Chapter 7

I thought I had misheard him. “What?”

Nico pushed over the access report. “Three bolts were cut. Your key card entered the service corridor the night before, and the cameras failed for those eleven minutes.”

His gaze was as sharp as if he were interrogating an enemy. “Who else would want Alessia and her child dead?”

After losing so much blood, even my fingers were cold. Nothing was colder than his eyes.

“It wasn't me. I didn't put digitalis in the milk. I didn't bruise Gia. I didn't damage the crest. Nico, I have never hurt any of them.”

“Every incident points to you,” he said, anger restrained beneath each word. “The digitalis came from your clinic. The key card was yours. You confronted Alessia in front of witnesses. You keep demanding that I believe you, but you give me no reason to.”

I wanted to ask why he had not checked for a copied card, recovered the footage, or traced the medicine. Instead, I met his eyes. “Do you remember the scar on your left shoulder?”

His body stiffened.

“Your family broke your ribs and shot you that night, and you swore you would always believe me. Look at me. Do you truly think I poisoned and bruised a baby, then tried to kill a pregnant woman?”

Nico was silent. That brief silence answered everything.

Finally, he said, “I don't know how much you've done. I protect Alessia only because of the child and the succession. Her giving birth safely benefits us both. Why do you keep making everything worse?”

I was suddenly too tired to explain again.

I removed the black diamond ring Nico had given me in an abandoned church after defying the Commission. With no priest or guests, he had called me his only wife.

Now I placed it before him. “If you don't believe me, this ends here.”

He stared at the ring, not understanding.

“I won't wait anymore. Marry Alessia, raise your children, and remain the Valenti heir. I am leaving.”

His face changed. “Say that again.”

“We're over.”

He struck the metal table beside my bed, overturning it. Water and medicine shattered across the floor. Then he seized my wrist, rage and naked fear in his eyes.

“Who do you think I did this for? If I wanted Alessia, I never had to defy the Commission. I took a bullet for you and nearly died. Now you tell me to live with another woman?”

His voice broke into a shout. “You are the only woman I love.”

His grip hurt, but I only looked at him through burning eyes.

Realizing he was hurting me, Nico let go, then pulled me against him as though I would vanish if his arms loosened.

“I didn't hear that,” he said with his old authority. “Alessia won't pursue the case, and I won't let the Commission investigate you. This is finished.”

His arms tightened. “But never talk about ending us or leaving me again. I will not allow it.”

He still believed that if he refused, our relationship could never end.

“Alessia forgave me without asking for anything?” I asked. “No conditions?”

His body went rigid. After a moment, he released me and avoided my face.

“She made one request. The Donatis say the attacks have left both her position and the child's unstable. They want me to honor the original agreement and legally marry her until the boy is born.”

Even though I had already chosen to leave, pain clenched around my heart.

“It's a political contract until the boy is born and the succession takes effect. Then I can dissolve it and surrender the Valenti claim. It has nothing to do with love.”

He took my hand. “A prenup will deny her my private assets and any say over our life afterward. This is the last time, Tessa. After the wedding, we can leave.”

The last time. I knew those words too well.

First, it would end with pregnancy. Then with a son. Now he would marry her and call it the final formality.

But the marriage, ring, vows, and signature would be real. Only I would remain an error hidden from the world.

He kept explaining clauses and promising never to live as her husband. His voice receded until I no longer heard him.

At last, I closed my eyes. “I understand.”

Mistaking surrender for acceptance, he relaxed and kissed my forehead. “Trust me. When this is over, I'll make it up to you.”

I no longer needed him to.

For three days, Nico was almost as attentive as before, cooling my medicine, waking when I moved, and covering my eyes as nurses changed the IV.

Without everything that had come before, I might have believed we had returned to the past.

On the fourth morning, Nico began preparing the wedding. The chapel was redecorated, the Five Families invited, and legal documents drafted.

To prevent me from appearing, Nico confiscated my phone and confined me to an east-wing guest room with two armed guards outside.

He visited each night. Sometimes he only sat beside me, holding my hand and promising we would leave after the wedding.

He did not know my suitcase was packed in the back of the wardrobe.

I left behind every dress and jewel he had given me. I took only my identification, pharmacology notebooks, the silver Virgin medal recovered from my mother's bracelet, and an old acceptance letter to the toxicology program I had once rejected.

On the wedding day, most of the estate's security moved to the chapel.

That afternoon, someone slid my phone under the door. Dozens of photographs appeared on the screen, all from Alessia.

Nico stood at the altar in black, placed a ring on Alessia's hand, and signed the documents. In the final video, the priest declared them husband and wife. She kissed him, and he did not pull away.

They cut the cake with Gia between them. The family both clans wanted was complete.

Each image passed over my heart like a blade. Then the pain settled into calm, and I turned off the screen.

The lock opened. Salvatore entered alone and placed a dark folder on the table. Inside were a new passport, an untraceable phone, and cargo-flight papers without a passenger name.

“Everything is arranged. A car is waiting at the western service entrance. The plane will go to Canada, then to the West Coast. The Valentis won't know your final destination. From the moment it takes off, Tessa Mercer will cease all public activity.”

I closed the folder. “You promised Nico would never find me.”

“He can trace commercial flights, bank accounts, border records, and every route this family controls. He cannot trace someone who no longer exists.”

I lifted my suitcase. As I passed him, Salvatore said, “The wedding ends in half an hour. Leave now, and he won't discover it in time.”

An unmarked black car waited beyond the service corridor. I put my luggage in the trunk and looked once at the estate where I had lived for years.

Sunlight flashed across the windows. Bells rang from the distant chapel, where Nico was receiving congratulations as Alessia Donati's husband.

I got into a car that would leave no record and headed for a private airfield absent from civilian maps.

I did not look back.

At 4:17 p.m., Nico Valenti completed his marriage registration before the Five Families. At 4:26, a cargo plane with no passenger manifest left Chicago.

I gave Nico no farewell and left no explanation.

The moment the plane rose from the ground, Tessa Mercer was dead.