Chapter 3

"There'll be another baby soon enough, won't there? You don't even have to carry it yourself!"

Gemma cupped her belly and chimed in with a smile, her hand going flat and possessive against the swell of it.

"Ma'am, the doctor said it's because your health is just so poor that a little fall was enough to make you miscarry."

"Once my baby is born, I'll hand it over to you to raise. Call it my way of making it up to you."

Salvatore didn't contradict her. He handed me a folded set of papers, the kind the Family used when they needed a story that would hold up in front of the old Don.

"You'll go live in the house outside Palermo with Gemma for a few months. We'll put it out that you fell pregnant again and went abroad to keep the pregnancy safe."

"Once you've looked after Gemma and she's delivered the baby, we'll set it down as ours in the blood."

"Then my father won't have anything to fear, not even with Lorenzo's twins in the running for the throne."

He actually wanted me to wait on Gemma through her entire pregnancy.

And then wait on her through her recovery after.

I looked at the man in front of me, my expression cold.

I couldn't fathom how he could say all this as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

But I asked nothing.

I only spoke, calmly.

"Are you sure Gemma's baby is even yours?"

"Of course it's mine. And she caught the first time, too, unlike you—"

Salvatore offered no explanation for how the two of them had a baby at all. He tugged once at the knot of his tie, then ordered me with plain distaste.

"Go to the kitchen and make Gemma a bowl of soup to chase off the chill. She caught cold today."

I didn't move.

He glared at me for a full minute, and when he was certain I wouldn't go, he simply turned and walked into the kitchen himself.

I stared at his back, too stunned to speak.

Back when he doted on me most, he'd said he would only ever cook for one person his whole life, and that was me. In a house where soldiers were fed by other hands and even the matriarch was served, that had meant something.

Even Regina had never tasted anything he'd made.

And yet now, Gemma, too, could make him do it with his own hands.

I pulled my gaze back and let the corner of my mouth curve.

I reached over to stop the video recording on my phone.

Whether or not the baby was Salvatore's, everything I'd just captured was more than enough to leave him with nothing. In a world where blood was the only currency that bought the throne, a man passing off another man's child was a crime the Family answered in one language only.

Gemma suddenly leaned in and held her check-up slip from the doctor up to my face.

The date on it was three days before I lost my child.

In that instant I knew for certain: she had spilled that bowl of chicken soup at my feet on purpose.

Before I could open my mouth to confront her, she leaned in close to my ear with a smile.

"Ma'am, you really are useless. You couldn't even hold on to your own baby."

"If you knew your place, you'd actually let him repudiate the union and step aside, instead of taking up space you can't use!"

I knew she was waiting for me to lose my temper, waiting for me to lay a hand on her.

Then she could put on her whole wounded-victim act.

But I swallowed my anger and didn't move. My thumb pressed flat against the base of my ring finger, bracing against something already gone.

I needed this baby to turn Salvatore into a laughingstock before the whole Family.

"I have no interest in performing with the two of you. Get him to sign the terms, and you'll have exactly what you want. Otherwise, I don't mind letting him know you caused my miscarriage on purpose."

Seeing that I was recording, Gemma wasn't the least bit rattled. If anything, she looked smug.

"As if you'd ever be willing to let him go? Playing hard to get might work on Salvatore, but it won't work on me."

"Go on, guess. Is Salvatore going to believe you, or me?"

Then she deliberately threw herself backward onto the floor and cried out at me.

"Ma'am, all I did was beg you not to send those private photos you took of me around. Why would you shove me?"

Salvatore heard her scream and came bolting out of the kitchen.

Gemma, meanwhile, crawled and knelt in front of me, weeping.

"Ma'am, please, I'm begging you—"

Salvatore scrambled to help Gemma up and looked her over from head to toe.

Then he turned to me, his eyes full of fury.

"Adriana! Have you lost your mind? Give me your phone!"

I watched the two of them, one performing, one shielding her, and my calm was terrifying.

"Whatever you say it is, it is!"

Only then did Salvatore sense something was off. His hand went to his cuff, straightening it. He softened his tone and asked me.

"What did you record?"