I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wedding ring, turning it slowly against my skin without realizing I was doing it. The band was white gold, engraved on the inside with the Moretti family crest. A mark of belonging. A brand.
My hands trembled as I scrolled further through her posts. Since that day, she had been flaunting all kinds of luxury items, each one identical to things I owned, except for one.
A jasmine-scented perfume.
Every handbag, every pair of shoes, every silk scarf. Mirror images of what sat in my closet. As if someone had studied my life and built a duplicate of it in a safehouse across town. The thought made my stomach turn, and it wasn't the pregnancy.
Then I saw her most recent post, pinned at the top. It was an ultrasound image. She was pregnant.
I dropped my phone, my heart pounding, and frantically searched through the dirty laundry basket in the walk-in closet. The house was quiet. The soldiers outside wouldn't come in unless called. The housekeeper had left at six. I was alone with the silence and the evidence.
I found the shirt Dante had worn the night before. Lifting it to my nose, the unmistakable scent of jasmine hit me.
I never wear perfume.
When I didn't respond to the message, the person on the other end grew impatient. My phone buzzed again and again as photos and videos came flooding in. Clutching my belly, I sank onto the couch, struggling to breathe.
The baby shifted inside me, pressing against my ribs as if trying to get closer to the sound of my heartbeat. I put one hand flat against the place where the movement was strongest and forced myself to look.
I forced myself to look at the undeniable evidence of Dante's betrayal. The woman in the photos was young and beautiful, her ponytail bouncing with life. Cara Valente. I recognized the name from the fringes. The Valentes were nothing, a minor family with no territory, no real standing. The kind of people who survived by attaching themselves to bigger names.
There were pictures of her and Dante.
He was rowing on a lake, playing in the snow, and tucking a maple leaf into her hair. It was as though each season, spring, summer, fall, and winter, was captured in their little love story. A life built in parallel to mine. A second household funded by the Family's money, hidden behind the code of silence that was supposed to protect us all.