It was like a dull blade being dragged through my heart

I pushed myself up against the pillows, looked at the two of them wrapped in their devotion. and let out a brittle laugh.

"So what now? Am I supposed to thank him?""

"Thank him for aborting my full-term baby for your sake for cutting out my uterus on the side, for nearly killing me, and for being magnanimous enough to wait by my bedside until I came around?"

Lorelei's tears spilled over, faster and faster.

She glared at me through the wet sheen. "Fine. It's all my fault. I'm the one who hurt you. I'll find a way to make it right. Is that what you want to hear?"

Like she'd snapped, she shoved Dante out of her way, snatched the fruit knife from the table, and drove the point straight at her own belly.

"I'll cut my baby out and my uterus too, and I'll hand them over as compensation. Will that finally make you happy?"

Dante caught her against his chest and trapped the blade in his bare hand, blood streaming down his fingers.

Then he raised his head and stared at me with cold eyes while I stood there, frozen.

"Are you satisfied yet?"

He scooped Lorelei into his arms with great care and walked out without ever glancing back

The only thing he left in the room was a single statement 

"It’s clear I treated you too well."

“That's why you started believing you could do whatever you pleased. Since that's where we are, you can finally learn what suffering really is."

I watched his back vanish through the doorway and smiled through my tears.

The man who had once vowed to spoil me for the rest of my life and never let me hurt for a single day had died somewhere in the long stretch of years between us.

Dante's bodyguards hauled me off the bed and dumped me out the door.

"As of today, every single thing Don gave you is being taken back. lf you want to keep this hospital room..."

I gave a crooked smile and turned my face away. "Don't bother. I don't want Dante or anything that ever belonged to him."

They confiscated my phone and my wallet.

Because both of those had been bought with his money.

Penniless, I stood at the curb and tried to flag down a ride home.

But every time a kind driver slowed for me, Dante's men stepped up to the window and said the same line.

"Unless you'd like to cross the don of the Salvatore family, you can keep driving."

The drivers shook their heads at me in apology and floored the gas pedal away.

When it became obvious I could barely keep my feet, one of the bodyguards finally spoke, his voice flat.

"Don asked me to relay a message. This is what defying him looks like."'

"lf you're prepared to apologize to Miss Bishop and personally see her through the pregnancy, I'll drive you home."'

I didn't acknowledge him. I just kept walking, one shaking step after another, while blood ran down my legs and dripped onto the pavement, drawing eyes from every passerby.

But I no longer felt anything at all.

I walked until well past nightfall before I finally reached the house. 

Every window was lit.

Warm light poured out into the street and pushed back the chill of midnight.

I lifted my numb, freezing fingers and punched in the code. 

The keypad answered with a sharp error tone. 

I tried again. And again.

Each time, the system refused me.

At last the housekeeper threw the door open, irritation written all over her face.

"Donna, just stop. Until you say sorry to Don, you don't get to touch a thing he paid for."

"This house is his too No apology, no entry."'

She raked her eyes over me from head to toe and gave a derisive snort. "If you ask me, you ought to swallow your pride and apologize quick."'

"Do you know who Don is? There's a line of women out there ready to step into your shoes. Look at yourself. No family. No looks. You're in your thirties and now you can't even have children..."

"The girl outside is pregnant, and he still hasn't divorced you. He's already being more than fair. What are you carrying on like this for?"

I cut her off softly, "I'm not coming inside. I just need one thing."

She faltered, then sneered. "Everything you own was bought by Don. What do you have that's actually yours? Don't tell me you're trying to make off with some of his jewelry or bags to sell."

I held her gaze. "All I want is my lab report. ls that going to be a problem?"

She rolled her eyes and stomped upstairs, returning a moment later with a thick envelope, which she flung at me.

I caught it and pulled out the report inside, only to find Dante's name on the test results, with the diagnosis: azoospermia.

I smiled silently

This was the premarital medical screening from a decade ago, when Dante and I were getting married

The day I first read those results, my emotions had been too tangled to give a name to.

A man as proud as Dante-how could he ever have accepted something like that?

And if his rivals had ever caught wind of it, how many of them would have used it to ruin him?

But the doctor had also confided a secret in me.

My body was unusual.

One of the rare cases capable of activating Dante's nonviable sperm and allowing conception.

"Donna, Don is fortunate to have married you," the doctor had said. "In all my career, I've only met one woman with a body like yours."

I had intended to take that secret to my grave, never letting Dante learn the truth.

I just never imagined I would be the one to use it as a weapon.

I gathered the last of my cash and made more than a dozen photocopies. 

Then I handed them to a courier.

Each envelope was labeled with the name, the address, and the private contact details of one of the families Dante had made an enemy of

In a quiet voice, I told the courier, "Deliver these as quickly as you can. You only need to say one sentence."

"Tell them it's a gift from the Donna of the Salvatore family. They’ll tip you generously."

Dante, before I disappeared, this was the last gift I had to give you. 

I hoped you appreciated it.