Chapter 8

The arguments over Tess escalated. When I found the lipstick in his car, Dante dismissed it. "She swore an oath to the family. Stop being paranoid."

He kept me trapped in this house while flaunting her in public.

Loneliness turned me neurotic. I started checking his backup phone while he showered, questioning his whereabouts every hour.

The breaking point came when Dante was away handling a territorial dispute. I hadn't heard from him in two days. Panicked, I texted him, pleading for him to tell me he was alive.

An hour later, the phone vibrated. It was a voice message from Dante's phone-but it wasn't him.

I pressed play with trembling fingers and heard Tess's voice:

"You're too controlling. Stop throwing tantrums and stay out of family business. The Boss is fine."

My vision blurred with heat, and the air in my lungs seemed to vanish. Before I could stop myself, I fired off a string of vitriolic insults and sent them.

When Dante came home, he didn't greet me. He looked at me with chilling disappointment, accusing me of damaging Tess's reputation among the Capos. He ignored her insubordination in answering his private phone.

At that moment, months of torture finally broke me. My knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the hardwood floor in front of him.

I woke up hours later surrounded by the cold white walls of a basement clinic. The family doctor told me: I was pregnant.

I slowly laid a trembling hand on my belly. A heartbreaking truth dawned on me: I was bringing a child into a marriage that existed only in name.