They Said I Killed an Unborn Heir

The first thing I did after being reborn was buy fifty pounds of semolina flour and drag the whole family into making ravioli.

Because in my last life, my stepmother had been sleeping with another man and gotten pregnant with his bastard.

To keep my father from finding out, she deliberately walked into a doorbuster sale at the grocery store on the avenue, let herself get knocked down in the stampede, and lost the baby.

Afterward, she came home sobbing to my father: "If Bianca hadn't been so obsessed with saving a few pennies and dragged me to that sale, I never would have lost our baby boy..."

I tried to explain, but my fianc stepped forward and backed her story.

"Bianca Valenti, I am so disappointed in you!"

"I already looked the other way when you'd skip out on restaurant checks and steal bulk snacks from the supermarket, but this time you got your own stepmother trampled into losing an unborn heir over some cheap groceries. I'm calling off the engagement!"

My father lost his mind on the spot. He chased me down and slapped me across the face dozens of times.

Afterward, he had his soldiers bind my wrists and hand me off to a recluse out in the countryside. I was locked in a pen, beaten and abused until I bled out and died.

It was only after I died that I learned the truth: my fianc had been after my stepmother from the very beginning.

Getting engaged to me was nothing but a cover so the two of them could carry on their affair.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my stepmother went to that doorbuster sale and lost the baby.

The phone rang while I was still clutching my blanket, tears streaming down my face.

I answered out of reflex. Viviana D'Amato's voice crackled through the speaker. "Bianca, Christmas Eve is coming up and I want to go out for a bit. I won't be home to cook today, so be a dear and handle the chores, and make dinner for your father and your grandparents, okay?"

She said it like it was already settled, not leaving me a sliver of room to refuse.

"Don't tell your father where I went, either. Otherwise he'll come looking for me and I won't even get a moment to breathe."

"So it's a deal, Bianca! You're Mommy's little angel. I'll bring you back something yummy when I get home!"

Viviana hung up without a second's hesitation, then blocked my number.

Five or six calls in a row went straight to a busy signal. By then my head had cleared completely, and a cold sweat broke through the rage.

I had actually been reborn. Back to the day my stepmother went to that doorbuster sale and lost the baby.

In my previous life, Viviana had married my father because she thought the Valenti name still carried real money. A Don's household, the brownstone on the Family-controlled block, the fleet of black sedans parked curbside. She saw it all and assumed there was a fortune underneath.

It wasn't until after the wedding that she realized my father was just a retired Boss running on reputation, no pension from the old crews, no hidden accounts offshore. Everything he'd been flashing around was actually mine. My inheritance from my mother's side, held in trust, managed through the front businesses on Mulberry Street.

She was furious, but there was nothing she could do except grit her teeth and stick it out.

Last time around, on Christmas Eve, Viviana had called me with the same line: she'd been cooped up in the compound all year and needed some air, could I look after the house.

I said yes. Then something came up at the front business and I was out the entire day, not getting home until it was time for the holiday dinner.

The house was dead quiet when I walked in. The hallway smelled like cold tobacco. Viviana stood in the living room, weeping, while my father sat in his chair with one hand flat on the armrest, perfectly still, and glared at me with murder in his eyes.

Through her tears, Viviana choked out: "Bianca, this is all your fault. If you hadn't been so desperate for a bargain and dragged me to that sale, I never would have been crushed by that mob and lost the baby..."

I was floored. I immediately tried to set the record straight.

"Mom, what are you talking about? I was at the office all day. I never went anywhere near that store with you."

I was about to pull up my timecard as proof when my fianc snatched the phone out of my hand, hurled it to the floor, and stomped on it.

He looked at me with disgust. Damiano Bellandi smoothed his tie flat with his whole palm, letting the silence hold for one more second before he spoke.

"I put up with you never paying your way and mooching off everyone around you, but getting your own stepmother trampled into losing an unborn heir? I can't take this anymore. The engagement is off!"

My fianc's declaration was all my father needed. He sat there, sucking down the last of his cigarette with heavy, ragged breaths, then fixed me with a look that could kill.

"You worthless tramp! You cost the Valenti family its male heir!"

He grabbed me by the hair and slapped me more than a dozen times, then tied me up and sold me to some recluse out in the countryside.

It wasn't until I'd been tortured to death that I learned the truth: my stepmother and my alliance groom Damiano Bellandi had been sleeping together for ages. The baby Viviana miscarried wasn't even my father's. It was Damiano's.

