The Bloodline's Bitter Judgment

I realized the back of the frame wasn't a solid panel.

A miniature brass key was taped securely to it.

I used that key to open a hidden safe in his desk drawer.

Inside was another photograph.

In this one, Reuben's face was alight with a joy I'd never seen, his arms wrapped tightly around a woman in a wine-red dress.

I held my breath, my trembling fingers turning the photo over.

On the back, a line was scrawled in a handwriting I knew all too well.

"To Bianca. No matter who I marry, you will always be my only queen."

The date was the day before our wedding.

The next day, after dropping Nico off with his private tutor, I bypassed the family foundation.

I had the family's bookkeeper pull up Reuben's personal spending records for the past six months.

My eyes immediately found a long list of expensive purchases I had never seen.

Diamond jewelry, haute couture, and a waterfront villa in Miami.

All the funds were funneled to that single Miami address.

I wrote down the address and left without a word.

That evening, while Reuben was in the shower, his encrypted phone was charging on the nightstand.

It required a password.

I entered our usual family password. Incorrect.

Then I tried his birthday and other dates that held meaning for us.

All wrong.

Finally, with a self-mocking sneer, I entered the date from the back of the photograph. The phone unlocked.

My heart sank like a stone.

The home screen lit up.

An address labeled "Home" was pinned to the very top.

It was the address of the Miami waterfront villa.

A chill washed over me. He hadn't just saved the address; he'd pinned it to the top, a constant beacon.

That place clearly meant the world to him.

I locked the phone and placed it back on the nightstand.

My hands trembled, but my resolve hardened into steel.

I quietly called my Consigliere, Victor.

"Find out who lives at this address. As fast as you can."

…

After hanging up, I tiptoed into Nico's room.

He was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm.

Reuben used to say he looked just like me, but now… I couldn't see a single trace of myself in his delicate features.

The thorn in my heart twisted deeper.

During the family's annual check-up, I accompanied Nico to the clinic.

When the doctor's back was turned, I had a nurse discreetly draw an extra vial of blood and tucked it into my handbag.

That afternoon, I drove to a secret lab controlled by the Valenti family.

"Run a maternity test with my sample," I told the man in the white coat.

"I need the results yesterday."

While I waited, Reuben started coming home later and later, always blaming it on family business.

Before leaving, he would spend extra time in front of the mirror, preening.

One day, after he left, I followed him.

My car trailed his through the city, eventually stopping at a private marina.

I watched Reuben get out of his car.

A woman in a wine-red dress was already waiting on the deck of a yacht.

I recognized her instantly.

She was the woman from the photograph.

Reuben took her handbag with an easy familiarity, his other arm wrapping possessively around her waist.

He whispered something in her ear that made her giggle coquettishly.

They murmured to each other for a moment, their bodies pressed close, before disappearing into the boat's cabin.