Chapter 8

Elara Rossi POV

I woke up to the acrid sting of bleach and the frantic, rhythmic beeping of a monitor.

I knew this place. The Family Clinic. A sterile purgatory buried in the basement of a legitimate medical center, kept strictly off the books.

My lower body felt leaden, anchored by a terrifying numbness.

A nurse was hovering over me, adjusting a drip. Her eyes were rimmed with red, swollen as if she'd been crying.

"Mrs. Moretti," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You're awake."

"What happened?" My voice was little more than a rusted croak.

"You were brought in. A hit and run. You lost a lot of blood."

She hesitated, her gaze darting to the door, then back to me, heavy with guilt.

"The doctor... he tried. But the hemorrhage was too severe."

"Tried what?" I asked, the dread coiling in my chest.

"To save the pregnancy."

The world didn't spin; it simply froze.

"Pregnancy?"

"You didn't know?" She looked stricken. "You were almost nine weeks along."

My hand drifted to my stomach. Flat. Empty. A hollow vessel.

A baby. I had a baby. A piece of me. A reason to exist.

"Why..." I swallowed dry air, my throat feeling like sandpaper. "Why couldn't you stop the bleeding?"

The nurse looked down at her shoes, unable to meet my eyes. "We needed O-negative. You have a rare blood type, Mrs. Moretti. We had four units in the cooler."

"And?"

"The Boss called."

Ice flooded my veins, colder than the IV fluid.

"Dante called?"

"He brought Ms. Vance in. From her accident. She had a bruised knee and was hyperventilating. He... he ordered the doctor to reserve the entire blood supply for her."

I stared at the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the plaster.

"Reserve it?"

"He said, 'Keep it for Isabella just in case. She's fragile. If she goes into shock, I want everything ready.' The doctor tried to tell him you were critical. The Boss said..."

She choked on the words, a sob trapped in her throat.

"Say it," I commanded, my voice turning to steel.

"He said, 'Isabella is the priority. Elara is tough. She can wait for the shipment from the hospital.'"

He gambled. He bet my life against her comfort.

And he paid with our child.

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. The part of me that could feel pain had just been excised, cut away with the rest of my future.

"Is she here?" I asked.

"She's in recovery. Eating Jell-O."

Jell-O. While my child was incinerated as medical waste.

"And my baby?"

"Gone."

I closed my eyes.

I saw the ledger in my mind. The mental tally I had kept for years. The pages were full. The ink was running like blood.

*For Isabella, he sacrificed our child.*

*Minus five.*

*Minus everything.*

Zero.

"Get me a pen," I said.

"Mrs. Moretti, you need to rest-"

"Get. Me. A. Pen."

She scrambled to the counter, fumbling in her haste, and handed me a ballpoint pen.

I reached for the chart at the end of my bed. I flipped it over to the blank side.

My hand was steady. Terrifyingly so.

I wrote one sentence.

*You bought her comfort with your heir's blood.*

I dropped the pen. It clattered loudly in the silence.

I didn't need to ask where the divorce papers were. I knew exactly where I had hidden them. In the back of the safe at the estate, drafted months ago, waiting for the courage I had finally found.

I sat up. The pain was excruciating, a tearing sensation in my womb, but it was nothing compared to the hollow void in my chest.

"I'm leaving," I told the nurse.

"You can't walk!"

"Watch me."

I walked out of that clinic. I walked past the guards who were too stunned to stop the Don's wife, looking like a walking corpse resurrected by rage, covered in blood and mud.

I took a taxi to the estate. I walked into his study.

I placed the ledger on the center of his desk.

I opened the safe, retrieved the folder, signed the bottom line, and placed the divorce papers next to the ledger.

I didn't pack a bag. I didn't take a coat.

I walked out the front door, and I disappeared into the city.