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

"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?"