I don't know how long I was in that basement.

The bleeding got worse. The floor beneath me was soaked. I was fading in and out of consciousness with the pain.

Every contraction was like a bomb going off in my belly.

Suddenly, the door flew open.

"Madonna mia!" a familiar voice cried out.

Dr. Russo.

The Falcone family's private doctor.

He rushed to my side, kneeling in the pool of my blood, his trembling hands checking my pulse.

"Signora Falcone! What are you doing here?" His face was white. "I thought you were in the VIP suite upstairs—"

"Elena—" I said weakly. "She put me—"

"Don't talk." Dr. Russo lifted my dress to examine me. The horror on his face grew. "You're fully dilated, your water broke, and you're hemorrhaging. This is a Code Red!"

He tried to use his phone, but the screen read "No Signal."

"Damn this basement!" he cursed, then looked at me. "Signora, I have to get you to a delivery room. Right now!"

Dr. Russo bent down to pick me up. "Here, hold on to me."

"My baby—" I grabbed his arm. "Please, save my baby."

"I'm saving you both," he said through gritted teeth, lifting me into his arms. "But first, we get out of this hellhole."

The guards outside saw him and moved to block our path.

"Stop! Miss Elena said—"

"Miss Elena said what?" Dr. Russo roared. "To let a woman in labor bleed to death in a storage closet? Get out of my way!"

His voice had the authority of a doctor, and even the guards flinched.

Dr. Russo stumbled with me toward the elevator.

Blood dripped onto the floor, leaving a sickening trail behind us.

"Hang on," he panted. "The top floor has the best equipment. We're almost there."

The elevator felt like it was moving through concrete. Every floor was torture.

My vision was blurring, but I could feel my baby fighting, trying to get out.

"How much longer?" I whispered.

"Two minutes," Dr. Russo said, watching the floor numbers. "Just two minutes."

The elevator finally reached the top floor. The doors opened, and Dr. Russo charged toward the luxury private delivery suite—

The door was open.

We rushed in and froze.

The room was empty.

The millions of dollars of medical equipment—all gone.

Monitors, ventilators, the surgical table, even the goddamn bed—gone.

There was nothing but four bare walls and a few dangling wires.

"This is impossible," Dr. Russo whispered, standing stunned in the doorway. "Where's the equipment?"

Footsteps echoed from the hall.

Elena appeared at the door, a few nurses behind her.

She saw us and put on a show of surprise.

"Oh my god! Alessia!" She clutched her chest. "You look terrible! Dr. Russo, why isn't she resting in bed?"

"Resting?" Dr. Russo stared at her. "She was hemorrhaging in a basement storage room! And this suite—where is all the equipment?"

Elena blinked, like the answer was obvious.

"Oh, that equipment?" she said casually. "We moved it to Ornella's suite."

Dr. Russo's face went even paler. "What?"

"To ensure the safe delivery of the one true heir to the Falcone family," Elena said, her voice slow and deliberate. Her eyes raked over me with pure contempt. "Ornella gets the best of everything. It's her right."

"But Signora Falcone is crowning!" Dr. Russo was screaming now. "She needs surgery, right now!"

Elena glanced at me. She shrugged.

"Drop the act, Alessia. Vittorio already told me. That dose is harmless. You're just putting on a show for sympathy, trying to distract from Ornella's labor. We're not falling for your games again."

I stared at her perfectly made-up face.

I suddenly remembered a year ago, using the first money I ever made from selling my paintings to buy her a Dior dress she'd been dreaming of.

She hugged me and said, "Alessia, you're the sister I never had."

What a joke.

The "sister she never had" was lying on the floor, bleeding out, while she and her precious brother pushed me toward my grave.

Dr. Russo laid me on the floor of the empty room and ran out.

"I'll check the nurses' station for supplies!" he yelled.

Elena leaned against the doorframe, enjoying the show.

"So dramatic," she said, examining her nails. "Still needs work on your acting, though."

Another contraction ripped through me, and I curled into a ball.

Blood kept pooling under me, spreading across the white marble floor.

Two minutes later, Dr. Russo ran back in.

Empty-handed.

His face was white as a sheet.

"There's nothing at the station," he said, his voice trembling. "Not even a basic hemostat. No gauze."

Elena chuckled. "Oh, those? They were sent to Ornella's room, too. Vittorio's orders."

"This is murder!" Dr. Russo shouted. "She'll die! The baby will die!"

"That's fate," Elena shrugged. "The needs of the Family come first."

Dr. Russo knelt beside me and took my hand.

"Signora, I'm so sorry," he said, tears in his eyes. "I have no equipment, no medicine. Nothing."

"Then use your hands!" I grabbed his collar. "Do anything!"

"I can't risk it. It's not sterile, I have nothing to stop the bleeding—"

"Enough!" Elena suddenly snapped.

Two guards walked in and grabbed Dr. Russo's arms.

"Miss Elena said 'enough'," one of them grunted.

"No!" Dr. Russo struggled. "She needs a doctor!"

They started dragging him out.

"Listen to me!" Dr. Russo screamed as they dragged him away. "You have to push! Find the hardest point of the contraction and bear down! Use the pain!"

His voice faded down the hall. "Bear down! Don't give up!"

The door slammed shut.

