"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Dante snapped. "Have you ever heard of privacy?"

Privacy.

The word was so absurd that it almost made me laugh again. Privacy, from the man whose soldiers swept the house for listening devices every Tuesday. Privacy, in a marriage that had been negotiated between two Families over a Sunday dinner neither bride nor groom had been invited to.

I struggled to push myself up from the floor, my voice shaking with anger.

"Privacy? What about boundaries?" I shot back. "You're letting Serafina's son call you Dad. Then what is our baby supposed to be?"

Dante's face remained cold.

"Oh, come on. It's just a godfather thing. Why do you have to turn everything into a problem?"

He stood there, looking down at me.

He didn't reach out.

He didn't ask if I was hurt.

He didn't even glance at my stomach.

There was only impatience in his eyes, as if I were some unreasonable burden he had been forced to deal with.

"It's not like I'm leaving you to marry Serafina," he said. "Isn't that enough for you?"

His words hit me harder than the shove.

Enough?

So I was supposed to be grateful that he hadn't abandoned me completely. I was supposed to accept that my husband could answer another woman's every call, let her child call him Dad, change his cipher to the date she returned, and still expect me to stay quiet because he had not officially severed our alliance marriage yet.

For a second, my mind drifted back to three years ago.

Back then, when Dante proposed to me at the Bellandi estate garden with my father's ring still warm from his handshake, his eyes had been full of warmth. He had looked at me like I was the only person he could see. Every word he spoke had been tender enough to make me believe in a lifetime.

But now, he looked at me with nothing but disdain.

As if I were something troublesome.

As if I were something he wished he could scrape off the bottom of his shoe.

I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, his phone rang again.

I glanced at the screen.

Serafina.

No.

Not Serafina.

He had saved her contact under an unbearably intimate nickname.

Fina mia.

The sight of it made my chest tighten.

Dante picked up without hesitation, completely unbothered by the fact that I was still sitting on the floor.

Serafina's soft, delicate voice came through the phone.

"Hey, Dante. Sorry to bother you again, but Matteo's been fussy all night. He says he misses his Daddy Dante and wants you to come read him a bedtime story."

The anger on Dante's face disappeared instantly.

His eyes softened.

His expression lit up like a child who had just received the gift he wanted most.

"Aww, isn't he a cute boy?" he said, his voice full of affection. "How can I let him down?"

He was already turning toward the closet.

"Alright, I'll be right there. Wait for me, Matteo. Daddy's on the way."

Daddy.

The word made my stomach twist.

"Dante!"

My voice trembled as I called out to him.

He paused at the door, impatiently looking back.

I swallowed the bitterness in my throat and said, almost pleading, "Please don't go. Stay with me tonight. When you pushed me just now, I sprained my ankle."

It was true.

My ankle throbbed with every tiny movement, the pain shooting up my leg like needles. My stomach still ached faintly too, and fear sat heavy in my chest. My thumb drifted to my left ring finger, pressing the band against the bone as if the pressure could hold something together.

But Dante only glanced at me with disgust.

"Seriously?" he said coldly. "I barely pushed you, Adriana. Stop being so dramatic."

Then he grabbed a fresh jacket from the wardrobe.

Not only did he not stay, he even stood in front of the mirror and carefully fixed his hair, smoothing it into place as if he were going on a date. His thumb tapped twice against the face of his watch before he adjusted his collar. The gesture was small, automatic, the same one his soldiers had learned to read as the end of a conversation.

The sight made something inside me burn.

All the pain, humiliation, and disappointment I had swallowed finally surged up at once.

I stared at his back and said, word by word, "Dante, if you walk out that door tonight, we're getting a divorce."

"Divorce?"

Dante let out a short, dismissive laugh, as if I had just said something childish and absurd.

"Don't be ridiculous, Adriana. Do you really want our child to grow up without a father?"

He paused, finally turning to look at me.

Maybe it was the look on my face. Maybe it was the fact that, for once, I wasn't crying, begging, or backing down. His expression stiffened for a second before disbelief twisted across his features.

"Unbelievable."

He strode back toward me, bent down, and scooped me up from the floor.

But there was no tenderness in the gesture.

He held me like I was a problem he was tired of dealing with, then dropped me onto the bed as if he were doing me some grand favor.

"There. Happy now?" he said coldly. "Just stay in bed and rest. You'll be fine by morning."

Then he turned and left.

I didn't call after him.

I didn't beg him to stay.

I just lay there in silence, watching his back disappear through the doorway. The moment the door closed behind him, the last fragile thread of hope inside me snapped.

