CHAPTER 1

ZARIA

What could possibly be worse than discovering you’re nothing more than a legal surrogate in your own marriage?

Maybe the fact that I didn’t even see it coming. I’m only in this house, in his life, because she cannot give him a child, and he needs an heir to keep his place as the mafia boss. That’s all I am! Someone with a working womb.

He made me feel special so that I would relax around him… so I would trust him… so I would sleep with him. And like a fool in love, I gave him everything.

My heart. My hope. My virginity.

All because I believed he cared.

“You know I keep my promises,” Renzo said softly to Elix, in that gentle voice I thought was meant only for me.

Renzo, the man everyone knows as cruel, violent, and cold has always been strangely tender with me. Patient. Careful. Almost loving.

Or so I thought.

Turns out it was all just a convenient performance. A role he played to get what he wanted.

“I already told you my arrangement with Zaria,” he continued, “and it’s never going to change.”

The joke is on me then.

I’ve heard enough. I don’t want to hear another word exchanged between them, between him and the woman he once claimed didn’t matter.j

The truth? She matters.

More than I ever did.

She’s the woman he actually wants to marry, the woman he believes is worthy of his status, the woman who would have been his wife if only she hadn’t been born barren.

And me?

I’m the replacement.

The backup plan.

The womb he needed.

God.

Fuck my life.

Taking a deep breath that barely reached my lungs, I pushed myself away from the door of Renzo’s office and staggered down the hallway into the elevator.

When the elevator chimed, I flinched.

Hawk stood there, holding the car door open. My security—no.

Who was I kidding?

Renzo’s security.

“Mrs. Dominico.”

He might be assigned to follow me, but at the end of the day, he reports to Renzo, not me.

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

I lifted my gaze to meet Hawk’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. A few hours ago, I might have believed he was genuinely worried. Maybe even kind.

But now?

Now I know better. He was observing me, studying me, looking for anything to report back to Renzo.

“I’m fine,” I said quietly.

I turned away from the mirror, resting my head against the cool window glass, and closed my eyes for the rest of the drive.

**************

We finally reached the manor. Before Hawk even had the chance to open my door, I grabbed my handkerchief and wiped away the tears that had slipped free despite all my effort. Renzo had always told me never to let anyone see me cry. And after two years with him, I had learned to swallow my emotions until they choked me.

The car door opened. I stepped out, my legs still shaking slightly. As I walked into the manor, the suited guards bowed respectfully. For a moment, I wondered if they were silently mocking me.

If they already knew the truth, if they had always known.

I ignored them all and kept moving, forcing my breathing to stay steady.

Inside the living room, Grace approached me quickly, holding an envelope in both hands.

“Welcome, ma’am,” she said gently.

All I could do was stare at her, wondering silently if she knew too, if she knew that my entire role in this marriage was to produce an heir, if she knew I was nothing more than a womb with a wedding ring.

Suddenly, all the little things she had done made horrible sense, the herbs she prepared every morning, the gentle reminders for me to drink them, the constant insistence that they were good for the womb.

Of course, she knew. Everyone probably knew. Everyone but me.

“You have a parcel,” she said, lifting the envelope slightly.

“From who?”

She glanced down at the paper then shook her head. “No idea ma’am. It was in the mail box and the security handed it over to me to give to you.”

I let out a long, shaky exhale and took it from her fingers. Without another word, I turned away, climbing the stairs with the parcel pressed against my chest.

Inside our bedroom, I pushed the door open and drifted in like a ghost. My legs carried me to the sofa, where I dropped down heavily, the parcel resting in my lap. I stared at it for a long moment, tracing the edge of the envelope with my finger.

I tore it open, reached inside, and pulled out a stack of photographs.

The moment my eyes landed on the first picture, my brows knitted tightly. It took my mind a few seconds to understand what I was looking at.

“What the fuck?”

A bedsheet.

A bedsheet stained with blood.

My breath hitched. Still confused, I flipped the picture over and froze at the short message scrawled on the back:

REMEMBER THIS? YOUR SPECIAL NIGHT WAS A PROMISE TO ME.

I didn’t fully understand, not yet. But a cold dread crawled up my spine as I turned to the next image.

My heart almost stopped.

A slender hand lay on the same bed, the camera capturing the silver ring.

I looked down at my own hand, slowly, almost unwillingly.

The identical silver ring stared back at me.

My pulse skyrocketed, hammering so loudly I could hear it in my ears. I practically threw the pictures onto the sofa and scrambled to my bedside drawer, digging through old items until I found what I was looking for…my honeymoon photos from two years ago.

I flipped through them feverishly.

