"It's better to leave the responsibilities of the Family to me. Vanessa served as Donna of the Argento Syndicate for more than three years. I cannot be biased in your favor when you are just an illiterate orphan girl with no name."
My body trembled. Not from the cold draft that crept through the dining room of the Salvatore estate, but from the precise, surgical cruelty of my husband's words, delivered in front of everyone at the table as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
The dinner turned to ash in my mouth. I did not speak a single word after that, and the silence from my end of the table seemed to unsettle Xavier enough that he glanced my way once, twice, searching my face for something he couldn't name. My mother-in-law, Jane Salvatore, showed no displeasure whatsoever at the argument. If anything, she grew more animated, leaning toward Vanessa with bright laughter and conspiratorial whispers, the two of them carrying on as though I had already left the room.
It was only when I reached for a small dish of spiced oysters that Jane's voice cracked through the air like a slap.
"Mia." She set her fork down with deliberate precision. "I understand that you didn't have any parents to teach you basic things, but are you just plain stupid? Eating something that spicy in your second trimester?" Her eyes narrowed, and the candlelight caught the diamonds at her throat. "Do you not care about the baby at all? No wonder Xavier has had to go to such lengths to protect you from yourself."
"Like he is protecting me right now against your relentless attacks?"
The words left my mouth before I could catch them, and the entire table fell silent. The clinking of glasses stopped. A fork hovered in midair. Jane Salvatore's mouth opened, then closed, her face draining of color as though no one had dared speak to her that way in the thirty years she'd ruled this household. Xavier froze beside me, his hand suspended over his wine glass, and when he finally turned to look at me, there was nothing in his expression but raw confusion.
"This was the oyster dish the nurse prepared for me specifically. For digestion." My voice was steady, though my hands were not. "I brought it here because you told me to hurry while I was having my lunch. You told me to bring food for everyone. But it feels like I am in too much trouble simply for sitting here amongst you."