The two of them had gotten careless in the heat of the moment, and terrified of being found out and publicly shamed, they'd conspired to frame me instead.

Brilliant scheme, really. You almost had to applaud.

This time around, there was no way in hell I'd let those two get what they wanted.

The thought pulled a cold smile to my lips. I didn't even plan on leaving the house today. I called in a delivery of fifty pounds of ground meat, straight to our door on the Family-controlled block.

As for my supervisor at the front business, I shot him a message requesting to keep the ledgers from the compound through the holiday.

I was the backbone of our operation and he valued me highly, so his approval came back within minutes.

With all that settled, I took my time getting out of bed and washing up.

I'd just sat down at the table for breakfast when the doorbell rang. The butcher hauled in the fifty pounds of ground meat and left.

Dad, Salvatore, and Rosa all stared at the delivery in disbelief, asking where on earth all this pork had come from.

I pinned the whole thing on my supervisor without blinking.

"One of the associate suppliers couldn't settle their accounts before year-end, and the boss was breathing down their necks, so they paid in product instead of cash."

"Turns out the outfit's in the meat business, so my supervisor just converted this year's holiday envelope into ground pork and told everyone to take it home for making ravioli."

Nonna Rosa's jaw nearly hit the floor. "That much meat? That's got to be, what, fifty pounds? We'll be folding ravioli till next year!"

Nonno Salvatore sighed right after her. "Well, that settles it. We're prisoners of this pork today. I was planning to go play chess with the guys at the social club, but that's off the table now."

I saw the butcher out, then turned to Dad.

"Dad, all this meat's going to waste if we don't use it. Nonno and Nonna already said they're in. Don't just stand there. Go wash your hands and get over here."

Dad had no choice. He cursed out the associate supplier while rolling up his sleeves to mince garlic and onions, and within minutes he was drenched in sweat.

On Christmas Eve, every other family on the block was stringing lights and uncorking wine, adults and kids filling the brownstones with noise. Our family? Grinding through an endless mountain of ravioli.

Dad, being the strongest pair of arms in the house, went from mincing to kneading dough, panting like he'd run a marathon by the end of the morning.

By noon, everyone was starving. Dad suddenly remembered that his wife was still out somewhere.

"It's twelve thirty already. Why hasn't Viviana come back to cook? What's she doing out there?"

I shook my head, the picture of innocence. "No idea. I called her five or six times this morning and found out she blocked me."

"You think she's mad at me? Maybe try calling her yourself, Dad?"

Dad's brow furrowed. He pulled out his phone and dialed Viviana.

Ring after ring after ring.

Three calls in a row. Viviana didn't pick up a single one.

That was the match that lit the fuse. He rounded on me, voice booming. "Did you get into a fight with your stepmother? Why else would she ignore my calls?"

"Bianca, you're twenty-five years old! How are you still picking fights with her like a child?"

I let my lip tremble with just the right amount of hurt, then pulled up the taped call and hit play.

"Dad, you're blaming me again. This time it's obviously you she's upset with. That's why she won't come home."

Viviana's voice spilled out of the phone speaker for the whole family to hear. The moment Dad heard her say she didn't want him to find her, his face went dark as a thundercloud.

His gold ring stopped turning against his knuckle. He lit a cigarette without a word, jaw tight, and sat there smoking for a long time before he finally collected himself.

Nonno Salvatore and Nonna Rosa moved in to calm him down. While they were busy, I quietly ordered four meals for delivery.

"Dad, Nonno, Nonna, Viviana's not coming back to cook, and we're all tied up with these ravioli. Let's just grab some takeout for now and push through."

Nonno and Nonna both praised me for being such a good kid. My father, on the other hand, sat in a cloud of silent fury, not saying a word. That tension held all the way through the evening.

Fifty pounds of meat filling, finally wrapped. Everyone's hands were cramping by the end.

Dad went out to buy cigarettes. Nonno and Nonna headed to the kitchen to boil the ravioli.

I sat on the couch answering messages and glanced up at the dark sky outside. A small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

This time I hadn't left the house. I'd been with my family the entire day. There was no way Viviana's lost pregnancy could be pinned on me now.

I'd barely taken two sips of water when Damiano walked through the door, supporting a weeping Viviana on his arm.

The second she spotted me, Viviana's red-rimmed eyes went wide and she started screaming.

"Bianca Valenti, you are absolutely despicable! After everything I've done for you, you deliberately made me lose my baby!"

