He Begged Me Back, Then Gave My Baby to My Sister

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After I severed the blood union with my cheating husband, I ran to thirty-three different safe houses, and every time, he found me.

He slit his wrists, swallowed a bottle of pills, threw himself off a bridge into black water. He begged me back with his own life laid on the table like a wager.

The last time, he opened his own throat, and his blood sprayed across my face.

When he came out of the ICU, he still gripped my wrist hard enough to bruise, eyes red, begging to bind the union again.

That time, I finally softened.

He wept with joy, and once we were bound again, he gave me every reassurance I could ask for.

He changed every code and password to my birthday, handed over his accounts, kept the tracker on his phone open twenty-four hours a day.

Slowly, I let my guard down.

In our third year, I nearly died in a difficult labor, and he tended to me with a tenderness that missed nothing.

Even a frown from me sent him rushing over to ask if the incision hurt.

That night, late, I finished nursing and got up to use the bathroom.

Passing through the sitting room, I saw the iPad on the coffee table light up.

On the private account he'd forgotten to log out of, a message from my sister surfaced.

【Still didn't touch her tonight? No live show for me again.】

In the bedroom, rocking our baby to sleep, he answered almost instantly.

【Relax, you jealous little thing. I haven't touched her since she got pregnant.】

【Stop watching the camera and go to sleep. Stay up again and you'll feel awful tomorrow.】

So he had never cut ties with her.

The camera in our bedroom wasn't there to make it easier to watch over me and the baby.

It was there to prove his innocence, the way a made man keeps a witness to swear he was elsewhere when the blood was spilled.

Before the tears could fall, I made up my mind.

The inescapable pursuit of three years ago would not happen again.

......

From the bedroom came the sound of Salvatore Marchetti humming Isabella to sleep, soft and patient.

But my whole body had gone cold.

The thought of it. Every day, in that bedroom, baring my chest to nurse with no guard up, all of it seen by the person I hated most.

It made me gag and retch, and I couldn't stop.

He heard the noise and came out fast, the way men in this house move when something's wrong.

"What's wrong? Not feeling well again?" His brow creased.

I quietly turned the iPad's screen off.

"My stomach hurts a little. Get me a glass of water?"

He did, feeding it to me carefully.

"Any better?"

When I didn't answer, he touched my face, then my forehead.

"Still feeling bad? Should I call for the doctor?"

I looked at the concern in his eyes and asked softly.

"Salvatore, are you still in contact with Adriana Bellandi?"

His eyes flickered. "I cut things off with her ages ago. Why are you suddenly asking?"

When I said nothing, his eyes reddened and he dropped to his knees, his voice pleading.

"I gave you my word, and a man doesn't take back his word. Francesca Bellandi, you can't leave me again."

"Is there something I did wrong that made you misunderstand?"

My nails dug into my palm. I forced down the trembling and managed a smile.

"It's nothing. I just suddenly thought of the past."

He let out a breath, took my hand, and led me back to the bedroom, his tone helpless.

"You never sleep. You just lie there and overthink everything."

Once we were lying down again, he reached for me out of habit.

I flinched away on reflex, turning my back to him. "It's hot."

He paused, then lowered the air two degrees.

"Francesca, I've already changed. You can't punish me over some baseless suspicion."

I said nothing.

A long while passed. He must have thought I'd fallen asleep.

In the dark, the light of his phone came on.

The sound of typing was unusually clear in the quiet room.

Light and fast, mixed with the breath of his soft laughter.

I had no urge to sleep at all.

Without warning, tears slid down and soaked the pillow.

I didn't sleep all night.

The next morning, before he left, he kissed my forehead.

"Don't sit here overthinking. If you feel bad, send word to me right away."

The moment the door shut behind his enforcer's footsteps, I clapped a hand over my mouth and rushed to the bathroom.

A moment later.

I turned on the tap and rinsed the mess from my lips.

Back in the sitting room, I opened the iPad.

His messages with Adriana Bellandi were easy and familiar. They clearly had never broken contact.

Just like three years ago, when I walked in on the two of them tangled together against the hotel's floor-to-ceiling window, cheek to cheek.

I bit down hard on the soft flesh of my tongue, forcing my eyes wide, reading every single word.

Reading how the man who had stopped touching me "for safety" ever since I got pregnant was playing dangerous games with Adriana Bellandi.

Reading how the man who refused to let me come along when he traveled because he "didn't want the distraction" had taken Adriana Bellandi with him to sit-down after sit-down in other cities, sightseeing along the way.

When Adriana Bellandi asked him,【Your sister or me, who do you like more?】, the line he shot back in a second.

【Her figure's gone to hell. She's no match for you.】

Eight little words.

They nailed me, the woman who dropped her guard to bind the union again and bear his child, to a pillar of shame.

Tears crashed down onto the screen and blurred my sight.

I opened my phone, withdrew the request I'd once made to stay, and asked for the sealed assignment overseas.

The man who ran the sheltering Family in Miami called back quickly.

"Francesca, it's good that you're willing to come back to us, but Miami. Are you sure?"

"This one's protected turf, buried deep. You can bring your own, but you won't be able to reach the outside world for at least three years. No enemy will trace you there."

I touched Isabella's face:【I'm sure.】

This time, I would take my child and leave quietly, and Salvatore Marchetti would never find me again.