Chapter 1

Ten days after giving birth, I told my husband, Ethan Reed, that something was wrong with me.

He sat on the living room couch, head down, typing on his phone. He didn't even look up.

"Sophia, every woman goes through mood swings after having a baby." He turned his phone face-down on the coffee table, shutting me down with one sentence. "You'll be fine once you get enough sleep."

He got up and went back to the bedroom. I didn't stop him.

I'd lost count of how many times Ethan had turned his back on me and walked away.

He was one of the best surgeons in Manhattan, so I always trusted him blindly. This time was no exception.

I went to bed early. At two in the morning, my son Luca started crying, and I forced myself upright.

My incision hadn't healed. Every step felt like a knife driving into my belly. I braced myself against the wall and shuffled to the nursery, poured formula into a bottle, and set it in the warmer. The bottle slipped out of my hand and hit the floor with a dull thud.

I crouched down to pick it up. My hands shook so badly it took me three tries to grab the bottle.

Two minutes later, Ethan appeared in the doorway, frowning, his voice thick with impatience. "Can you keep it down? I have surgery in the morning. I need my rest."

He swept his eyes over the room, and the displeasure on his face deepened. "Sophia, I've seen plenty of women give birth at the hospital, and none of them were as dramatic as you. It's been ten days since your delivery. You can't spare half an hour to tidy up this room?"

"I..." I clutched the hem of my shirt, and before I could get a word of explanation out, he cut me off again.

"The postpartum nurse is coming tomorrow. I want this room clean, Sophia. Don't embarrass me." Ethan delivered the last line coldly, then turned and left.

He pulled the door shut behind him, sealing me, Luca, and the whole room off in the dark.

The next day, a postpartum nurse from the hospital came by. She asked how I was sleeping and whether my mood had been off.

I was about to answer when Ethan walked out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee and a perfectly polished smile. "She's doing well. Just still adjusting."

He set the coffee down in front of the nurse. "I'm a surgeon. Of course I'm keeping a close eye on Sophia's recovery."

The nurse glanced up at me. I kept my head down, hands pressed flat on my knees, and didn't contradict him.

She sighed and wrote something in her notebook. When Ethan wasn't looking, she tore the page out and pressed it into my palm.

After she left, Ethan shut the door and stood in the entryway without moving. "You look terrible. Don't let anyone else see you like that."

He turned and went into his study. I unfolded the note. "If your mood stays low after the birth, try getting a small pet. It can help."

That afternoon, I took a cab alone to an animal shelter in Brooklyn and brought home a three-month-old golden retriever. I named him Milo.

Milo slept on the mat outside the nursery door. Every morning at six I filled his bowl, and he would rest his chin on my knee and watch me with those black eyes. The fifteen minutes I spent feeding him were the only part of my day when my hands didn't shake.

Ethan frowned every time he saw the dog, but he never said anything. I took that as permission.

With Milo around, that unnameable sense of wrongness slowly faded. I thought I'd be well again soon. Then on Thursday, I took Luca out on my own for his vaccinations.

When I got back and turned my key in the door, the living room was too quiet.

The mat was gone. The food bowl was gone. The half-chewed rope toy was gone.

Ethan sat at the dining table, a surgical report spread out in front of him. He didn't look up. "Stop looking. I had someone take him away."

"What?"

"Dogs carry bacteria. The baby is tiny. One infection and he could die at any moment. Don't you know that?" He finally raised his head, and that look in his eyes was the one he used when explaining basics to his interns. "Sophia, I'm a doctor. I won't stand by and let something happen to my child."

"When did you decide this?"

"Yesterday."

"You didn't tell me."

"Do I need to report every little thing to you?"

I stood in the doorway, staring at the empty corner.

Every morning, Milo would wait for me there. He didn't understand the rules of this house, didn't know my last name. He only knew that when I walked in, his tail would start wagging.

"That was my dog," I said.

"That was a source of infection." He turned a page of the report. "If you actually cared about your child, you'd be thanking me."

I said nothing. I walked to the window and stood there for a long time.

A single golden hair was caught in a gap between the floorboards. The cleaner had missed it. I crouched down, worked it out with my fingernail, and closed my fist around it.

That night, I turned on the other phone, the one with only a single contact in it.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Three years ago, I said I wanted to marry someone clean, and my father, the Don of the Moretti family, didn't stop me.

On the day I left home, my older brother, Gabriel Moretti, placed this phone in my hand and coaxed me softly. "If the world out there ever wears you down, remember you still have us. You will always be the Moretti family's only princess."

I used to think the day I'd need this phone would never come.

I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, over and over, and in the end I sent only a few words. "Thirty days from now, come get me."

Gabriel replied almost instantly. "Sophia, welcome home."