Chapter 2

That evening Matteo came home and bent down to take my shoes off, the way he always had. He laid his palm on my belly, and the baby moved under it. His smile was gentle. "She knows her father is home."

I almost pushed the ledger into his hands and asked him why. Instead I said I wanted him to come with me to the chapel the next day to register the Cradle Rite. It was the one ceremony before a birth where both parents signed the protection vows together. I watched his eyes and waited for him to say "yes."

He frowned and said there was trouble at the south docks, that he had to handle it in person the next day. He kissed the top of my head and told me not to overthink it. He would make sure the doctor and the car were ready.

That night the old butler mistakenly brought a dispatch sheet to my room. An armored car, the Moretti family doctor, and two security teams had all been sent to St. Augustine Clinic. Bianca's name appeared beside the destination.

Matteo had not gone to the docks. He had accompanied Bianca through the same preliminary screening I had undergone.

I folded the sheet into a small square and put it in my nightstand drawer. I used to think the way he took care of me proved love. Now I understood that being well provided for and being chosen first were two different things.

He came back near dawn. Seeing me still awake, he reached over to pull the blanket up. I rolled away from him. His hand hung in the air a moment, and in the end he asked nothing. That night we lay in the same bed with something like an endless stretch of sea between us.

The next day I went to the chapel alone. The priest set the vows in front of me and asked when the father would arrive. I said Matteo had been called away, my voice as level as if I were explaining why an ordinary businessman was late.

I signed my own name. I left no blank line for him and let no one sign in his place. I simply moved the ceremony to after the birth. When I walked out of the chapel the rain had stopped and shallow water stood on the steps. It struck me then that the hardest thing was not admitting your husband had stopped loving you. It was admitting that every tender moment you waited for was only what he handed out in his spare time.

The next morning, Matteo took a call in the bathroom. Running water drowned out his words, but there was something in the way he lowered his voice that was deliberately shutting me out.

I went into his study and opened the wax-sealed cabinet. As the Don's wife, I had co-signing authority. I had never once used it, because it had never occurred to me that he would shut me out.

There were no love letters inside. Only an unregistered protection roster.

Bianca's clinic, her apartment, her guards, her jewelry, all of it billed to the "unconfirmed heir reserve fund." F-17 had already been entered into the bloodline register, but the seals of two witnesses were missing beside it.

I recognized the seal. It was the shipping-route code Matteo and I had invented when we were young. Back then we were so poor we had nothing but one old boat left. He drew a curving tide line on paper and said it was our way home. Later, he had it stamped onto Moretti Family records, and I had taken that as proof he had made me part of the business.

It turned out he could use it to clear a path for another woman too.

I copied the certification page and put the original back exactly as it had been. When I returned to the bedroom Matteo was already in his suit, head down, peeling an apple for me. He looked up and asked why I was so pale.

"I didn't sleep well," I said.

He held the apple to my lips with the practiced ease of a devoted husband. I did not take a bite. I rested a hand on the curve of my stomach. After she was born, I could not walk out carrying nothing but tears. First, I had to find her a road that truly led home.

That afternoon Matteo took me into the garden for some sun. He said that once the baby came he would hold the grandest christening for her by the lake. Using that promise as an opening, I asked about the witnesses on the bloodline register. His hands paused, barely. Then he smiled and said those tedious details were not mine to worry about.

I smiled too. Once, I would have mistaken his evasiveness for thoughtfulness. Now it felt like a door closing. That night I gave the certification page to my attorney, Giulia DeLuca, for safekeeping and hid a second copy in my mother's detergent bucket. It was not much evidence, but every piece told me the same thing: Matteo's betrayal was no momentary lapse. He had already planned a future for Bianca.