Isabella POV

The Sterling Estate's solarium was supposed to be my sanctuary. Sunlight poured through the soaring glass dome, warming the humid air that was thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming orchids. For the first time in days, a genuine smile graced my lips as I guided seven-year-old Chloe Hayes's small hands around a brass watering can.

"Like this, Bella?" Chloe asked, her bright eyes looking up at me.

"Perfect," I murmured. Nate Hayes stood beside us, his relaxed posture a stark contrast to the suffocating tension I'd left behind at the Moretti estate. Julian and his friend, Gio Rossi, lounged on the rattan sofas nearby. I needed this. I needed to project to the world—and to any of Damien's watching eyes—that I was unbothered, that his archaic mafia rules couldn't break me.

Then, the temperature in the room plummeted.

Damien Moretti stepped into the glass conservatory like a storm cloud swallowing the sun. Rocco Gallo, his massive Enforcer, flanked him like a lethal shadow. Silence instantly strangled the room.

Gio, ever the oblivious fool trying to impress a Don, let out a low whistle. "Careful, Nate. If you look at another man's wife like that, you might lose a hand. Though for a beauty like Bella, maybe it's worth the risk."

Nate paled instantly, his jaw clenching. I didn't look at Damien. Instead, I fixed Gio with a dead, icy stare. "Don't mistake a functioning circulatory system for genuine emotion, Gio. It's a common mistake for men like you."

Gio choked on his next breath, his face flushing a deep, humiliated red.

Damien didn't say a word. His eyes, cold as a Siberian winter, were locked onto Nate. The unspoken threat radiating from my husband was so thick it was hard to breathe. He despised the intimacy of Nate calling me 'Bella'. Julian, finally reading the lethal shift in the room, abruptly stood.

"Nate, why don't you and Chloe come see the new horses? Gio, you too," Julian ordered, his voice tight. Within seconds, they practically fled the solarium, leaving me alone with the devil.

Damien stalked toward me, his presence a suffocating weight. I tried to step back, but he boxed me in against the wrought-iron plant stands. His dark gaze dropped to the V-neck of my cashmere sweater, locking onto the fading, purple bruises marring my collarbone.

"Still wearing my mark, I see," he murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated in my chest. "Or have you been careless enough to let some other man touch what's mine?"

The sheer arrogance of his words ignited a blinding fury within me. "You mean the brand you left the night you dragged me out of the West Wing?" I spat back, lifting my chin to meet his lethal glare. "Don't pretend it meant anything more."

A muscle feathered in his jaw. His eyes darkened with a rage so absolute it made my pulse hammer against my ribs. This was my chance. I had to push him over the edge.

"If my presence disgusts you so much, Damien, then end it," I said, my voice ringing with a desperate finality. "The contract died with my father. Break it. I will sign anything."

Instead of the disgust I hoped for, a terrifying, possessive fire flared in his eyes. He didn't believe me. He thought this was just another move on a chessboard. He lunged, his large hand wrapping around my wrist like a steel vice.

"You started this game, Isabella," he whispered, his breath brushing my ear, sending a violent shiver down my spine. "And a Moretti always finishes what they start. The only way you leave this family is in a coffin."

He released me so abruptly I stumbled, turning on his heel and striding out of the solarium without looking back.

I stood trembling among the orchids, my wrist burning from his grip. *In a coffin.* The words echoed in my mind, a definitive death sentence. I pressed a shaking hand to my flat stomach. If I were to carry his heir, that coffin would be sealed forever, binding my blood to his darkness. I had to make sure that never happened, no matter the cost.

Isabella POV

The phantom grip of Damien’s hand still burned my wrist the next afternoon. *In a coffin.* His promise echoed in my skull as Sofia parked the nondescript sedan on a grimy street in Chicago’s Polish Village.

"Wait here," I told Sofia, pulling a silk scarf over my hair to obscure my face. She gave me a grim, understanding nod. She knew the stakes. She had seen the fresh, angry marks Damien had left on my skin last night—the first time he’d claimed his 'marital rights' since dragging me out of the West Wing.

Kowalski's Apothecary was a claustrophobic relic. The air inside was thick with the suffocating scent of dried herbs and harsh antiseptic. An elderly Polish pharmacist eyed me suspiciously from behind the wooden counter, his hands resting on a ledger.

"How soon can a pregnancy be detected?" I asked, keeping my voice low and steady.

"A month, at least," he rasped, his eyes narrowing.

I took a shaky breath, my hands curling into fists inside my coat pockets. "Then I need the strongest emergency contraceptive you have. Now."

His eyes widened, and he immediately shook his head. "No. It is against God's will, *Proszę pani* (Madam). It is poison to the body."

I stepped closer to the counter, my voice trembling but laced with absolute steel. "And is it not a greater cruelty to bring an unwanted child into a world of darkness and violence? To condemn an innocent to a life they cannot escape?"

Silence stretched between us, heavy and fraught. He searched my eyes, perhaps seeing the sheer, unadulterated desperation of a woman backed into a lethal corner. Finally, with a heavy sigh, he disappeared into the back room. He returned a moment later with an unlabeled brown glass bottle.

"One dose. Take it immediately," he warned.

I slid a thick envelope of cash across the counter—enough to buy his permanent silence—and hurried back out to the car, clutching the small bottle like a lifeline. It was my only weapon against the Moretti bloodline.

*

Damien POV

The lights of Chicago glittered like shattered glass beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of my penthouse office. I stared at the city, the amber liquid in my crystal glass untouched. The air in the room was freezing, matching the ice in my veins.

"Report," I commanded without turning around.

