were never to stop a child. They ended them. I switched them myself. I only ever wanted a woman to keep the house and raise his sons. Nothing more."

"The doctor already told me your body will never carry."

I looked up, stunned.

"You... How could you..."

So all those years I never conceived. It was because he made certain of it.

I laughed, and then I broke into tears.

"Who in Adriana's family is B blood type? Quickly, we're losing her!"

The nurse's voice shook. Lorenzo looked around the corridor, then his eyes locked onto mine.

"You're B type, aren't you."

"She's B type. Take her blood. Take all you need."

I grabbed his sleeve, shock cold in my chest.

"No. Lorenzo, I'm pregnant. If you take my blood, the baby won't survive!"

The nurse saw the blood beneath me too. "This won't do. She's pregnant. We can't—"

Lorenzo raised a hand and cut her off, then smoothed the lapel of his jacket with one flat downward stroke of his palm. "She's faking. Draw the blood."

He pulled a folded paper from inside his coat.

"Her consent, signed. As her husband, my name is on it. Whatever happens in that room, no one holds this clinic to account."

"I am Lorenzo Falcone. I care about one life, and it's behind that door."

The nurse hesitated a long moment, the weight of a name that could close a place like this settling over her.

"Then bring her in. Now."

Several of Lorenzo's men pinned me to the bed with hands that did not shake.

"No. Let me go!"

Pain twisted through my lower belly. Sweat blurred my vision.

Until I saw the faces of my mother and father swim up before me.

My eyes lit through the haze.

"Mamma, you came. Please, save me."

What met me was a hard slap from Donna Vitale.

"You heartless thing. You put Adriana in a bed like this. I will never forgive you."

Don Vitale drew the reading glasses from his face and folded them, one stem and then the other, slow and deliberate, before he looked at me the way a man looks at something already decided.

"You were drugged. There is no child in you. And still you raised a hand to Adriana. This is what your blood has earned you."

I squinted through the pain, and my heart sank all the way down.

So they had known I was drugged. All along.

By the fifth vial, I was already at the edge of shock.

The twins stood in the doorway, their eyes cold as the corridor tile.

"A woman with no rank stays a woman with no rank," Marco said, chin tipped up, holding my stare, waiting. "Don't you ever think you can stand in Mamma's place."

Beyond the operating room, Lorenzo was shouting like a man losing his mind.

"Adriana, hold on. The moment you come out of there safe, I marry you. Before the whole Family."

"Everything I have goes to Marco and Matteo. Everything."

"Don't leave. I love you. You can't leave me."

I thought I saw the shape of the woman who raised me in the orphanage, standing in the white.

"Mamma, is that you? Have you come to take me home?"

Donna Vitale heard it and rolled her eyes.

"Stupid girl, calling on the dead again. Come. I won't have her ruin touch me." She set her wine glass down on the counter without a sound.

The nurse turned the draw higher.

My body began to shake and I couldn't stop it, and the warmth drained out of my fingers.

Then the doors to the operating room burst open with a bang.

A voice I knew rang through the room.

"Serafina, don't die. I've come to take you home."