Seven Years of Lies, a False Heir in My Belly

I dragged the cursor to the last photograph.

The date stamp put it a few months back. Some private clinic, the kind no Family name was ever printed on.

Vittoria Volpe and Lorenzo Marchetti, wrapped around each other, beaming.

Behind them, the banner on the wall stood out in bold letters.

"Congratulations—you're about to become a father!"

Looking at it, my heart dropped into nothing.

That day, Lorenzo had said he was meeting an associate, a sit-down he couldn't bring me to. I'd had nothing to do, so I offered to come along.

He'd laughed me off. The man was a lecher, he said, the kind who talked business only when no wife was watching.

If I tagged along, the deal would almost certainly fall through.

I believed him.

Only now did I understand. There was no associate, no sit-down. He'd had an appointment with Vittoria, to seed the false heir into her body.

I closed the laptop and walked out of the study.

I stood on the balcony in the cold wind the whole night. Below the estate walls, the soldier at the gate did not move from his post, his shadow long against the gravel. He would have killed for me on Lorenzo's word. None of it had ever been mine.

When the sky paled at the edge, I finally made my decision.

This alliance that looked so perfect from the outside—I didn't want it.

And Lorenzo Marchetti, I didn't want him either.

After we got up, Lorenzo reminded me while he dressed.

"Elena, don't forget the family sits down together tonight."

"My mother and father have been planning this dinner for weeks."

"Whatever you do, don't be late."

I sat on the couch and said nothing.

Before he left, he smoothed the lapel of his jacket with a single downward stroke, then kissed my forehead.

"I've got a few things to handle at the club. Come by this afternoon and we'll go home together."

"And I've got a surprise waiting for you. Make sure you sign for it yourself."

Once Lorenzo was gone, I started packing.

At noon, his surprise arrived, carried in by a soldier who set it down with the care men in this world reserve for things that might be wired to explode.

The newest Patek Philippe ladies' watch, along with a lavish custom lunch from the Family's own hotel kitchen.

"My woman gets spoiled by me. That's just how it is."

In seven years of this union, it was the line Lorenzo had said to me most.

Looking at the watch resting quietly in its beautiful box, something in me kept curdling, swelling, aching.

I lifted my eyes to the huge wedding portrait on the wall, the betrothal-pact sealed before both bloodlines.

In the photo, Lorenzo leaned into my arms, his face full of happiness.

But deep in his eyes, there was always a trace of melancholy that wouldn't lift.

I used to mistake it for the weight a Don carried, taking a bride to bind two families.

Only now did I understand. It was the grief of a man who hadn't been able to take the woman he loved.

I made myself steady, then called the only consigliere I trusted apart from the Family and told him to draw up the papers to sever the blood-pact.

I'd booked passage off the coast for today, but in the end I pushed it to tomorrow.

Because I'd promised Lorenzo I'd come home with him tonight for the family dinner.

A person should keep their word. My father taught me that.

The moment I thought of my father, my heart felt clamped in some invisible hand, aching dully. My thumb found the cold band of his signet ring and pressed the crest hard into my palm, the only inheritance my enemies had never managed to steal.

My mother died on a stretch of dark road before I was old enough to understand any of it.

Don Vincenzo Castellano raised me alone.

No matter how the territory bled, how heavy the nights, he never once thought of taking another wife.

Because he'd given his word. This life, he would love only my mother, and never let his heart turn away.

That afternoon, I arrived at the Marchetti club, the polished front that sat over everything the Family truly ran.

The moment I stepped through the doors, the familiar whispering started up among the associates.

"Elena's here to see the Don again."

"They're so in love, honestly."

"Of course. There was a feature once. Elena and the Don, named one of the ten couples every bloodline in the Harbor District envied."

"Promised to each other since childhood. That's why seven years in, they're still so good together."

"He runs everything, she's beautiful. Their child's going to be golden."

"The three of them together. Now that's the real picture of a made life."

"Madonna. We're all women here. How come I never got luck like Elena's?"

"Look at the watch on her wrist. Newest Patek Philippe. Worth six figures, easy."