Before I could even open my mouth, my promised husband chimed right in.

"She's right, Bianca. I never imagined you could be this vicious. I'm disgusted. The alliance is off!"

I kept my face perfectly innocent. "What are you two talking about? Mom, you were pregnant? Since when? I had no idea."

The look on my face only made Viviana sob harder.

"Bianca, I never realized you hated me this much! All that filial devotion was just an act!"

"I only told you the good news about the pregnancy last night, and this morning you dragged me to that market on Arthur Avenue on purpose, so the crowd would crush me until I lost the baby!"

"I barely survived at the hospital, and now you won't even admit what you did? You're asking me what I'm talking about?"

"Bianca, how can one woman do this to another? You have no heart!"

My grandparents were sentimental about the old block. Even though they'd been deeded an apartment above one of the family's front businesses in the newer part of the neighborhood, the whole household still lived in the brownstone on the Valenti-controlled row.

It was Christmas Eve. Plenty of neighbors were out on the stoops, stringing lights and sharing bottles of wine in the cold. The commotion at our door drew them over like moths.

Viviana planted herself right in the doorway, refusing to come inside, and cranked her voice up to full volume. She touched beneath her left eye before any real tears fell, and I watched her fingertip come away dry.

The neighbors caught the gist of her performance and turned their accusing stares on me.

"That Bianca girl always looked so sweet and clean-cut. Who knew she had a rotten heart? Deliberately causing the Don's wife to lose an unborn heir!"

"You think you know somebody. We watched that girl grow up on this block, and she turns out to be this cruel!"

One of the older women spoke up. "That's it. I'm going home to tell my son and daughter-in-law to cut ties with Bianca Valenti. Who knows when she'll turn on one of us next!"

Others murmured their agreement, echoing warnings to keep their own kids away from me.

Tears welled in my eyes.

But this time they weren't from the helpless confusion of my last life. They were from barely contained excitement.

Viviana saw the tears and assumed I was cracking under the pressure. She doubled down, broadcasting my so-called crimes to the neighbors with even more gusto.

Damiano seized the moment. Without a word of warning, he grabbed me and forced me down, demanding I kneel and apologize to my stepmother. He smoothed his tie flat with his whole palm before he spoke, letting the lie settle over the room one more second.

"Since the beginning of time, children are supposed to honor their parents. Not only did you disrespect your mother, you caused her to lose her child. Bianca, you will get on your knees and beg for forgiveness!"

"A woman obeys her father before marriage and her husband after. As your promised husband, it's my duty to discipline you!"

He seized a fistful of my hair and slammed my forehead against the stoop. Seven, eight times. Each one loud enough to hear. The block went silent. Not one person moved. Not one soldier from the row. Not one neighbor who had eaten Sunday dinner under the Valenti name.

Blood ran down my face. Damiano didn't so much as glance at it. If anything, he said it wasn't enough.

"Kneeling alone won't bring back a lost heir. There needs to be real restitution."

"Bianca, hand over your holiday envelope so your mother can buy what she needs to recover. And transfer the deed of your apartment above the shop into her name so she has a proper place to rest."

"Only then will you prove you're truly sorry for what happened to your stepmother!"

Listening to Damiano's self-righteous speech, I was so furious I almost laughed.

Beyond the sheer absurdity, a wave of clarity washed over me. So this was the real play. Damiano and Viviana had teamed up to destroy me, and it wasn't just about making me disappear. They wanted my tribute cut and my apartment too.

That explained everything. No wonder Viviana had barely settled into a few quiet days with my father before Damiano launched his sudden, passionate pursuit of me. I used to wonder when the Valenti family's luck in love had gotten so good. Now I understood perfectly.

With that realization burning through me, I spat right in Damiano's face.

"Go to hell!"

"You lose some bastard child and think that entitles you to my tribute cut and my apartment? Where do you get the nerve!"

Damiano and Viviana stood there stunned, then erupted in rage.

Viviana broke into loud, heaving sobs. "Damiano, don't bother speaking up for me. Bianca has never accepted me as her stepmother. She won't listen!"

"Forget it. Second wives are unwanted everywhere we go. Strangers look down on us, and our own families hurt us. If I'd known it would be like this, I'd rather be dead!"

Seeing Viviana lunge toward the iron railing at the stoop's edge, Damiano grabbed her just in time and murmured soothing words.

"Please don't be upset. I've already called Don Massimo. He's on his way to set things right for you!"

