The day my husband, Dante Valente, was supposed to take me to the Family clinic for my pregnancy check-up, everything changed because of one phone call.

Halfway there, his former mistress, Serafina Russo, called him.

Her voice came through the speaker, soft and helpless.

"Dante, I miss you. My son has a high fever. I don't know what to do."

That was all it took.

Just one sentence from her, and the man who had sworn before both Families to protect me immediately forgot that I was sitting beside him, three months pregnant with his child.

Without even looking at me properly, he pulled the car to the curb and said impatiently, "Get out first. I need to go to Serafina's place."

I froze, thinking I had misheard him.

"Dante, today is my check-up."

"I know," he said, already turning the steering wheel. "But her son has a fever. This is urgent."

Then he drove away.

No explanation. No apology. Not even a glance in the rearview mirror.

He left me standing alone on the side of a deserted road in the middle of a snowstorm. The black sedan disappeared past the row of shuttered storefronts that lined Valente territory like sentries who had chosen not to see.

The snow from the night before had frozen into a slick layer of ice. The wind cut through my coat like a blade, and every breath I took felt cold enough to hurt. I tried to walk toward the main road, one hand pressed protectively over my stomach.

But after only a few steps, my foot slipped.

I fell hard.

The impact sent a sharp pain tearing through my lower abdomen, like hundreds of needles stabbing into me at once. For a moment, I couldn't even breathe. My face went white, and panic swallowed me whole.

My baby.

That was the only thought in my mind.

Thankfully, a stranger found me shivering on the roadside and rushed me to the hospital. Not the bribed Catholic hospital where the Family sent its people, just the nearest emergency room that would take me.

When the doctor finished examining me and told me the baby was fine, my whole body went weak with relief. I lay there on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, my hand trembling over my stomach.

The baby was safe.

But my heart felt as if something inside it had quietly died.

After the check-up, I called Dante again and again, hoping he would come pick me up.

The first call went unanswered.

The second went to voicemail.

The third gave me a busy signal.

I kept calling until my fingers were numb, but he never picked up.

Yet when Serafina called him, he answered immediately.

That thought sat in my chest like a block of ice.

Before we got married, before the alliance between the Bellandi and Valente Families had been sealed and the rings exchanged at the church on Arthur Avenue, Dante had never treated me this way. Back then, his phone was always on for me. Even if he was in a sit-down, even if he was busy, even if he was exhausted, he would always answer my calls.

He used to say, "Adriana, no matter what happens, you'll always come first."

But now, I finally understood.

Promises could expire.

Love could turn cold.

And the person who once held you like you were his whole world could one day abandon you without hesitation for someone else.

When I got home to the guarded townhouse, I didn't even have the strength to change my clothes. I collapsed onto the bed, my body aching and my heart unbearably heavy. The soldier posted at the front entrance had nodded when I came in alone. He didn't ask questions. None of them ever did.

Dante came back around one in the morning.

The moment he entered the room, he frowned.

"You're already asleep?" he muttered, irritation thick in his voice. "You didn't even leave the light on for me?"

In the past, no matter how late he came home, I would wait for him.

If I was too tired and accidentally fell asleep, I would still leave the bedside lamp on, afraid he would come home to darkness and feel lonely.

But tonight, I had no strength left to care.

I turned my back to him and said nothing.

My silence seemed to annoy him even more.

He clicked his tongue. "Are you seriously giving me attitude right now? Serafina's son had a 102-degree fever. If I hadn't taken them to the hospital, he could've suffered brain damage. Can you stop being so cold-blooded for once?"

Something inside me snapped.

I sat up and stared at him, my voice shaking with anger.

"When you left me on the curb in the middle of a snowstorm, did you think about whether I would be okay? Did you care whether I made it to the hospital safely? Dante, I'm pregnant. I'm carrying our child."

My eyes burned, but I forced myself to keep looking at him.

"Tell me, who is your wife? Me or Serafina? Is she so helpless that she can't call 911 by herself? Why does she have to call someone else's husband every time something happens?"

Dante let out a long, impatient sigh.

He looked at me as if I were being unreasonable, as if I were making trouble out of nothing.

"Adriana, don't be so petty. Serafina just came back from London. Her husband over there divorced her, and she has no one here. I'm the only person she knows. Life hasn't been easy for her. Raising a child alone is exhausting. If I can help her, then of course I should."

"For her?" I repeated softly.

My throat tightened, and tears stung my eyes.

"So because life is hard for her, you can abandon your pregnant wife on the roadside? Because she has no one, I deserve to be left alone in the snow?"

Dante frowned. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" I asked, my voice breaking despite myself. "If you care about her so much, why don't you just divorce me and go back to her? Isn't that what you really want?"

