He Let Our Son Die for His Mistress,I Married His Rival and Now He Weeps

Six months pregnant, and Lorenzo Moretti's childhood love opened the gates of our family estate to the Sabini, hoping the chaos would tear me apart and leave no one to ask how.

I didn't whistle for Lorenzo's Shadow Soldiers. I gathered the Donna and the capos' women instead, and we slipped into a back room of the east wing to wait out the raid.

Because in my last life, after the Sabini breached the walls, they put the place to the torch and gunned down everyone inside. Lorenzo tracked me through the markers his Shadow Soldiers left and dragged me out breathing.

But his childhood love, Vittoria Falcone, was taken by the Sabini. Used until she died.

Lorenzo soothed me with soft words, told me none of it was my fault, and moved me out to the lake house to rest through the end of my pregnancy.

Yet on the very day my labor began, he walked into my room with ten Sabini men at his back, every one of them stinking of blood and the gutter.

I watched, helpless, as the child about to come into this world was beaten to pulp inside me.

Before I died, Lorenzo raged at me like a man gone mad:

"If you hadn't opened the gates to the Sabini, Vittoria would never have been touched! You poisonous woman, you nearly fooled even me!"

"Since you love their company so much, I'll let you have your fill of it."

I died with hatred choking my throat. But God took pity, and threw me back to the very moment the gates were breached.

The Sabini's shouts crept closer through the halls, eager, and the leftover terror of my death sent me shaking before I could stop it.

But one glance at the Donna and the women beside me, every face white with fear, and I bit through the tip of my tongue, forcing myself steady.

I threw away the Shadow Soldier's whistle Lorenzo had pressed into my hand, and shielded Celia Romano and the others as we crept into the back room of the cold east wing.

The Donna clutched her little boy and looked at me through tears. "Adriana Vitale, if not for you, I'm afraid today I would have"

I swallowed the pain twisting through my belly and tried to calm them.

I don't know how long we held before, at last, the familiar sound reached us. Boots on marble. Men moving in formation.

Lorenzo's capo's voice came through the wall, muffled. "She must have gone this way. The lady."

Lorenzo didn't move on it. He only said, cold, "But Vittoria's hurt."

So they'd found Vittoria Falcone. I scrambled to the window and lit the Moretti signal, the flare our soldiers knew.

But no one came. Only Lorenzo's voice drifted in on the dark, flat as a closed door. "She's putting on an act. Leave her."

I plunged into ice.

Celia Russo hadn't caught those last words, and in her relief she ran for the door, calling Lorenzo's name into the corridor.

She was six months along, the same as me, and had taken a fall earlier. Red was already seeping faint through her skirts.

Before her voice had even faded, the door was kicked in.

Two Sabini gunmen, soaked in blood, came through it.

Several of the women shrieked, screaming Lorenzo's name, begging him to come save them.

But Lorenzo was long gone.

My nails dug into my palms. A dull ache spread through my chest.

When no answer came, the two men broke into vicious grins.

"That woman wasn't lying after all. The underboss's wife really is holed up in here."

"Not just her. Look over there. Those'll be the Don's women."

"Hahaha. Finally our turn."

The cold shot through me head to foot. They hadn't stumbled in by accident at all.

It was Vittoria Falcone. It could only be Vittoria Falcone.

I steeled myself. I turned my thumb once against the inside of my wedding band, the way I always did the instant before I decided I would not be a victim again, and snatched up the blade I'd taken off the floor on our way in. I planted myself in front of the others.

Watching those mocking grins, I clenched my teeth, swung, and charged.

The Donna's voice cracked across the room, sharp. "Retreat for what? Do as Adriana taught you. There are only two. One strike each and we turn them to pulp."

Thank God there were many of us. The gunmen went down fast, hacked to the floor before either could raise his piece.

The women's faces were streaked with tears, several of them so frightened their legs gave out and they crumpled where they stood.

The Donna was just stepping forward to check my wound when I saw the third one behind her, raising his blade.

I pulled her behind me and took the strike full on.

Thank God Celia Russo saw it coming and brought a heavy bottle down across his skull, glass shattering, both hands flying to her belly an instant after as if begging the child's pardon for the risk.

Both Sabini were dead. Dead beyond any doubt.

The Don's small son pointed at me and burst into tears. "Signora Moretti's bleeding so much."