Rocco Gallo’s heavy footsteps stopped at the edge of my mahogany desk. "She visited Kowalski's Apothecary in the Polish Village this afternoon, Boss. I stayed in the alley across the street to avoid spooking her, but I sent a low-level associate inside after she left."

I turned, my jaw clenching. "And?"

"The clerk talked. Said a high-class lady was asking questions about pregnancy."

The word hit the air like a gunshot. *Pregnancy.*

The crystal glass in my hand cracked under the sudden, violent pressure of my grip. A dark, suffocating fury clawed its way up my throat. Last night, after I had finally broken the year-long wall between us in a fit of possessive rage, she had looked me dead in the eye and begged for a divorce. She had played the desperate, abused captive flawlessly, demanding I break the contract.

It was all a smokescreen.

She wasn't trying to escape. She was checking if our encounter had successfully secured the ultimate leverage. An heir. She thought she could use my own blood to trap me, to make herself an untouchable queen in my empire while pretending to be disgusted by my touch. The sheer, calculated audacity of her manipulation made my blood run cold.

"Sir?" Rocco prompted, sensing the lethal shift in the room.

I set the fractured glass down on the desk. The contempt I felt for my wife in this moment was absolute. She wanted to play games with the Moretti legacy. She wanted a war.

"Call Marco and the others," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. "Tell them we are attending Countess De Luca's charity gala tonight. And make sure my wife is dressed for the occasion."

Isabella POV

The transition from the grimy streets of the Polish Village to the suffocating opulence of Countess De Luca’s mansion gave me whiplash. The grand foyer was a blinding display of crystal chandeliers, black-and-white marble, and the heavy scent of expensive perfume masking the underlying stench of mafia politics.

I smoothed my hands down the skirt of my silver silk gown. My stomach churned with a dull, cramping ache—the first harsh side effect of the pills I had swallowed dry in the car.

"Keep your head up," Sofia murmured beside me, her eyes scanning the crowd with the sharp instincts of a born Rossi.

Before I could even take a full breath, Liliana Vance materialized from the sea of tailored suits and glittering diamonds. She wore a predatory, saccharine smile, a crystal glass of dark red wine balanced in her hand. As she brushed past me, her wrist gave a sudden, calculated flick.

The deep crimson liquid splashed across the front of my silver gown, blooming instantly like a fresh gunshot wound.

"Hey!" Sofia snarled, stepping forward with her teeth bared, ready to tear the woman apart.

Liliana gasped, pressing a manicured hand to her chest in mock horror. "Oh, my goodness! I am so clumsy."

"Some people just lack the grace for high society," the woman beside Liliana sneered, eyeing my ruined dress. "No matter how expensive the silk, it can't cover up inherent clumsiness."

I placed a restraining hand on Sofia’s arm. I didn't have the energy for a catfight. I just wanted to survive this night.

Liliana stepped closer, her voice dripping with loud, theatrical pity, ensuring the surrounding guests could hear every word. "Oh, Isabella, I am so sorry. You look so pale. Is it hard adjusting to life outside the Moretti estate? I suppose old habits die hard... I heard Damien was here tonight. It must be so difficult for you to let go."

Her words were venomous little darts, painting me as the desperate, discarded wife stalking her estranged husband.

"Excuse me," I said coldly, turning on my heel to find the powder room.

But my escape route was instantly blocked. Giovanni Rossi stood in my path, a wicked, amused glint in his eyes, with my brother Julian right beside him.

"Bella!" Gio announced loudly, his voice carrying over the string quartet. "Leaving so soon? Damien is waiting in the main ballroom. As Mrs. Moretti, you can't leave the Don unattended."

"He's right, Bella," Julian added, his jaw set in protective, misguided stubbornness. He had seen the wine, seen the humiliation, and his pride demanded retaliation. "Come on. Don't let these people look down on you. Take your place."

I was trapped. Refusing my brother and Gio in front of half the Chicago Outfit would be a public insult to the Moretti name—a death sentence in our world. With a heavy, sinking heart, I let them escort me toward the eye of the storm.

The main ballroom was a gilded cage of Renaissance paintings and white-clothed tables. At the very center, elevated like a judge's bench, was Damien's VIP table.

He sat surrounded by his Caporegimes, his ambitious brother Marco lounging to his left. Damien looked like a dark king holding court. The moment I stepped into the room, his gaze cut through the crowd and locked onto me.

The temperature in my veins plummeted.

There was no fiery rage in his dark eyes. There was only pure, glacial contempt. He looked at me as if I were something vile, something coated in lies and manipulation. I thought he was furious about my defiance in the solarium, about me leaving his house. I didn't know he was looking at my stomach, convinced I was carrying his heir as a calculated weapon to chain him to me. The sheer hatred radiating from him made my breath catch.

We reached the table. Gio smirked, gesturing grandly to the empty chair directly to Damien’s right—the seat of the Mafia Queen. Liliana had followed us and was hovering just a few feet away, her eyes burning with jealousy and anticipation.

Everyone watched me. Waiting for me to claim my throne. Waiting for me to beg for my husband's scraps.

I looked at the empty chair. Then, I turned my gaze to Liliana.

"You look like you've been standing a long time, Liliana," I said, my voice ringing out clear and ice-cold over the sudden hush of the table. "Take the seat."

Without sparing Damien a single glance, I walked past his throne, past his Capos, and took a seat at the absolute furthest end of the long table, right next to Julian.

The entire ballroom seemed to plunge into a dead, suffocating silence. Gio’s smirk vanished. Liliana froze, caught between triumph and utter bewilderment.

At the center of the table, Damien didn't move, but his knuckles turned bone-white around his crystal glass.