It was just me and Elena again.

She pulled out her phone and made a video call.

"Vittorio?" Her voice was suddenly full of hurt. "You need to see the new show your 'good wife' is putting on."

She pointed the camera at me.

I saw Vittorio’s face. He stood in the brightly lit hall outside another suite. His suit was rumpled. His face was a mask of exhaustion.

When he saw me in the pool of blood, a flicker of shock crossed his face. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by ice.

"What's wrong with her?" His voice was tight, cold.

"What do you think? It's an act," Elena said lightly. "She's bleeding a little, sure, but Dr. Russo is a drama queen. I think she's just trying to get you to come over here."

Vittorio's jaw tightened as he stared at me through the screen.

Then, a weak woman's voice came from his side of the call. Ornella.

"Vittorio… who is it… Is that Alessia? Is she… is she blaming me again?"

"It's nothing, don't lose focus," Vittorio said, his voice instantly softening for her. But his eyes on me grew colder.

"Vittorio!" I screamed with my last bit of strength. "Save me... the baby... the baby is really coming!"

"Alessia, stop it." His expression didn't change. "Ornella is having complications. The doctors are with her now. She is the priority."

"But I—"

"I'll deal with you after," he cut me off coldly.

On the screen, I saw him turn to gently stroke Ornella's forehead.

"This is your penance for what you did."

The screen went black.

Elena put her phone away, satisfied.

"See?" She knelt in front of me, her eyes full of cruelty. "You're nothing to Vittorio. Just some woman who climbed into his bed for money. A broodmare. And now, you're not even good for that."

"You thought you could marry into the Falcone family and become a queen?" she said, standing to deliver her verdict. "You and that thing inside you are just trash that needs to be cleaned up."

I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her anymore.

My hand secretly moved to the necklace I was wearing.

It was an antique locket from my grandmother. The last line of defense my father gave me before my wedding.

"If you are ever in a danger you cannot escape," my father had told me, his voice dead serious, "crush it."

My fingers found the tiny mechanism inside the locket.

Elena's voice was still ringing in my ears.

"...Ornella told me you were no good from the start. I even defended you. What a fool I was. Some girl from nowhere, marrying in for money. Who knows what you were really after?"

With all my strength, I crushed the mechanism.

There was no sound, no light. But I knew. The signal was sent.

"Half an hour," my father had said. "Within half an hour, my men will tear Chicago apart to find you."

But my baby... could my baby last another half an hour?

My consciousness was fading.

Elena was still standing there, her insults a distant buzz.

"If you weren't pregnant, Vittorio never would have married some nobody like you."

I tried to do what Dr. Russo said. I tried to use the pain. To bear down with every wave of fire that ripped through me.

But I had nothing left.

"Look at you now," Elena said, staring down at me. "Lying on the floor like a dead fish. Is this the high life you wanted?"

Suddenly, a new pain, worse than anything before, tore through my body.

The drugs were gone.

The baby was coming.

"Ahhh—" I screamed.

Elena rolled her eyes.

"Maria!" she yelled down the hall. "Get in here and look at this woman!"

A young nurse ran in. Her face went white when she saw me.

"Oh my God!" She knelt down to check. "The baby's head is crowning!"

"Then get it out of her," Elena said, her voice flat.

"But..." The nurse was crying now. "I'm not a midwife! She's hemorrhaging! With no tools, no medicine... they'll both die! I'll kill them both!"

Elena's eyes rested on me for a second, then she shrugged.

"Then that's her fate. She did this to herself."

She turned and walked to the door without a second glance. "I'm going to see the real heir being born. You watch her. Don't let her die too quick. It's still Vittorio's kid, after all."

The door closed.

It was just me and the terrified nurse.

"I... I don't know what to do," she cried. "I only know basic nursing."

Another contraction hit. I could feel the baby slipping.

"Help me," I grabbed her hand. "Please."

The nurse nodded, her own hands shaking.

She tried to help, but she had no idea what she was doing.

"Push!" she said.

But I had no strength left.

The blood loss was making the room spin.

"I can't—"

"You have to push!"

She started pulling in a way she thought was right, but it only made the pain worse.

The baby was stuck.

Seconds ticked by like hours.

Every one was agony.

I was about to pass out for good.

Then, I heard a massive crash.

BOOM!

The door was kicked off its hinges.

A team of men in black suits stormed in. They moved fast, disciplined, like soldiers.

The man in the lead was older, gray-haired, with a scarred face and eyes as sharp as a hawk's.

Luca.

My father's consigliere.

The moment he saw me in the pool of my own blood, his eyes went raw with fury.

"Sweet Mother of God..." he hissed, dropping to one knee beside me.

"Signora," his voice cracked. "We're too late."

"Luca—" I whispered.

"Don't talk. Save your strength." He turned to his men. "Marco! Get the medical team up here! Now!"

"Enzo! Secure the room!"

"Giuseppe! Lock down the hall!"

The nurse tried to run, but two men blocked her path.

"Let me go!" she screamed. "This is a Falcone family hospital! You can't just barge in here!"

Luca slowly stood up and turned to face her.

His eyes were ice.

"The Falcones?"

His voice was dangerously quiet. A chilling promise.

"After tonight, the Falcone family will be nothing but a memory in Chicago."