The Heir's Mistress Tried to Replace Me,But I Am the Marchioness

I returned to the capital with Donna Vittoria after months at the ancestral estate in Palermo.

My car was stopped halfway to the compound by a delicate-looking woman with a swollen belly.

"I beg the Don's wife to grant me and my child a place inside the Family. I ask for no title, but the baby in my womb is the heir's own flesh and blood. He cannot be left out in the cold."

The Acting Underboss of the Moretti Family had been married three years without producing an heir of his own. And now, out of nowhere, someone claimed to be carrying his child.

The woman trembled as though she might collapse at any moment, the very picture of helplessness.

"The heir is away from the city. If his wife mistreats us, if she lets his own flesh and blood be cast aside, does she not fear he'll come home and dissolve the marriage?"

Dissolve the marriage? This woman was clever, I'd give her that. But she'd gotten one thing wrong.

I was not someone the Acting Underboss of the Moretti Family could cast aside.

——

"Please, I beg the Don's wife to show mercy. Save me."

My car had been stopped in the middle of the road. The woman's wailing outside shattered the quiet rest I'd been trying to take.

I had just returned to the city with Donna Vittoria from our months in Palermo. I'd left her residence and was heading back to the Moretti compound when, right at the gates, a woman's sobbing brought my armored sedan to a halt.

She had a coquettish face, dressed plainly, with only a thin silver chain at her throat and a belly round and heavy with child. Tears glistened in her eyes as she stared at the tinted windows, looking so pitiful that people on the sidewalk had already stopped to gawk. Two of our soldiers flanked the car but hadn't moved her. They wouldn't touch a pregnant woman without my word.

Through the window, she watched me sit motionless inside and dropped to her knees on the pavement, pressing her forehead to the ground. "My lady, please. Give Gianna Valenti a place to belong."

"The child I carry is the heir's flesh and blood. I am alone in this world. I need no title for myself, but the baby in my womb is the heir's only child. He cannot go unrecognized."

"My lady has been married to the heir for years without bearing a child. Surely you would not stand by and watch the Moretti bloodline die out? I beg you, show mercy."

"The doctor said I'm carrying a boy. If I'm allowed into the household, once the child is born, he can be registered under your name. He'll call you Mother."

"I want nothing for myself. But as a mother, I have to fight for my child."

"The heir's wife has never borne a child, so naturally she wouldn't understand a mother's heart."

I watched the tears stream down her face, but there it was, that faint glint of triumph in her eyes. How quaint. These little tricks.

My thumb found the underside of my wedding band and pressed. One slow turn.

"If you truly wanted nothing, why make such a spectacle of stopping my car in the middle of the street?"

"If you wanted a title, you could have come to the compound and discussed it properly. There are ways. So why drag this out for the whole neighborhood to see?"

"You're using that child in your belly as leverage to force me into letting you through those gates. Isn't that right?"

The woman called Gianna shook her head frantically, both hands cradling her belly. "No, my lady, Gianna knows nothing of such things. It was the heir who looked after Gianna all along."

"Before he left the city, the heir promised he would give Gianna a proper place when he returned. But the date has passed and he hasn't come back. My time is nearly here, and I'm terrified."

"I beg the heir's wife to be generous. Give this child a birthright."

"The baby I carry is the heir's firstborn son. He cannot be left outside the Moretti household."

"Unless my lady, unable to bear children herself, refuses to let any other woman give the heir a son. Do you mean to let the Moretti line end?"

Her words set the crowd of onlookers buzzing. Beyond the compound gates, I could see two more soldiers watching from the guardhouse, hands at their sides, waiting.

"Well, it's true. The heir's been married for years and there's still no child. That wife of his, not so much as a whisper of a pregnancy."

"You can't just let the Moretti name die out."

"I heard the heir's wife hasn't even arranged another woman for him. Jealous type, if you ask me."

"A woman ought to know her place. With jealousy like that, how can she run a household like theirs? Look at this poor girl, she's about ready to give birth."