Dante acted like my walking into the place barely registered.

He rose from where he crouched, his voice carrying that easy, charitable patience of a man who believed the room belonged to him.

"All right, Adriana."

"Since you came looking for me on your own, I'll treat all that talk of severing the union as you throwing a tantrum."

"Let's just put it behind us."

He glanced down at the pup cradled in his arm, and his face went soft.

"Go home first and tidy up the place. These pups were just born, and things are still touch and go."

"I need to stay a few more days, keep an eye on them with Vittoria."

I stood there on the social club's polished floor, and the whole thing suddenly struck me as absurd.

A mistress installed in plain daylight, in a front the Family's money had built.

A man bound by the codes of the union, betraying the blood without a shred of shame.

And the two of them somehow convinced they were the ones in the right.

As if I had always been the one in the wrong.

I ignored Dante and looked straight at Vittoria, slowly curling my lips into a mocking smile.

"Miss Greco."

"Stealing another woman's man is one thing."

"Now you're stealing her clothes too?"

"Weren't you always parading yourself as some self-made woman?"

"Turns out the empire you built rests on stolen husbands and stolen keepsakes from the dead?"

The air in the club went dead quiet.

A few women picking through the feed and leashes nearby turned to look. One of them blinked, caught off guard.

"Ma'am, aren't you two together?"

"You were sharing one spoon over that cake a minute ago…"

Another frowned.

"Right, I was just saying how good you two looked."

"So he's got a wife?"

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

A few sentences, and Vittoria's face flushed scarlet. Her smile stayed fixed where it had always served her, but her eyes flicked once toward the door, then toward Dante, hunting for the thing that would protect her. She opened her mouth, and not a single word of defense came out.

The customers traded glances, contempt plain in their eyes. The collars and toys they'd already chosen went back onto the shelves. One after another, they filed out of the front.

Watching her marks walk away, Vittoria's eyes reddened in an instant. She flung herself to Dante's side, the picture of injured innocence.

"Dante."

"Did Adriana come here on purpose to wreck my business?"

"I really didn't mean anything by it."

"I just thought that sweater was so warm and soft, perfect for the puppies."

"She spends so much of your money all the time. What kind of clothes can't she buy? Why does she have to fixate on this one?"

"Now everyone who walks through that door thinks the worst of me."

"How am I supposed to keep this place running after this…"

The more she said, the more wronged she sounded. The tears fell one after another.

Dante's heart melted at once. He wiped her tears and turned a cold face on me.

"Adriana, are you done making a scene?"

"I'm the one who took the sweater."

"Why are you taking it out on Vittoria?"

"It's just a piece of clothing. Is this really necessary?"

He frowned, his eyes full of impatience.

"Besides, your body's going to change once you're carrying a child anyway. The sweater wouldn't fit you for long."

"Just have your mother knit another one. Problem solved."

"It's not some collector's piece out of Milan. Why treat it like it's so precious?"

In that moment.

The last thread in my mind snapped clean through.

Crack—

The sharp sound of a slap rang out. Dante's face whipped to the side.

The whole club fell into a dead silence. Even the men near the back, the ones who carried iron under their jackets, went still.

I looked at him, shaking all over, and the tears I couldn't hold back any longer poured down.

"Yes!"

"What my mother knitted is precious!"

"Because she'll never knit anything again!"

My voice came out nearly as a scream. Two days of suppressed breakdown finally tore loose all at once.

"Dante, do you have any idea—while you were here helping her dog give birth, toasting her like she'd become a mother, my parents were already dead!"

"I called you seventy-six times!"

"Seventy-six!"

"And you never picked up once!"

"You'd rather sit with a litter of puppies than come back and save them!"

Dante went rigid where he stood. The color drained from his face completely. He let go of Vittoria without thinking. For the first time, panic surfaced in his eyes. His thumb pressed hard into the knuckles of his other hand, the old surgeon's reflex, scrubbing at skin that was already clean.

"What did you say?"

"How could your parents possibly…"

But before he could finish, Vittoria lunged.

She shoved me hard.

"What gives you the right to hit people!"

"It's just a ratty old sweater!"

"Who even wants it!"

She spun, grabbed the sweater off the puppy, and yanked it free. Then she threw it straight into the litter box one of the staff had just carried out.

"Here, take it back!"

"Who knows if anything you said is even true!"

"I ran into your folks at the market just this morning!"

"Cursing your own parents dead just to fight over a man. Do you have any conscience left?"

The litter box hadn't been cleaned. The moment the sweater landed, it was coated in clumped filth and waste. The sharp stench rose up at me.