Only then did I feel the pain tearing through my belly. My face went bloodless, and I sank to the floor of the estate's east wing.

While the capos' women stood frozen, not knowing what to do, Lorenzo's capo finally arrived. Too late.

And he'd brought barely more than a dozen soldiers.

Celia Romano saw it and struck him hard across the face. "Where is your underboss? Where is Moretti?"

Marco Greco's fingers drifted to his sternum, to the old scar beneath his shirt, and his mouth opened on nothing. The Donna understood at once. "So that's the kind of man Lorenzo Moretti is. He left his own wife to die and went chasing after another woman."

"When we walk out of this house alive, I will see to it that he pays."

The fire the Sabini men had set was already crawling along the carpets toward us. I caught Celia Romano's arm and pleaded with her through her fury.

Only then did she let Marco lead us out.

There were too many of the family's women and too few of Marco's soldiers. The cordon barely held, so I bit down on the agony, took a fallen blade off the floor, and guarded the rear of our line.

Marco fired flare after flare through the broken window into the night. Nothing answered them.

The Donna's face grew colder by the moment. "Your underboss certainly keeps his soldiers well in hand."

Marco's hand pressed to his sternum again, then he scrambled to explain. "Underboss. The underboss went to reach the Don. The fighting on that side of the compound may be deadlocked."

But before he could finish, Lorenzo stepped out of the corridor across from us, Vittoria Falcone cradled in his arms.

Marco opened his mouth and called to him. Lorenzo didn't spare him a single glance.

The enforcer at his side sneered. "Only Capo Greco is soft enough to swallow that woman's lies."

"She must have faked another injury and forced the capo to come fetch you."

The smoke and the shadow of the far doorway hid our group from where they stood.

The women went white with rage. The Donna was about to erupt when a wave of Sabini gunmen poured through the breach.

I shouted for Marco to shield the others and move first, and ended up cut off alone.

Stumbling through the chaos, I somehow ran straight into Lorenzo's party again.

Seeing Vittoria without a scratch on her, I clung to one last sliver of hope and begged.

"Lorenzo, I'm begging you. The child inside me is yours too."

Lorenzo saw me drenched in blood, and the ice in his eyes thawed a little. "Didn't I send men to find you? How did you end up in such a state?"

Beside him, Vittoria spoke as though it were nothing, her answer arriving a half-second too quick, her lashes lowering. "That's right. Capo Greco was with her just now. He called you over."

"How strange that he's nowhere to be seen. Oh. Surely my dear sister didn't harm Capo Greco just to win sympathy?"

The hand hidden in her skirts curled into a fist no one but me thought to watch.

Lorenzo's face went black as ink in an instant. He rolled his right shoulder once, the old street-fighter's habit, and slapped me hard. "Adriana Vitale, you'd stoop to something this vicious just to put on a show!"

The blow knocked me to the marble floor, my head ringing.

The accusations from Lorenzo's enforcer came crashing down on me.

"What a vicious woman. Opening the gates to the Sabinis to claw for the underboss's favor wasn't enough. Now you've gone and harmed Capo Greco!"

"If not for the underboss, I'd put you down right here to settle the debt for him."

I coughed up a mouthful of blood. "No. I didn't."

Lorenzo's eyes turned colder still, and he kicked me hard. "You still won't admit it."

I slammed into the wall and curled into a ball, the pain wringing me hollow.

The agony in my belly grew sharper and sharper. As they turned to leave, I forced the words out through gritted teeth.

"The baby. The baby."

Lorenzo didn't waver. At his signal, the enforcer stepped forward, the knuckles of his right hand cracking one at a time, and drove his foot hard into my stomach.

"Still trying to use the child to put a leash on the underboss. A poisonous woman like you. Who would ever want the cursed thing you'd bring into this family?"

A wail tore out of me. The blood beneath me gushed faster, soaking into the expensive rug, into the silence where the gunfire had finally stopped.

My mind blurred. The breath inside my belly grew fainter and fainter.

The tears spilled out of me, and I couldn't stop them.

Why. Why. This life, I'd given up fighting Vittoria for anything, and still Lorenzo wouldn't let me go.

My Matteo. Mama is useless. In the end, I couldn't keep you safe.

Through the blur of my vision, Lorenzo's boots appeared in front of me again, polished black leather scuffed with another man's blood.

He hauled me up by the collar and forced a capsule between my lips. "It's to save the baby. Once it's born, you get your release from the alliance."