And then I found it.

The same bedsheet.

The same pattern.

The same night.

My eyes widened in horror. Was the blood on the bedsheet…evidence of my virginity?

Tears pooled instantly, spilling down my cheeks as I flipped the picture over, desperate, maybe terrified to see if there was another message.

There was.

Of course, there was.

A BEDSHEET WITH YOUR BLOOD ON IT HAS TO BE THE BEST GIFT I'VE EVER RECEIVED FROM RENZO.

The picture slipped from my hands as if it had caught fire. Maybe it had. Maybe it burned because the truth was too humiliating, too disgusting to touch.

As if finding out that my husband only kept me around for a baby wasn’t already enough to tear me apart, now I had to learn that he had taken the bedsheet from our first night, the most vulnerable moment of my life, and gifted it to his mistress like some sick, twisted trophy.

How did my day become this nightmare?

Just hours ago, I had been smiling at the bathroom sink, staring at two bright lines on a pregnancy test.

Two lines that meant I was carrying his child.

I was supposed to surprise him, I was supposed to tell him he was going to be a father, I was supposed to be happy. Instead, I was here, holding proof that my special night had been shared with another woman long before I even knew the truth.

My shaking hand drifted to my stomach. I pressed my palm gently over the tiny life growing inside me. I stroked it slowly, protectively.

There was no way Renzo would let me stay after giving him an heir.

And there was no way I would allow another woman, especially her to raise my child while I was still alive and capable.

If I wanted to protect myself and my baby…

I had to leave.

I had to walk away from this marriage.

I had to walk away from Renzo.

I had stayed all these years, through danger, through fear, through everything, because I loved him. Because I believed he loved me too.

But that illusion was gone now.

Shattered.

Dead.

And with it, my reason for staying had vanished.

But I also knew one terrifying truth, Renzo is a man who hates to lose.

And leaving him? Leaving him…It would not be easy.

A sudden flash of light spilled through the window, pulling me out of my thoughts. I didn’t need anyone to tell me what it was. I knew immediately it came from Renzo’s car and the security convoy following behind him.

I jumped to my feet, moving quickly, I gathered every photograph scattered across the bed and slipped them back into the envelope. My fingers trembled, but I didn’t let myself stop. I rushed into the closet, dragged out the old vanity table blocking the corner, and reached for the travel suitcase I rarely touched, the one covered in the most dust, the one no one ever checked.

I flipped it open, shoved the envelope inside, and pushed the suitcase back into its place. Then I hurried straight to the bathroom. I needed a shower, something to wash away the redness around my eyes.

By the time I stepped out thirty minutes later, my hair was damp, and my nightdress clinging to my skin, Renzo was already in the room.

He stood near the bed with his phone pressed to his ear, his voice low as he spoke to someone. The moment I opened the door, he turned toward me, eyes locking on mine without moving away for even a second.

“Let me call you back,” he said quietly into the receiver, ending the call without waiting for a reply.

He tilted his head slowly, still watching me without blinking. The intensity of it made my skin prickle, and for a second, I had to fight the urge to shift my weight or look away.

I cleared my throat. “What? Why are you staring at me like that?”

His eyes narrowed a little, not in anger but in concern. “Are you okay?” He slipped his phone into his pocket and started walking toward me. “Have you been crying?”

My heart thudded hard, loud enough that I wondered if he could hear it. “Crying?” I forced a quick roll of my eyes. “No. I got soap in my eyes while showering. It stung.”

Not wanting to stand there long enough for him to see through the lie, I turned and headed into the closet, pretending to look for something. “How was work today?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

“I heard you stopped by,” he said instead, ignoring my question. “Why didn’t you come up to my office?”

My blood ran cold. I hadn’t expected him to bring that up so directly. Of course someone would have told him. his security never missed anything. My mind scrambled for something believable.

“I was told you were in a meeting,” I said, adding to the lie I’d already started. “And I know better than to interrupt your work, so I left.”

“Next time, have my secretary call me and let me know. I’ll make time to see you.”

“Sure,” I replied, my tone clipped, careful not to give away my nerves. I prayed silently that he would drop the subject and thankfully, he did. I heard his footsteps fade across the floor, followed by the soft click of a door closing.

I didn’t waste a second. I slipped back into the bedroom, the sound of running water from the bathroom telling me he had stepped into the shower. My shoulders loosened slightly, and I let out a shaky breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

Pulling the quilt close around me, I crawled into bed, shutting my eyes tightly. I willed myself to fall asleep before he finished, because I wasn’t sure how long I could hide my emotions from him. Slowly, thankfully, sleep came.