Chapter 5

The pain was so bad I could barely breathe.

Then the phone by my pillow buzzed. An unknown number had sent me a video.

In a dim room, a man bent his head and tenderly kissed the woman in his arms.

My breath caught.

It was my bedroom. The woman was Julia, dressed in a skimpy bunny costume.

"I wore your favorite. Do you like it?"

The man's breathing grew heavy. Without hesitation, he tore the outfit off her.

A second later, a photo popped up, sharp and clear.

It was a pregnancy test result.

Then the texts started coming. "Donna Moretti, the baby is Vincenzo's."

"For the three days you were unconscious, he snuck me into your bedroom every single night. He was so wild we went through boxes of condoms."

"His car, his office, even beside the altar where you said your vows. We've left our mark everywhere."

"The woman he doesn't love is the real other woman. I think we both know which of us should leave."

Julia had dropped the act. She threw every filthy detail of her affair with Vincenzo in my face.

I clenched my fists. The blood beneath me soaked the sheets red and dripped steadily onto the floor.

The nurses cried out and rushed me into the OR.

The anesthesia crept slowly through my body, and everything went hazy.

When I came to, I pulled my gown tighter around me. My belly felt empty.

It was as if the baby who had been there had never existed.

The doctor hesitated, then handed me the test report.

According to the report, the main cause of the miscarriage was a toxic chemical absorbed through my skin.

The bottle of daisy-scented massage oil flashed into my mind.

I sat there for a long time, holding the report.

At sunset, I folded it up, put it away, and checked myself out of the hospital.

Back at the house, I put the miscarriage report and the divorce papers I'd prepared into a black gift box.

Then I picked up a pen and wrote a single line on a sticky note.

"My last gift to you."

I packed my bags, picked up my parents' urn, and walked out of that house, one step at a time.

...

Meanwhile, Vincenzo had finished calming Julia down and left the room next door.

On his way back, Marco Bellini, one of his men, caught up and spoke in a low voice.

"Don, should we keep having the oil flown in as usual?"

Vincenzo paused. Only then did he realize how long it had been.

He hadn't massaged Vivian's scars in two whole weeks.

He pictured her pregnant, and a faint tenderness came into his eyes.

"Same as before. White-rose oil."

He pushed open the door to her hospital room.

The room was empty.

Vincenzo stopped short. Frowning, he turned to a nurse.

"Where's my wife?"

"She didn't tell you? She checked herself out earlier today."

Checked out?

Without even telling him?

Vincenzo frowned, and a strange irritation rose in him.

Pushing the feeling down, he drove straight back to the house.

But the moment he opened the front door, the whole place felt cold and empty.

A suffocating dread gripped his heart.

He searched the house floor by floor, room by room.

But even the urn in the study was gone.

Vincenzo swore under his breath, pulled out his phone, and called Vivian's number again and again. All he got was the same cold recorded voice.

"The number you have dialed is no longer in service."

He paced the living room until he spotted the black gift box in the middle of the coffee table.

The sticky note on the lid was in her handwriting.

His hands weren't steady as he opened the box.

On top lay a report, printed in black and white.

"Pregnancy: 12 weeks. Procedure: dilation and curettage."