Pregnant With the Don’s Heirs, I Disappeared

The next evening, Alessandro's arm locked around my waist like a steel band as he guided me into the ballroom. Crystal chandeliers blazed overhead, and the air smelled of money and gunpowder. The Family had gathered to welcome Vittoria. My body went rigid as we passed the elders; their eyes slid over me with smirks of contempt before snapping straight to Alessandro with respect.

"You will smile tonight," he murmured against my temple, his lips brushing my forehead in a parody of tenderness. "You will shake her hand. Don't disappoint me."

Then I saw her.

Vittoria stood beneath the lights, a vision in white silk—the color of snow that hid blood. Diamonds glittered at her throat. She looked every inch the Donna I would never be.

"Elena!" Her voice rang out, sweet as poison. She glided over, her hand extended, her eyes scanning my simple navy dress with a flicker of amusement. "We meet at last."

She took my hands. Her fingers were ice-cold.

"I hope you don't hate me," she pouted, her lower lip trembling in practiced vulnerability. "I know this must be... difficult. To see your place adjusted."

I opened my mouth, but Alessandro spoke over me, his hand tightening on my hip.

"Elena understands the Family's needs," he said, his voice carrying that casual authority that made the room nod. "She's our bookkeeper. She knows relationships are secondary to the bloodline."

He laughed. The men laughed. I stood there, carved from stone, as he dismissed three years of my body and soul with a single word—secondary.

I excused myself, claiming the restroom. The hallway stretched before me, lined with mirrors that reflected my pale face.

"Running away, little Rossi?"

Vittoria's voice slithered from the shadows. She emerged, swirling a glass of red wine, her heels clicking like hammers against the marble.

"If I didn't know better," she said, eyes dragging from my unadorned throat to my simple shoes, "I'd assume you were one of the staff. Or a widow in mourning." She smiled, sharp as a blade. "Ah, but Rossi women don't mourn, do they? They simply disappear. Like your grandmother. Like your parents in that car accident."

My fists clenched. The crash that killed them—he'd sworn he'd never spoken of it.

"He told me everything," she purred. "How you wake screaming from nightmares. How you sleep with a knife under your pillow." She leaned in, her perfume suffocating. "He tells me everything, Elena. We lie in bed and laugh about how... fragile you are."

The floor tilted.

"Tonight," she whispered, "he will come to my suite at the Plaza. He will take off my dress—the one you found in his wardrobe, the white silk you thought was a gift for you? I wore it first. He said you were too cold, too broken, to wear something so pure." Her lips brushed my ear. "He said you could never satisfy him the way I do. That you're like fucking a ghost."

Bile rose in my throat. I remembered that dress—how he'd kissed me when he gave it to me, humming that old Sicilian song, calling me his only love.

"You're lying," I choked out.

"Am I?" She stepped back, her smile widening. "Check his phone, Elena. The suite is booked for tonight. Anniversary special." She tilted her head. "Oh, that's right. You don't know the password. He changed it three months ago. The day we started sharing the bed."

She dropped her wine glass. It shattered against the marble, red liquid splashing across the white floor like blood.

"I'll have him back," she said. "You were just the warm body in his bed while he waited for a real queen. A nobody warming the sheets of a man who could have bought you with pocket change."

I stood in the hallway, trembling, the shards of crystal reflecting my broken face.