"Why wouldn't I come? I haven't done anything shameful that I need to hide." I leaned back, still smiling. "Besides, Dante and I are legally married, so I have nothing to hide. Unlike some people who, no matter how hard they try, will always be the hidden third."
The words landed exactly where I aimed them. Her smile cracked at the edges. Her fingers pressed harder against her throat.
"You—!" she snapped, but I cut her off again.
"Oh, and thank you, by the way," I said, my voice steady. The same tone I'd heard the consigliere use when delivering news that would ruin someone's life. Measured. Almost kind. "For sending me all the evidence of your little affair with Dante. Collecting all that would've been much harder on my own."
I let the silence do its work. One beat. Two. The barista had stopped wiping glasses.
I smiled, this time more dismissively. "So, this coffee's on me."
I placed some cash under my cup, stood up slowly, and rested my hand on my belly. The weight of my daughter pressing against my palm. Real. Alive. The only honest thing left in this entire arrangement.
"What do you mean by that?" Cara asked through clenched teeth as she grabbed my arm. Her grip was harder than it should have been. Her nails bit through the sleeve of my coat.
"It means I don't want him anymore," I replied, pulling my arm free. "If you want him, he's all yours."
For a moment, something shifted behind her eyes. Not relief. Not triumph. Something closer to fear. Because a woman who walks away from a Moretti voluntarily is either bluffing or dangerous, and Cara couldn't tell which one I was.
Her eyes narrowed, and she threw my arm aside angrily. "What game are you playing now? Don't think I'm buying this for a second!"
The force of her shove sent me stumbling backward, and I fell to the floor.
The impact jarred through my spine, my hip, my belly. And then, at that moment, it felt like a knife had ripped through my belly. Not a metaphor. Not an exaggeration. A blade of pain so specific and so total that the world went white at the edges. Pain shot through me, and I felt my body convulsed.
The tile was cold against my back. The ceiling lights blurred. I could hear the old men at the counter rising from their stools. The barista's voice, distant, saying something I couldn't parse. And then the warmth. Spreading. Wrong.