The doctor studied his clipboard with fascinating intensity, finding interest in the wall, the linoleum floor—anywhere but my face.

The room reeked of antiseptic and failure.

"We did everything we could, Mrs. Moretti," he said, his voice dropping to a practiced, professional murmur. "The hypothermia was severe. The stress on your body... the miscarriage was incomplete. We had to operate to stop the hemorrhaging."

I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling tiles. I counted the perforations. Anything to avoid the pity in his eyes.

"And?" I asked. The word scraped my throat, hollow and dry.

He hesitated. "There was significant scarring. It is highly unlikely you will be able to carry a child to term in the future. I am so sorry."

I didn't cry. I think I’d left my capacity for grief in the freezing mud outside the estate. Instead, a strange, cold lightness settled in my chest. The tether that bound me to Dante—the hope of a family, the biological imperative to love him—had finally snapped.

I signed the discharge papers myself.

Dante hadn't come. Mario, his head bowed, told me the Don was busy. Leo had a nightmare.

When I returned to the estate, the house was aggressively quiet. I walked past the living room and froze. There, framed by the archway, was a perfect domestic tableau.

Dante sat on the rug, piecing together a wooden train track. Elena was laughing, pouring tea from a silver service. Leo was clapping his hands, his face bright with joy.

They looked like a family. I looked like a ghost haunting my own life.

I walked past them without a word.

Dante looked up, his eyes narrowing as they swept over my pale, disheveled form.

"You're back," he said. His tone was dismissive, as if I had just returned from a grocery run, not the emergency room where his child had died. "You learned your lesson?"

I didn't stop walking. I didn't even look at him. I went straight to the master bedroom.

I threw open the closet doors. I pulled out every dress he had ever bought me. The red silk from Milan. The velvet from Paris. I ripped them from their hangers and threw them onto the floor.

I went to the jewelry box on the vanity. The diamond necklace from our first anniversary. The emeralds from my twenty-first birthday.

I dumped them into the metal trash can. The cacophony of gold hitting steel was satisfyingly final.

"What are you doing?"

Dante stood in the doorway. He looked annoyed, not concerned.

"Cleaning," I said.

He stepped into the room, his dark presence instantly filling the space. He smelled of tobacco and Elena's cheap vanilla perfume.

"Stop being dramatic, Sera. You embarrassed us. Elena is a guest. She saved my life. You will treat her with respect."

I ignored him and walked over to the wall where our wedding portrait hung. It was five feet tall, a monument to a lie. We looked so happy in oil and canvas. He was looking at me like I was the sun and he was a man starving for warmth.

I picked up the heavy brass letter opener from the desk.

"Sera," Dante warned, his voice dropping an octave.

I slashed the canvas. I drove the blade right through his smiling face, tearing the fabric down the middle. The sound of ripping linen was a scream in the silence.

He moved with terrifying speed. He crossed the room and shoved me.

I hit the vanity table hard. My hip slammed into the solid wood, knocking the breath from my lungs.

"You are insane," he hissed.

Elena appeared in the doorway, clutching a plush doll to her chest. "Oh God, Dante! Is she okay?"

She held the doll out to me, her eyes wide and innocent. "Leo wanted you to have this. As a peace offering."

I looked at the doll. Then I looked at Elena. Her eyes were dancing with malice.

I reached for the toy. As my fingers closed around the soft fabric, a sharp pain spiked in my thumb. I jerked my hand back. A bright bead of blood welled up instantly.

A needle. Buried point-up, deep inside the stuffing.

Elena gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh no! I must have left a sewing needle in there when I fixed it! I'm so clumsy!"

She didn't look clumsy. She looked predatory.

Dante grabbed my wrist, looking at the blood, then at Elena's tearful face.

"It was an accident, Sera," he said, his grip tightening to the point of bruising. "Don't you dare accuse her of anything."

I looked at him. I looked at the man who used to kill anyone who even thought about bruising my skin. Now he was the one doing it.

"I'm not accusing anyone," I said softly.

I wrenched my hand free. I didn't wipe the blood away. I let it drip onto the expensive carpet, a crimson stain on the pristine wool.

"I'm just tired, Dante. So tired."

Screams tore me from sleep.

It wasn’t a nightmare. The raw, terrifying sounds were real, and they were echoing up from the dining room.

I forced myself out of bed. My body screamed in protest, every inch aching from the miscarriage surgery, from the shove, from the rain. Moving felt like wading through heavy sludge.

Downstairs, panic had consumed the house.

Leo was gasping for air, his face swollen and mottled red, hives blooming violently across his neck. It was unmistakable—an anaphylactic reaction.

Elena was shrieking, pointing a manic finger at the table. "She did it! She tried to kill him!"

Dante was clutching the boy, shouting orders to his men to get the epinephrine. He looked up as I stumbled into the room. His eyes were not human. They were void of all light—the eyes of the Reaper.

"What did you put in his oatmeal?" he roared.

I stood by the door frame, gripping the wood to keep from collapsing. "I haven't been in the kitchen," I stammered. "I've been sleeping."

"Liar!" Elena screamed. She pointed a shaking finger at me. "I saw her! I saw her near the pantry. She knows he's allergic to peanuts! She wants him dead because she can’t give you one herself! She's barren!"

The word hit me like a physical blow. Barren.

How did she know? I hadn't told Dante yet. I hadn't told anyone.

Dante didn't ask for proof. He didn't summon the chef. Fear for his son had eclipsed all reason. He handed the gasping boy to a medic and marched toward me.

He grabbed me by the hair.

"Dante, please," I gasped, clawing at his wrist. "Check the cameras."

"I trusted you," he spat, his voice a lethal growl. "I brought you into my home. I gave you everything. And you attack a child?"

