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Chapter 2

Author: Bryn
When I woke, it was completely dark outside.

There were three stitches in my forehead and a bandage around my left arm.

A female doctor sat beside the bed. She asked a few questions about how I was feeling before placing a test report in front of me.

“There’s something else you need to know.”

Her voice was gentle.

“You’re pregnant. Approximately six weeks.”

I went still.

My hand slowly moved to my lower abdomen.

It was still flat. There was nothing different to feel.

“The baby…”

I could barely make a sound.

“So far, the examination hasn’t shown any obvious abnormalities. But you were in a collision tonight, and you’ve had abdominal pain. We need to keep you here for observation.”

The doctor glanced at my phone, its screen still lit.

“Would you like us to contact your husband?”

Nineteen calls.

Not one had been answered.

“No.”

I turned the phone facedown.

“Please don’t share the results with any visitors yet. I’d like to tell my family myself.”

The doctor nodded.

After she left, I sat alone for a long time.

Six weeks.

A child of my own had been growing inside me for six weeks.

I had imagined countless ways to tell Dante.

Perhaps with a gift. Perhaps over dinner.

Would he smile?

Would he hold me as carefully as he had held Lucia in that video?

At last, my phone rang.

I answered almost immediately.

“Dante?”

“It’s me.”

Selena’s voice came through the speaker.

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Put him on.”

“He’s with Lulu.”

She paused, softening her voice.

“She’s only just come back to the city, and she feels very insecure. There were so many people at the ceremony tonight. Dante is the only person she’ll let stay with her.”

In the background, I heard the little girl.

“Daddy, you’re not leaving tonight, right?”

Then Dante’s voice.

“No. Go to sleep. I’m right here.”

I stared at the white wall opposite me.

“Selena, give him the phone. I was—”

“Viola.”

She cut me off.

“You’ve always been so understanding. Don’t choose tonight to make things difficult for him.”

The call ended.

I dialed again.

This time, the phone was switched off.

I remained under observation until late that night. Once my condition was confirmed to be stable, I insisted on being discharged. The doctor gave me written instructions, told me to return for my follow-up appointments, and repeatedly warned me to come back immediately if the abdominal pain returned or I started bleeding.

When I walked out of the hospital, not a single Vitale car was waiting for me.

I called a taxi.

The driver glanced at the destination, then looked at me again in the rearview mirror.

“The Vitale estate?”

“Yes.”

He said nothing more.

The estate’s iron gates slowly opened in the darkness.

The guard at the entrance saw the bandage on my forehead, and his expression changed.

“Ma’am, what—”

“Has Dante come home?”

“Not yet.”

I nodded and walked inside alone.

The silver candlesticks had already been cleared from the dining room.

The white roses I had arranged that afternoon had been neatly set aside by the servants.

It was our wedding anniversary.

I had planned to have dinner alone with him after the protection ceremony.

A long, narrow gift box still lay on the table.

Inside were the cuff links I had commissioned for him.

I opened it, looked once, and closed it again.

Then I put it at the very back of a drawer.

At one in the morning, footsteps sounded in the foyer.

Dante appeared in the bedroom doorway, the cold of the night still clinging to his black coat.

His gaze landed on my forehead.

“How did you get hurt?”

I looked up at him.

“You don’t know?”

He frowned.

“The men on duty said your car was in an accident on the way home.”

I almost laughed.

So Luca’s death had been reduced to an accident.

“Someone shot at us.”

At last, Dante’s expression changed.

“Who?”

“I thought that was something you should be telling me.”

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