"Don Massimo is the head of this household. Bianca has no choice but to listen to him!"

The neighbors nodded along, abandoning whatever they'd been doing. One by one they dragged their folding chairs over and planted themselves in front of our door, waiting for my father to arrive. Two old men from down the block drifted closer, the way people on a Family-controlled street always drifted toward trouble. No one ran for the cops. That wasn't how things worked on this block.

"If you ask me, Don Massimo really needs to teach that girl a lesson. Getting too big for her britches, bullying her own elders. She even called the baby in Viviana's belly a bastard!"

"Absolutely outrageous. Having a daughter that disobedient is nothing but bad karma!"

Hearing the neighbors' condemnation, Viviana's eyes gleamed. She shot me a glance, so subtle no one else caught it. Her fingertip touched beneath her left eye, came away dry.

But she was in for a disappointment.

When that smug look landed on me, all I did was curl my lip in a cold smirk. I couldn't be bothered to waste a single word on her.

She had no idea. The person who wanted my father here most right now wasn't her. It was me.

Buying cigarettes didn't take long. Before much time had passed, my father came strolling back with a cigarette dangling from his lips, his coat open despite the cold, the gold ring on his right hand catching the streetlight.

Seeing the crowd packed around our front stoop, he visibly faltered.

But before he could ask a single question, Viviana scurried over and nestled against him, all fragile and helpless.

Her eyes were red, her face a picture of misery. "Massimo, please, you have to stand up for me. Bianca killed our baby!"

"The doctor said it was a boy. He would've been a big, healthy son!"

My father stiffened. His hand went still at his side. His first instinct was to bark at me.

"Bianca Valenti, get your ass over here! What the hell happened!"

Before I could open my mouth, Damiano stepped in front of me. He smoothed his tie flat with his whole palm, then spoke. "Don Massimo, this is all Bianca's fault. You need to get justice for your wife!"

"That's right, Massimo! You have to punish Bianca. Hard. Avenge our son!" Viviana clung to my father's arm, sobbing out her story. "This morning, first thing, Bianca dragged me to the store for a grocery doorbuster sale. I told her I was carrying your child and didn't want to go, but she pulled me out of bed anyway."

"When we got to the store, the egg section was wall-to-wall people. Bianca didn't want to squeeze in, so she shoved me into the crowd."

"Then it was so packed that someone knocked me down, and the people behind kept pushing and pushing until I lost the baby!"

"Oh God, Massimo, that was our big healthy baby boy! He never even got to be born and Bianca killed him!"

Viviana rambled on and on, completely oblivious to the fact that with every word out of her mouth, my father's expression was growing darker. His gold ring had stopped moving against his knuckle. His hand lay flat on his thigh, perfectly still.

By the end, his face had cycled through something between livid red and a sickly green. Quite the festive palette for Christmas Eve.

Viviana noticed none of it. Instead, she pressed on, demanding restitution for the lost heir.

"Massimo, you spoil that daughter of yours too much! That's why she disrespects her elders and schemes against her own blood. Hit her! Hit her hard!"

"Oh, and Massimo, what does a girl need all that money for anyway? Make her hand over her holiday envelope and her apartment deed to me. I heard she's got at least a couple hundred thousand saved up!"

She grew more animated with every sentence, and it was a long time before she noticed the dead silence around her. The neighbors had stopped cracking their sunflower seeds. Even the old men down the stoop had gone quiet, the way people on this block went quiet when they sensed a Don's mood turn.

She turned to look at my father and found herself staring straight into eyes that could kill.

Viviana flinched on instinct, her voice going soft a beat too late.

"Massimo, why aren't you saying anything?"

My father ground his back teeth together. "You just said Bianca dragged you out first thing this morning to fight over eggs at the store and caused you to lose the baby?"

"That's right! Damiano can back me up. When it happened Bianca ran off, and it was Damiano who took me to the hospital!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Damiano stepped forward with a firm nod. He smoothed his tie once more, quick, automatic.

"That's correct, Don Massimo. I happened to be shopping at the same store and found your wife hemorrhaging. I drove her to the hospital and stayed with her from morning until tonight!"

The next second, Viviana jabbed a finger at me, unable to contain herself.

"Massimo, go hit her! Look at that little wretch, the way she's looking at me. No respect at all!"

Seeing my father raise his arm, Viviana's triumph peaked. She didn't even bother calling me by name anymore, dropping "that little wretch" in front of everyone.

She was certain my father would beat me half to death.

But the very next second...