Chapter 2

Serena's POV

The harsh fluorescent light of the hospital break room pierced my closed eyes, burning my eyelids.

I must have passed out.

Fourteen hours on my feet outside that delivery room — from well before the first contraction — on an empty stomach, had drained the last of my strength.

I opened my eyes and stared at the cold, white ceiling.

An IV line was taped to the back of my hand, clear fluid dripping into my vein, slow and steady.

The room was empty.

Alessandro hadn't come looking for me. He hadn't even noticed I was gone.

I ripped the tape off my hand and pulled out the needle in one clean motion.

A drop of blood welled up from the puncture.

I wiped it on my dark trousers and pushed myself upright.

The moment I stepped into the corridor, an obstetrics nurse blocked my path, her face white with fear.

She grabbed my arm and hurried me toward the luxury suite at the end of the hall.

Alessandro had paid a fortune for it. The suite was decorated with palatial opulence, the air thick with the scent of expensive lilies and warm milk.

The room inside was suffocatingly full.

The Matriarch Rosa sat in a wingback armchair, and the family's most powerful capos and elders stood around her in a respectful half-circle.

Alessandro stood by the window, his towering frame blocking out the sunlight.

Valentina reclined on the hospital bed in a silk robe.

Her long hair was perfectly groomed, and clutched to her chest was a bundle wrapped in a blue blanket — the baby.

The moment she saw me walk in, Valentina began her performance.

She widened her glistening eyes at me and held the child out with trembling wrists, the picture of fragile, pitiful grace.

"Hold him, Serena," she murmured in a deliberately meek voice. "You are the Don's wife. It's only right that you be his mother. I only want what's best for the family."

The elders nodded approvingly, murmuring their praise.

They commended her nobility of spirit, fully embracing this absurd arrangement.

The mafia Donna raising her husband's bastard — while everyone pretended it was one big happy family.

Rosa tapped her cane against the floor, signaling that the visit was over.

The capos filed out, and the Matriarch gave me one long, meaningful look before leaving.

The heavy door clicked shut, leaving us alone.

The instant the lock engaged, the gentleness drained from Valentina's face.

She snatched the baby back against her chest, a vicious smirk curling her mouth.

"Did you really think I'd let you touch my son?" The soft, wounded tone was gone, replaced by something shrill and cruel.

I stood at the foot of the bed and watched her, giving no response.

"For ten months you've waited on me hand and foot like a servant," Valentina sneered. "Tasting every dish, fluffing my pillows, clearing every obstacle out of my way."

"Well, the heir is born now. In that house, you're nothing but an empty shell."

I glanced up at the clock on the wall.

Seventy-one hours left.

Valentina registered my silence, and it enraged her.

She wanted me unhinged. She wanted my screams, my tears — anything that would let her keep playing the victim.

Her gaze suddenly swept across my chest and fixed on the antique St. Jude medal resting against my collarbone — the patron saint of lost causes.

A heavy silver coin on a thick silver chain — the only keepsake my late mother had left me.

"I want that necklace," Valentina commanded.

I looked at her, unmoving. "Not a chance."

"Give it to me," she pressed, chin lifted, relentless. "Consider it a gift for the heir. Proof of your surrender."

"It was my mother's," I said flatly. "You will not lay a finger on it."

The heavy door handle turned with a soft click — Alessandro had returned.

Valentina's expression transformed in the blink of an eye, her eyes brimming with tears.

She drew a sharp, theatrical gasp and clutched the baby protectively to her chest, as if shielding him from a monster.

Alessandro strode in, and the moment he saw Valentina crying, his face darkened, fury boiling in his eyes.

"What did you do to her?" he barked at me.

"She cursed the baby..." Valentina sobbed into the blanket. "She said my son wouldn't survive his first year... She wants to finish what she started three years ago..."

Alessandro went rigid.

Any mention of the child lost three years ago was the one trigger he could never control; his prejudice against me ran bone-deep.

"Apologize to her." Alessandro's command was ice, edged with murder.

"I didn't say a single word," I answered evenly.

"Don't lie to me, Serena."

He closed the distance in two strides, looming over me.

The smell of gunsmoke and cologne rolled off his expensive suit.

I lifted my head and met his gaze without yielding an inch.

His eyes dropped to the silver pendant at my chest, and he remembered that Valentina had asked him for it earlier that week.

In a heartbeat, his warped scales delivered the verdict — how could a dead woman's keepsake possibly matter more than the mother of his living son?

"Give her the necklace," he ordered.

"No."

Alessandro didn't waste another word.

He reached out with his broad, powerful hand, seized the heavy silver chain, and wrenched it down hard.

The metal bit into the flesh at the back of my neck, and as the clasp snapped with a brittle crack, my skin tore open.

Pain exploded across my nape.

Alessandro balled the broken necklace in his fist, turned his back on me, and dropped my mother's keepsake into Valentina's hands.

I touched the back of my neck. My fingertips came away warm and wet.

Looking down at the blood on my own skin, I felt no anger and no grief — only the steady, merciless ticking of a countdown deep in my chest.