He dragged me. He didn't pull me toward his office. He didn't take me to the front door. He took me to the heavy iron door behind the kitchen.

The Cellar.

It was a damp, stone chamber built during Prohibition to hide liquor and, later, bodies. It flooded whenever it rained.

"Dante, no," I begged, my heels skidding uselessly on the floor. "I'm sick. Please."

He threw me down the stairs.

I tumbled into the dark, my body slamming against cold stone before splashing into three inches of stagnant water.

"Think about what you've done," he said.

He slammed the door. The lock engaged with a sound like a gunshot.

Total darkness swallowed me. The water soaked instantly into my pajamas, freezing me to the bone. I could hear things moving in the corners. Scurrying. Chittering.

I scrambled to the highest point, a wooden pallet in the center of the room, and curled into a tight, shivering ball.

Hours passed. Or maybe days. Time didn't exist in the dark.

Then, the slot in the door slid open. A beam of light cut through the gloom, blinding me.

Elena's face appeared in the rectangle. She was smiling.

"You look comfortable, Princess," she whispered.

"Let me out," I said. My voice was a broken croak.

"Not yet," she said. "Dante is very upset. He's at the hospital with Leo. He told me to come check on the prisoner."

She lifted a burlap sack into view.

"I thought you might get lonely," she said.

She upended the sack through the slot.

The contents hit the water with wet, heavy splashes.

Squeaks. The frantic scratching of claws on stone.

Rats.

Panic, primal and overwhelming, seized my throat. I screamed. I screamed until I tasted copper.

Elena laughed. It was a soft, tinkling sound that chilled me more than the water.

"Don't worry, Sera. I'm going to take good care of Dante. He's going to be a great father to my son. You were just a placeholder."

She slammed the slot shut.

I was left alone with the scratching claws and the rising water. I didn't scream anymore. I sat on the pallet, hugging my knees, and I let the fear burn out until there was nothing left but ash.

When the heavy iron door finally groaned open, the sudden influx of light blinded me.

Two guards dragged me out, my legs useless beneath me, numb from days of cramping cold. I reeked of mildew and the sour, metallic tang of my own fear.

Dante was waiting in the hallway.

He looked tired, the lines around his eyes etched deep, but his expression held no apology.

"Elena begged for your release," he said, his voice flat. "She has a forgiving heart. Unlike you."

I didn't answer.

I couldn't even look at him. If I turned my gaze to his face, the urge to kill him might override the little strength I had left, and I would only fail.

"You are confined to the attic," he stated, delivering the verdict like a judge. "You are no longer mistress of this house. You are a liability."

The attic.

A cruel irony. It used to be my sanctuary, the one place where the light was perfect for painting. Now, the lock clicked shut from the outside.

I spent three days in that dust-mote silence.

I spent hours watching from the small circular window as Elena walked in the garden below.

She was wearing my sun hat.

She was holding Dante's arm.

He leaned down to hear her speak, a softness in the curve of his spine that used to belong to me. That betrayal hurt more than the hunger.

On the fourth day, the door opened.

A maid entered, avoiding my eyes, and threw a garment onto the narrow bed.

"The Don expects you downstairs in an hour," she muttered. "The Charity Gala is tonight."

I looked at the dress.

It was black. Severe. High-necked and old-fashioned.

It wasn't a dress for a wife. It was a dress for a widow.

I put it on. The silk hung loosely on my frame; I had lost at least ten pounds in a week.

The Gala was held in the grand ballroom, a cavern of crystal chandeliers and hollow laughter. The elite of Chicago were there—politicians, judges, and the heads of other crime families.

When I walked in, the room fell into a suffocating silence.

They saw the dark circles bruised under my eyes. They saw the vast, freezing distance between me and my husband.

Dante stood at the center of the room, a glass of scotch in hand, commanding the space.

Elena was beside him, draped in a shimmering gold gown that clung to her curves like second skin. She looked like a queen.

I drifted toward the bar, trying to make myself invisible against the shadows.

The whispers reached me anyway.

"That's the wife? She looks deranged."

"I heard she tried to poison the kid."

"Dante is a saint for keeping her."

Suddenly, a woman in crimson deliberately checked her shoulder into mine.

Red wine splashed across the front of my black dress, soaking into the fabric like fresh blood.

"Oops," she sneered, her lip curling. "Watch where you're going, crazy."

I didn't react.

I didn't gasp. I didn't glare. I just took a cocktail napkin and quietly dabbed at the stain.

Dante saw it all.

He didn't come to me.

Instead, he stepped up to the microphone on the stage.

"Thank you all for coming," he said, his baritone voice silencing the room effortlessly. "Family is everything to us."

He slid an arm around Elena's waist.

She beamed, soaking in the adoration.

"I want to honor Elena Russo tonight," he announced. "A woman of courage. A woman who understands loyalty. She is the future of this house."

The room erupted in applause.

He hadn't introduced her as his mistress. He hadn't introduced her as a guest. He had named her the future.

And me? I was the past. I was just the stain on the floor.

He looked at me then.

Across the sea of applauding sycophants, his eyes locked with mine. There was a challenge in them, cold and sharp.

*Submit,* he was saying. *Accept your place.*

I held his gaze. I didn't blink. I didn't cry.

After the speech, he cornered me by the kitchen entrance, away from the prying eyes of his guests.

"You will move your things to the servant's quarters in the east wing," he ordered. "The attic is needed for storage. You will learn humility, Sera. You will earn your keep."

I looked at him, feeling a strange, hollow calm settle over me.

"Okay," I said.

He blinked, visibly surprised by my lack of fight. "Okay?"

"Yes, Dante. Whatever you say."

I turned and walked toward the servant's hall.

I didn't look back.

I didn't need to. I knew exactly where I was going.