The Heir's Mistress Tried to Replace Me,But I Am the MarchionessChapter 1
I returned to the capital with Donna Vittoria after months at the ancestral estate in Palermo.
My car was stopped halfway to the compound by a delicate-looking woman with a swollen belly.
"I beg the Don's wife to grant me and my child a place inside the Family. I ask for no title, but the baby in my womb is the heir's own flesh and blood. He cannot be left out in the cold."
The Acting Underboss of the Moretti Family had been married three years without producing an heir of his own. And now, out of nowhere, someone claimed to be carrying his child.
The woman trembled as though she might collapse at any moment, the very picture of helplessness.
"The heir is away from the city. If his wife mistreats us, if she lets his own flesh and blood be cast aside, does she not fear he'll come home and dissolve the marriage?"
Dissolve the marriage? This woman was clever, I'd give her that. But she'd gotten one thing wrong.
I was not someone the Acting Underboss of the Moretti Family could cast aside.
——
"Please, I beg the Don's wife to show mercy. Save me."
My car had been stopped in the middle of the road. The woman's wailing outside shattered the quiet rest I'd been trying to take.
I had just returned to the city with Donna Vittoria from our months in Palermo. I'd left her residence and was heading back to the Moretti compound when, right at the gates, a woman's sobbing brought my armored sedan to a halt.
She had a coquettish face, dressed plainly, with only a thin silver chain at her throat and a belly round and heavy with child. Tears glistened in her eyes as she stared at the tinted windows, looking so pitiful that people on the sidewalk had already stopped to gawk. Two of our soldiers flanked the car but hadn't moved her. They wouldn't touch a pregnant woman without my word.
Through the window, she watched me sit motionless inside and dropped to her knees on the pavement, pressing her forehead to the ground. "My lady, please. Give Gianna Valenti a place to belong."
"The child I carry is the heir's flesh and blood. I am alone in this world. I need no title for myself, but the baby in my womb is the heir's only child. He cannot go unrecognized."
"My lady has been married to the heir for years without bearing a child. Surely you would not stand by and watch the Moretti bloodline die out? I beg you, show mercy."