That sweater my mother had ruined her eyes knitting. The last thing she'd left me. Defiled like this, beyond saving. An insult against the sacred dead, the kind that, in our world, demands blood.

The young staff member went pale with fright.

"I… I didn't know the owner brought that in…"

"I didn't mean to…"

But I couldn't hear anything anymore. All that remained in my sight was that filthy, befouled sweater. Rage and hatred churned in my chest like lava. Burning until my insides ached.

I walked toward Vittoria, one step at a time. I raised my hand. This slap, I was going to give back to her no matter what.

But before it could land, a rush of air came at me.

The next second.

Crack—

A slap louder than the one before landed hard across my face.

The whole club went silent in an instant. The blow knocked my head to the side. My ears rang. My cheek burned.

And Dante stood in front of me.

Shielding Vittoria.

Like he was shielding the most important person in his life.

The blow knocked me back two stumbling steps.

The right side of my face went up in a hot, stinging blaze, and a sharp ringing filled my ears.

I pressed a hand to my cheek and lifted my head, unable to believe it.

Dante looked startled by what he'd done too.

His hand was still frozen in midair, a flicker of shock in his eyes.

But the moment his gaze caught the red rims of Vittoria's eyes, that hesitation vanished.

In its place came disappointment and disgust.

"Adriana, that's enough!"

"Vittoria calls out your lie, and you raise a hand to her?"

"You ran wires for the Family once, always preaching about the truth, and now you'll even curse your own dead."

"Aren't you afraid it'll come back on you?"

His eyes dropped coldly to the swell of my belly.

"Build up some good faith for the child in there too."

"Apologize to Vittoria right now, or take your things and get out."

"Cause one more scene and I'll have the soldiers put you out on the street."

With that, he turned and led Vittoria out, his body between her and me like a shield.

From start to finish, he never looked at me again.

And I just stood there, soaked through.

That filthy sweater clutched against me.

As if I were holding the last trace of my mother's warmth.

By the time I reached the apartment, the rain had turned to a downpour.

Water dripped down from my hair.

Rinsing over the filth on the sweater.

But no matter how I scrubbed, the stains would not come out.

Like a heart already rotted through.

That whole night I sat in the dark of the front room and never closed my eyes.

Near dawn, I took out the dissolution papers from the drawer, already signed, the ones Salvatore had drawn up to sever the union quietly, without a sit-down, without dragging the Family into it.

I had meant to leave us both a last shred of dignity.

But now I could see.

There was no point.

I tore the pages apart, bit by bit.

Snow-white scraps scattered across the floor.

Dante was right.

A wire's whole purpose is to bring the truth back to the table.

So be it.

I owed it to everyone to lay the truth out in front of them.

Deep in the night.

A cold touch spread across my face.

I opened my eyes slowly.

Dante had come back at some hour I hadn't noticed.

He was holding a tube of ointment, the kind he kept in his bag for soldiers bleeding out on a kitchen table, carefully dabbing it onto my swollen cheek.

The air was thick with the smell of his medicines, that off-the-books clinic smell that clung to everything he touched.

When he saw me wake, he visibly relaxed.

"Adriana."

"Does it still hurt?"

"I'm sorry. I lost my temper today."

There was a rare note of guilt in his voice.

"But you shouldn't have humiliated Vittoria in front of all those people either."

"She's an unmarried girl, and she runs a club with its doors open to half the neighborhood."

"Her standing matters to her."

I watched him in silence.

And suddenly it all felt absurd.

My parents weren't even cold in the ground.

I'd just lost the baby.

And he'd come back in the dead of night, not to apologize.

Not to comfort me.

But to win justice for another woman.

I brushed his hand away.

"And so?"

Dante was quiet for a moment.

Then he pressed his thumb hard into one knuckle, then the next, and finally said what he'd really come for.

"So could you stand up and apologize to Vittoria, where people can hear it?"

"Just say all those things earlier were you talking nonsense, out of your head."

"A woman carrying a child says wild things. Everyone will understand."

"Two nights from now is the second anniversary of Vittoria's club."

"You know everyone worth knowing in the network, all the right mouths. Put the word out for her while you're at it."

"Then the whole thing dies quiet."

I stared at the ointment in his hand.

And suddenly that clinic smell turned my stomach worse than the stench from the litter box.

"Dante."

"I'll ask you one last time."

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

He avoided my eyes.

But his voice was unusually firm.

"Vittoria's been crying so hard."

"Think of it as making it up to her."

"And as building good faith for our child."

"Just promise me, and I'll come with you to every checkup from here on."

"Once the baby's born, I'll be twice as good to you both."