The bitterness flooded my mouth, and only then did I remember. Matteo was the name Lorenzo had chosen.

Back when he first learned I was carrying, he'd been so happy he'd opened the doors of the social club for three nights, wine for every soldier in the borgata.

Every night he drove the twenty miles back from the warehouse district, just to press his ear to my belly and talk to the child.

The name itself he'd taken from the old family Bible, turning brittle pages until he found it.

So how had we ever come to this?

Lorenzo tucked me into a corner and turned to leave.

But I caught the mocking curl of Vittoria's smile.

I strained to read the shape of her lips. She seemed to be saying

Poison.

The pain dragged me under, and when I woke I was already in the Donna's private rooms.

Celia Romano looked at me, eyes rimmed red. "Adriana, the men I sent didn't reach you in time your child."

With Vittoria's poison already inside me, the baby could never have been saved.

I gave a bitter smile and signaled to her that I was all right.

"Adriana, you put your body between my people and the Sabini guns. You shielded the women, the children. The famiglia owes you a debt that doesn't get forgotten."

"Is there anything you want? That Falcone girl"

I cut her off quickly. "Donna, all I want is my release from the marriage."

Seeing the grief in my eyes, Celia Romano agreed, and left me alone to rest.

Marco Greco came to see me. "Signora, your child. I'll send for the underboss to come for you right now."

Before I could refuse, he'd already sent a man.

But a day passed, then two, and Lorenzo never came.

The Donna told me to rest easy, yet the maids' chattering still drifted in through the door.

"Lorenzo Moretti truly does love his woman. The Sabini are barely buried and already he's out riding the streets with his crew, knocking on every doctor's door in the city."

"Right. They say he won't even touch the medicine the Don sent up for his own wounds. Gave all of it to her."

The estate had been in chaos, and I'd been found alone and pulled from the blood; fearing for my standing, Celia Romano had not let it be known I was the underboss's wife.

Listening to the maids' envy, Marco Greco came in, his face stiff, to make his report.

"Signora. There's been no word from the underboss."

I gave a soft sound of acknowledgment, pressing down the dull ache in my chest. "He's busy."

Too busy tending Vittoria. How could there still be room in his heart for me?

After half a month, it was no longer fitting for the Don's estate to house an associate's wife.

Celia Romano sent quiet word for Lorenzo to take me home.

But all that came for me was one battered car and the very enforcer who had once put his boot into my belly.

His face was full of resentment. "The underboss hasn't slept in days, and you had the nerve to run your mouth to the Donna."

"The man who carried her order tore a strip off him in front of everyone. If he weren't honoring what you used to be to him, you'd have been thrown out with nothing long ago, you vicious thing."

"It's Marco Greco I pity"

His words broke off the moment he caught sight of Marco, a step behind him.

Marco gave him a puzzled look. "Why do you look like you've seen a ghost? See the signora home, and do it gently. The doctor was clear. She can't take the cold right now."

I said nothing, and got into the car.

Outside, once the enforcer had heard the truth from Marco, he came around to my window and struck himself hard across the face. He cracked the knuckles of his right hand, one by one, the hand that had broken me.

I spoke up to stop him before he could beg forgiveness.

If Lorenzo hadn't allowed it, his own enforcer would never have dared lay a hand on me so freely.

In the end, I simply didn't measure up to Vittoria.

When we reached the Moretti compound, the car was brought around to the back gate, the one the trucks used, away from where anyone might see.

The enforcer's face went grim. "I'll go call for the underboss right now."

Before he could move, the back gate scraped open, and Lorenzo came storming out, fury rolling off him, and yanked me down onto the ground.

"I spared you out of mercy, and you go and put your filth on Vittoria!"

"Adriana Vitale, you opened the gates and let the Sabini in. You left bodies cooling all over this estate, you got Marco Greco killed. Wasn't that enough for you?"

"And now you've got the stomach to drag Vittoria's name through the dirt too. I think you've gone looking for a grave."

The enforcer stood frozen, the knuckles of his right hand cracking one by one as he started toward me to lift me from the ground. "Boss, it isn't like that"

Lorenzo kicked him aside, hard. "She get into your head too?"

The enforcer flinched through the pain. "The doctor said"

Before he could finish, Vittoria came rushing out the rear door of the compound. "Lorenzo, what do we do? The Donna's men have forced their way past the gate."

