In the fifth year of my boyfriend Gabriel Salvatti’s political alliance engagement to my best friend, Serena Cavallo, she got pregnant with his child. Five years earlier, Gabriel had thrown himself from the second-floor balcony of the Salvatti estate, shattering his leg, just to make one thing clear to his parents. “I will only ever marry Chloe Moretti. No one else.” That same night, Serena stayed with me at the Moretti safehouse, crying by my side until dawn. “Don’t worry, Chloe,” she’d whispered, never leaving my side. “The moment Gabe takes the Don’s seat from his father, I’ll give him back to you. I’ll keep an eye on him. I won’t let him hurt you.” Everyone on the East Coast said I was the luckiest girl alive. I had a boyfriend willing to defy his own Family for me, and a best friend who treated me like Family. I thought I had everything I could ever want. But now, in the fifth year of their engagement, I stood in the living room of the Newport house Gabriel had bought me and handed him Serena’s positive pregnancy test. “We’re broken up,” I said. Gabriel didn’t flinch. He let out a dry, mocking laugh. “Serena is my fiancée, Chloe. Isn’t it normal for her to be pregnant?” Before I could react, he grabbed my hand and snapped my ring finger back. I gasped as the bone gave. He ripped the engagement ring off my finger and tossed it into the trash beside the sofa. “Stop using these pathetic little breakup stunts to get my attention. It’s getting old.” I looked down at my hand, trembling as I pulled it away from his grip. The pain was blinding, but I didn’t scream. For five years, I had screamed. I had cried until my throat was raw. All my pain had ever done was give him and Serena more oxygen. Every tear I shed only drew them closer. I looked up. My voice came out steadier than I expected. “Gabriel. You told me to wait. I waited five years for this.” “I’m done wasting my life on you. It’s over.” He didn’t even look at me. He walked past me into the living room and saw my packed suitcases lined up by the door. He leaned back against the sofa and gave me a look of pure derision. “Quite the performance. But let’s be honest with each other for once. You are a Moretti girl who spent five years living off the Salvatti name. This house. That car in the drive. The clothes on your back. The doctor who takes your calls at three in the morning. Every last piece of it belongs to my Family. Taking any of it walking out that door would be theft.” He tilted his head. His eyes were cold. “Be honest, Chloe. Can you even survive a day outside the Salvatti umbrella?” He was certain I would stay. He was used to me folding. Used to me swallowing his excuses. He always claimed he owed Serena. He acted as if her presence in our lives was some great sacrifice on her part. And so, over and over, he moved the line for her. “Serena is only doing this alliance so we can be together,” he used to tell me. “She’s giving up her best years for us. We can’t be cruel to her.” That kindness had turned into passionate hugs. Then careful kisses. Then her in his bed. Every time I found the photos, the ones that felt like a serrated knife dragged through my chest, he would come crawling back. Once, he’d knelt at my feet and pressed a blade to his own stomach until he bled onto the hardwood. “I just wanted to show her what it felt like to be loved, Chloe. I was just compensating her. I swear, it’s the last time. Please. Don’t think I’m dirty.” I believed him. I let his blood stain my dress and I forgave him. Then came the videos. Each one worse than the last. I had reached my limit. I’d fought him, hit him, put him in the ER once in a fit of rage. I had said it’s over a thousand times. And over those five years, his reaction had shifted from desperate terror to cold indifference. I walked to the suitcases, opened the largest one, and pulled out only my passport and my legal documents. My real ones, the ones outside the Salvatti network. “The rest is yours. You can keep it. I don’t want a single reminder of you.” I looked him dead in the eye. “And Gabriel. There isn’t a person on this earth I can’t live without. Especially not you.”
Gabriel’s smug grin vanished. Just then, the front door swung open. His cold expression shifted in a heartbeat. He deliberately shouldered past me, his shoulder slamming into mine, and rushed to the door to steady Serena by the elbow. “Serena? What are you doing here?” His voice was thick with worry. “The floor is a mess. Watch your step. You could get hurt.” Serena reached out toward me, as if to help, and then stumbled. Gabriel caught her hand immediately. They stood there, fingers laced right in front of me, the matching engagement rings on full display. When Serena noticed me staring, she pulled her hand away with a practiced, panicked look. “Today was my prenatal appointment… I’m so sorry, Chloe. Did I interrupt something? I’ll tell Gabe to come see you after we’re finished today.” Gabriel took her hand back and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “Why are you explaining yourself to her? She’s been snapping at everyone lately like she’s off her leash. I don’t even want to look at her face. Let her rot here.” His gaze flicked to me out of the corner of his eye. Seeing no reaction, he slammed the door and walked out. My broken finger was still throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. I picked up my documents and headed for the hospital. The moment I stepped into the lobby, I saw them again. Gabriel Salvatti. The second son of one of the oldest Families on the coast. A man who had grown up being taught that a Salvatti does not bend his knee to anyone outside the Table. He was on the tile of a public hospital lobby, one knee down, in a bespoke Brioni three-piece, gently massaging Serena’s calves. He was handling her like a piece of the Sistine Chapel. I had no desire to watch. I turned toward the orthopedics wing. Serena was waiting for me in the hallway. When she saw me, a flicker of hesitation crossed her face, quickly replaced by resolve. “Chloe.” She stepped into my path. “I think it’s best if you stay away from Gabe while I’m pregnant. The baby needs his father’s full attention. You love Gabe so much. I know you wouldn’t want anything to happen to his child. Right?” Then she pulled out a thick stack of bills. Right there in the crowded hallway, she pressed them into my arms. “Take this. Consider it… compensation.” She didn’t lower her voice. I felt the weight of a dozen curious stares. I heard someone behind me whisper “mistress”. Serena flinched theatrically at the murmur. Her voice dropped to a stage whisper. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for them to hear.” She grabbed my hand, the same way she used to at Choate when she wanted a favor. “Please. Just stay away from Gabe for a while. The baby needs a father.” In the middle of the crowd’s whispered judgment, I raised my hand and slapped her across the face. “Serena. Aren’t you tired of playing the victim? You took him. Enjoy the prize and shut up.” Heavy footsteps thundered behind me. Serena collapsed onto the tile, tears streaming down her face on cue. “Chloe, I’m sorry. I said the wrong thing.” Gabriel rushed over and hauled her up. When he turned to me, his eyes were black with loathing. “Chloe Moretti. Have you completely forgotten what Family you were born into? A Moretti girl raising a hand to a Cavallo girl carrying a Salvatti child. In public. Do you have any idea what your father is going to hear tonight?” His voice dropped to something colder. “Get on your knees and apologize to Serena. Right now. Or I swear on my grandfather’s name, you will not walk out of this building on your own.”