And suddenly I saw it.

That boy who once slipped me orange hard candy.

He really was dead.

After a long silence, I suddenly smiled.

I turned my mother's plain knitted band twice around my finger, slow, and the warmth left me without a sound.

"All right."

"I promise."

Dante visibly relaxed.

He even reached out, happy, as if to hold me.

But just then his phone started buzzing wildly against the table.

He glanced at the screen.

And his eyes softened in an instant.

I didn't have to guess who it was.

Sure enough, the next second.

He turned and walked out again, without a moment's hesitation.

And this time.

I couldn't even feel the heartbreak anymore.

A few minutes later.

Vittoria's call came through.

The moment it connected, her voice came smug and gloating.

"Adriana, how low can you get?"

"Carrying a child and still can't behave. You just had to play the pitiful little wife and trick my Dante into going back."

"And how'd that work out?"

"All I had to do was crook one finger, and he came running straight back."

She laughed, wild with triumph.

"You really think he loves you?"

"If it weren't for the baby in your belly, he'd have thrown you out of the famiglia ages ago."

The old me.

I'd have hung up already.

But this time, I let out a soft laugh.

My palm settled over my flat stomach.

My eyes went cold.

"You're right."

"Dante does care a great deal about that baby."

"After all, the Moretti blood prizes bloodline and honor above everything."

"As long as the baby's here, he'll never sever the union."

The other end went silent.

I went on, slow and unhurried.

"But don't get too excited."

"You've been together this long. You must have always used protection, haven't you?"

"Otherwise, knowing Dante, there's no way he'd have let you go all this time with no claim to anything."

The line went completely quiet.

I'd clearly hit the mark.

I let my lips curve.

"So, Vittoria."

"As long as I'm still carrying this baby."

"You'll never get out of the shadows where no one can see you. A kept woman, living on laundered cash that isn't even yours."

"Men in this world are like that."

"No matter how wild they run out there, in the end they always come home to the blood."

"And Dante just told me that once the baby's born, most of the tribute in his name will go to the child."

"By then, you'll likely walk away with nothing."

"When it comes down to it."

"You're just the toy my husband uses to pass the time while my pregnancy makes me inconvenient."

"I should even thank you."

Heavy, ragged breathing came through the phone.

Then a voice grinding through clenched teeth.

"Adriana, you just wait!"

"I will make Dante sever this union, no matter what!"

I laughed.

And hung up.

Sure enough.

In less than half an hour.

Vittoria sent over a secretly filmed video.

Along with a taunting voice message.

"Adriana, you're pathetic."

"Dante already promised to give me a baby."

"Once I'm pregnant, you and your kid can both get out together."

I didn't even bother to open it.

I just quietly saved every piece of it.

Because there's no point arguing wins and losses with a fool.

What I needed.

Was for her to walk herself into the abyss with her own two hands.

I turned my mother's plain knitted band twice around my finger, slow, and felt the last warmth leave me.

Two days later.

Dante bought out a hotel in the heart of the territory, one of the Family's own fronts, every table laid with the kind of money that has to be washed before it can be spent.

A splashy celebration for the second anniversary of Vittoria's social club.

Besides their mutual friends, plenty of fellow Family doctors, faces from the information network, and front-business associates showed up.

Long before the gathering began.

Vittoria had already rushed to announce it to everyone.

Today.

I would apologize to her in front of all of them.

The big screen at the center of the banquet hall slowly lit up.

Countless eyes swung to me at once. The room had that hush that falls before a sit-down, when no one yet knows whose blood will be on the floor.

Vittoria sat in the seat of honor.

Her face full of a victor's smile.

Dante gave a satisfied nod too.

Signaling the men to start the livestream out to the Family's network.

On the screen.

I gave a faint smile.

"Hello, everyone."

"At the request of my husband, Dante Moretti."

"Today, I really have come to apologize to Miss Vittoria Greco."

A ripple of whispers ran through the room.

Vittoria's smile spread wider and wider.

But the next second.

I let my lips curve, slowly.

"I apologize."

"I'm sorry that when I received the evidence of Vittoria Greco's long-running betrayal of the blood with my husband, I couldn't hold back the disgust and threw up on the spot."

The whole room went dead silent. Somewhere a glass was set down too carefully. No one breathed.

I went on, calm.

"To show my sincerity."

"I even reached out to a good number of friends in the network."

"To give the two of you a free wave of publicity, carried to every ear that matters in this Family."

"Next, please join me in enjoying this years-long performance of deceit and betrayal."

"And witness, together."

"The whole truth of this filthy relationship."