Lorenzo shot me a vicious glare, hauled me up by the arm, and dragged me inside.

"Go and set the Donna's soldiers straight. Tell them it was all your lie, that none of it touched Vittoria."

"Otherwise, you can forget about keeping that child of yours."

He strode off so fast the enforcer behind him couldn't catch up, only call out from a distance.

"Boss. Boss, stop."

But Lorenzo was past hearing, and not a single word reached him.

Ignoring how I fought him, he flung me down hard in front of the Donna's soldiers.

"Here's the rat you came for."

I cried out in pain. One of the soldiers gave a cold snort and locked the cuffs around my wrists. "Save the act, you poisonous bitch."

Nearby, one of the household women of the Moretti estate caught sight of my face and gasped. "My lady"

The soldier's eyes sharpened. "Who exactly is she?"

I spoke up quickly. "I'm not"

Before I could finish, Lorenzo stepped forward and seized me by the throat.

"She's the guilty one."

He leaned close to my ear, his voice a low promise of violence. "You go quietly to the family's lockup in Vittoria's place, or I end your child right here, right now."

I couldn't break free. All I could do was look at him through my tears.

Without a shred of mercy, Lorenzo handed me over to the Donna's men.

I was dragged out of the Moretti estate.

A thin layer of snow lay over the courtyard stones, and the melt soaked through my skirts. The cold cut to the bone, yet it was nothing beside what I felt inside.

Lorenzo watched, unmoved, as I was hauled past the gate.

The enforcer caught up, gasping for breath. "Boss. Boss, Marco Greco"

The iron gates of the estate swung open. Marco Greco's family, in mourning black, knelt in the snow beside a coffin.

"I beg you, Don Moretti's man, see justice done for my son."

Vittoria hurried over to help Greco's old mother to her feet. "Please, don't kneel in the snow. He'll make this right for you. He swears it."

Lorenzo looked at the gray hair of Greco's mother, and something close to guilt moved across his face.

But seeing how wretched I looked on the ground, he pulled back the eyes that had wanted me put down on the spot.

"I failed Marco. There'll be an answer for this. On the blood oath, there will."

But Vittoria let out a cry. "Lorenzo, you're still going to protect"

Lorenzo cut her off coldly. "She's my wife, when all's said and done. It was my own softness that let her sink this low."

Vittoria walked over, fixing her eyes on me, a dark hatred flashing through them.

She leaned to my ear and whispered. "I never imagined Lorenzo could be so loyal, so devoted. Even now he can't bring himself to put a hand to you."

I gave a cold laugh and spat at her feet. "Vittoria Falcone. Have you never heard the old saying? Heaven has eyes."

Lorenzo caught the motion and moved to pull Vittoria back.

But the enforcer pressed forward again, the knuckles of his right hand cracking, trying to explain.

Lorenzo shoved him off, out of patience. "I know you and Marco were like brothers. Rest easy. I won't let her walk."

The enforcer stamped his feet in desperation. "That's not it, Boss"

But Vittoria let out a sharp cry, clutched her arm, and collapsed in the snow beside me. Her lashes fluttered down a half-second too soon, and the hand buried in her skirts curled into a fist.

"Sister, I only meant to help you up, and you hid a pin to bleed me."

The Donna's soldiers, who had been watching the whole spectacle, struck me across the head with the butt of a pistol at her words.

"You dare run wild right in front of us, you guilty thing."

I lost my balance and tumbled down the stone steps, slamming to a stop in front of Marco Greco's coffin.

Vittoria wept against Lorenzo's chest. "If I hadn't moved fast, that pin would have gone straight into my heart."

"Lorenzo, you've defended this poisonous woman every way a man can, and still she"

"It's nothing for me to bleed a little. I only grieve for Marco. A brave man all his life, and gone."

The Greco family around me understood in an instant.

Fists and feet rained down on me.

The enforcer rushed down the steps and threw himself over me. "Don't do this. Don't do this."

But the Grecos had gone mad with grief, past hearing any explanation.

Lorenzo noticed the strange way his enforcer was acting and turned, frowning, to look toward us.

The heavy cloak that had been wrapped around me was torn open by someone's hand, baring my flat belly to the cold.

Lorenzo's pupils contracted. He rolled his right shoulder, the old street habit, and then the motion froze halfway and he went utterly still.

"Adriana Vitale. Where's the child?"