The room became unbearably quiet. The only sound was the low ticking of the clock on the mantel and, somewhere beyond the reinforced windows, the engine of his car pulling away from the guarded townhouse.

I reached for my phone with trembling fingers and booked an appointment with the off-ledger physician for the next day. A quiet termination. No questions. No records the Family would ever see.

I couldn't keep doing this.

I couldn't keep pretending that this marriage still had a future, that Dante still cared, that the child inside me would be born into a home filled with love.

If Dante refused to choose me, then I would choose myself.

My ankle throbbed so badly that every small movement sent pain shooting up my leg. Still, I forced myself out of bed and hobbled to the kitchen. I took a washcloth from the drawer, stuffed it into the freezer, and waited until it was cold enough to use as an ice pack.

When I pressed it against my swollen ankle, the sharp chill bit into my skin.

Tears rolled down my face before I could stop them.

Not because of the pain.

Because I finally understood that from now on, I could no longer expect Dante to take care of me.

If he wouldn't love me, I would learn to love myself.

If he wouldn't protect me, I would protect myself.

My thumb drifted to my left ring finger, pressing against the band of the Valente marriage signet. The metal was warm from my skin. It meant nothing anymore.

That night, I didn't sleep at all.

Not because I was waiting for him.

I already knew he wouldn't come back.

And just as I expected, Dante stayed out all night.

At dawn, when the sky outside was only beginning to pale over the rooftops beyond the compound gate, my phone buzzed.

It was a message from an unknown burner number.

I opened it.

Several photos appeared on the screen.

In the pictures, Dante was shirtless. There were obvious love bites scattered along his neck. He was holding a little boy, around five years old, in his arms. The boy had a picture book clutched in his hands, while Dante lowered his head and read to him with a gentle, patient smile.

He looked relaxed.

Warm.

Like a devoted father.

I stared at those photos for a long time.

I didn't need to ask who had sent them.

A second later, another message came through.

[Serafina: He really is a great dad, isn't he?]

My vision blurred.

Rage churned in my stomach, mixing with disgust and a pain so deep it almost made me numb.

But I didn't reply.

I simply blocked the number.

At noon, I went to the bribed Catholic hospital alone and had the procedure done. The physician asked no questions. The nurses looked away. That was what Valente cash bought you: silence in a room full of saints on the walls.

No one accompanied me.

No one held my hand.

No one asked if I was scared.

After the procedure, my body was so weak that I had to rest for the entire afternoon before I could even stand without feeling like I might collapse.

I lay there in the sterile hospital room, surrounded by the sharp smell of disinfectant, and had more than enough time to think.

I thought about everything I had gained and everything I had lost in this alliance marriage.

I didn't want my child to be born into a family poisoned by resentment, lies, and betrayal.

I didn't want a baby to open their eyes to parents who shouted, deceived, and hurt each other until there was nothing left but bitterness.

If all I could offer that child was a broken home and a father whose heart belonged somewhere else, then perhaps not bringing them into this world was the only responsible choice I had left.

I refused to bury my head in the sand.

I refused to keep pretending I was happy with a husband who had betrayed me again and again.

I refused to smile through the lies while slowly drowning in them.

So I made my decision.

I would let Dante go.

Completely.

And for the rest of my life, I would learn how to love myself.

When I finally left the hospital, my body was still weak. I had to grip the railing as I slowly made my way down the steps, each movement draining what little strength I had left.

Then I saw him.

Dante stood not far away.

He was holding a little boy in one arm and gripping a woman's hand with the other.

Serafina.

Of course it was Serafina.

The woman who had taken everything I once believed was mine.

The three of them stood together in the afternoon sunlight, looking warm and complete. A man, a woman, and a child.

A perfect little family.

The sight was so painfully ironic that I laughed.

A sharp, bitter laugh escaped my throat and echoed against the hospital walls.

How pathetic.

How cliché.

I slowly raised my hands and clapped.

Once.

Twice.

"What a lovely family," I said, my voice filled with cold amusement. "Really. You three look perfect together."

Dante's head snapped up.

The moment he saw me, panic flashed across his face.

Almost immediately, he let go of Serafina's hand.

Then he frowned, as if trying to cover up the guilt that had already betrayed him.

"Adriana? What are you doing here?"

I looked at him and gave him a thin, humorless smile.

"Getting an abortion."

My voice was flat.

Calm.

Almost empty.

Then I looked at the boy in his arms. Matteo was sticking his tongue out at me, smug and childish, completely unaware of what had just happened.

"Congratulations," I said softly. "He's officially your father now. All yours."

Dante froze.