This was the thousandth time. The thousandth time Gabriel Salvatti had blindly taken Serena’s side without a second thought. A year ago, I would have fought tooth and nail. Argued until I’d proven my innocence. Now, all I felt was an all-consuming exhaustion. Serena knew me well. Before I could speak, she reached out and timidly tugged on Gabriel’s sleeve. “Don’t talk to Chloe like that, Gabe. It was my fault. I just tripped.” Predictably, her defense only made Gabriel’s eyes turn colder. “You don’t need to cover for her, Serena. We both know exactly what she is.” He looked at me, his voice dropping to a threat. “Chloe. If you want to walk out of this hospital on your own two feet, you’ll apologize to Serena. Now.” I was done with the theater. I pointed to the security camera above the nurses’ station. “The truth is right there. Watch the footage yourself.” I tried to step past him. A hand clamped down on the back of my head. Gabriel yanked my hair back hard enough that I was forced to meet his eyes. “You think you can put your hands on Serena and walk away?” Serena’s tears started instantly. “Gabe, stop! What are you doing? I told you, I fell. Let her go.” My scalp felt like it was tearing open. I winced. Gabriel, the same man who used to panic if I so much as got a papercut, looked at me with pure disgust. “Stop acting,” he mocked. “You aren’t a Cavallo princess. You expect me to believe this hurts?” I tried to twist out of his grip. He moved faster and drove his foot into the back of my knee. I went down hard on the polished floor. “Apologize.” Looking up at his face, I felt a strange, sick vertigo. I remembered when we were eighteen. A rival capo tried to kill Gabriel at a private club, and I stepped in front of him before the blade could reach him. It pierced my shoulder instead, leaving the scar beneath my collarbone. He held me as I bled in his arms, his eyes red, swearing on his grandfather’s grave that no one would ever hurt me again as long as he lived. Now, every wound I carried came from his hand. I closed my eyes and pulled in a jagged breath. “I will not apologize for something I didn’t do.” “Gabe, please, just let it go…” Serena sobbed, reaching for me. Gabriel pulled her back behind him. Then his fist came down. Not a slap. A closed backhand across the temple. My vision whited. My knees buckled. The taste of copper flooded my mouth. The hallway went dead silent. Serena stopped crying, her eyes wide with real shock, and lunged forward to shield me. “Gabe! Stop!” Gabriel ignored her struggle and pulled her into a protective embrace. He glanced at the red welt swelling across my temple without a trace of remorse. “I’m warning you for the last time. The Salvattis owe the Cavallos for this arrangement. If you’re angry, take it out on me. But if you touch her again, I will make you pay a thousand times over.” Then I threw my hand up and slapped him across the face with every ounce of strength I had left. “You already gave her your body and your soul as payment, Gabriel. What exactly do I still owe her?” He stumbled back, stunned. “Chloe Moretti!” I didn’t stay for the rest of the roar. I turned and walked away. That night, I checked into a hotel and stared at the ceiling until dawn. My phone buzzed in the dark. A message from Serena. “I’m so sorry, Chloe. I had no idea Gabe would get that worked up. I scolded him for it, so please don’t be mad, okay?” I didn’t reply. I turned the phone off. The next morning, I took a car straight to Logan. I called a senior from my MIT days. “Evan Ferraro. I’m at the airport. I’ll be back in Boston tonight.” After years of being Gabriel’s shadow, I was finally going back to the research work I had walked away from for him. I used to be at the top of my cohort, a girl with a brilliant future. A future I had set on fire to keep Gabriel warm. But as I approached the gate, three men in dark suits stepped into my path. They didn’t ask questions. They walked me straight into an SUV waiting at the curb and drove me back to the Salvatti estate. Gabriel’s mother sat in the drawing room, looking down at me with practiced elegance. Coffee in one hand. She came from one of Sicily’s oldest Families and ruled it as its Donna. Every morning, she prayed for God’s forgiveness. Every afternoon, she treated the gunshots echoing through the courtyard as background music, never seeing the slightest contradiction between the two. “Miss Moretti. I used to think you were a sensible girl.” Her voice was cold. “I never imagined you’d have the audacity to lay a hand on Serena. When a girl steps out of line in this house, she answers for it.” “ In this house, every rule broken comes with a price.” “Get the whip.”
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