The words hung in the room. In any other Family, a wife suggesting divorce to an Underboss would have been unthinkable. But I was a Bellandi before I was a Valente, and my father's name still carried weight on both sides of the river.

The more I spoke, the more my chest ached.

I suddenly remembered the Dante from before.

Back then, if I so much as caught a cold, he would panic. He would wrap me in a coat, rush me to the clinic, and ignore even the most urgent calls from his Capos just to stay by my side.

He used to be afraid I would suffer even a little.

But now, he could leave me alone in a snowstorm while I was pregnant and still accuse me of lacking compassion.

Maybe he finally noticed the pain on my face, because his expression softened slightly.

He stepped closer and pulled me into his arms.

"Alright, honey. Don't be angry anymore," he said gently, as if coaxing a child. "I was wrong this time. Forgive me, okay? I swear it won't happen again."

His voice was tender, but it no longer warmed me.

Then his hand slid beneath my collar, and his lips brushed against my neck.

"I've missed you," he murmured. "It's been a while since we last did it."

Disgust and disbelief surged through me at the same time.

I slapped his hand away.

"What do you mean, a while?" I snapped. "We were together just last month. The doctor already warned us that I can't have sex again until after the baby is born. If something goes wrong, I could miscarry."

Dante's face darkened.

"Fine, fine," he muttered, clearly annoyed.

He let go of me and picked up his phone.

The moment he saw the screen, his expression changed completely.

The impatience vanished from his face. His eyes softened, and even the corners of his lips lifted slightly. He stared at the phone as if he had just received the most precious message in the world.

I called his name.

"Dante."

He didn't respond.

"Dante."

Still nothing.

It was as if I had disappeared from the room. The Underboss of the Valente Family, a man whose attention soldiers competed for, whose silence could empty a room. And he couldn't hear me sitting three feet away.

Later, while he was in the shower, his phone lay on the bedside table.

I stared at it for a long moment before reaching out. My thumb drifted to my left ring finger, pressing against the band there without thinking.

To my surprise, the lock screen code had been changed.

It used to be my birthday.

For years, he had used my birthday as his code. He once said it was because the day I was born was the luckiest day of his life.

But now, that code no longer worked.

I tried again.

Wrong.

Again.

Still wrong.

Then, for some reason, I thought of Serafina.

My fingers stiffened.

I entered 1123.

The screen unlocked.

For a few seconds, I just stared at the phone in silence.

So that was it.

My birthday had been replaced.

And so had I.

November 23rd.

That was the day Serafina Russo came back from London after her marriage fell apart.

No wonder Dante had changed his cipher to 1123.

The moment I realized it, I couldn't help letting out a cold laugh. My fingers tightened around his phone as the screen unlocked, and the first thing that appeared was his message thread with Serafina.

I opened it.

The sweetness in her words was almost nauseating.

[Serafina: Dante, thank you so much for today. I really don't know what I would've done without you. Sometimes I think, if only you were Matteo's dad.]

And Dante had replied almost immediately.

[Dante: If you don't mind, let Matteo call me Dad. I actually quite like it. ]

A smiling emoji sat at the end of the sentence, bright and harmless-looking, but it stabbed into my eyes like a blade.

My heart sank so hard it felt as if it had fallen into a frozen lake.

For a moment, my whole body went numb. The blood in my veins seemed to turn cold, inch by inch, until even my fingertips lost feeling. Somewhere down the hall, one of the soldiers shifted his weight outside the bedroom door, the floorboard groaning beneath him. Even the guards knew not to knock when the Underboss was home.

Just then, another notification popped up.

It was from Serafina.

A voice message.

Only two seconds long.

I stared at it for a few seconds before pressing play.

A young boy's cheerful voice came through the speaker.

"Thank you, Daddy Dante."

The room fell silent.

Then I laughed.

It wasn't because I found it funny.

It was the kind of laugh that came from pain too deep to cry over.

I was carrying Dante's child inside me, risking my body, enduring the discomfort and fear of pregnancy, while he was out there happily playing father to another woman's son. A Bellandi daughter, married into the Valente bloodline to carry an heir, and the heir meant nothing to the man who put it there.

On our wedding night, he had held my hand and promised me forever.

He had said he would love only me.

He had said he would be loyal.

He had said he would cherish me for the rest of his life.

It had only been three years.

And already, those vows had rusted into something ugly and worthless.

The bathroom door opened.

Dante stepped out with damp hair, a towel in his hand. The moment he saw me holding his phone, his expression changed.

His face twisted with rage.

Before I could even speak, he strode over and shoved me hard.

I lost my balance and crashed to the floor. The cold marble of the townhouse sent a shock up through my palms. A sharp pain tore through my lower abdomen, and I instinctively curled one hand over my stomach. My teeth sank into my lower lip as I forced myself to breathe through the pain.