CHAPTER 1

Alessia's POV

The sterile smell of bleach and isopropyl alcohol always made my stomach turn. But tonight, sitting under the flickering fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway, it felt like a death sentence.

Through the small glass window of the ICU door, I could see my father. Monitors beeped around him, keeping track of a life that was slowly slipping away. Beside me, my mother was silently crying, her hands raw from rubbing them together in panic. We didn't just have medical bills piling up; we had loan sharks breathing down our necks. Loan sharks who didn't care about a dying old man. They wanted their money, and they wanted it now.

I looked down at the crisp, heavy paper in my hands. The black ink looked stark against the white sheet.

Surrogacy Agreement.

"Are you sure about this, Miss Romano?"

The voice belonged to a man in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. He didn't look like a doctor or a lawyer. He looked like an executioner with a clipboard. He didn't even look at me with pity. To him, I was just a business transaction. A temporary vessel.

"If I sign this," I whispered, my voice cracking from hours of sleeplessness, "the debt disappears? My father's treatment is covered?"

"Completely," the suit replied smoothly. "The moment the child is born alive and healthy, the remaining balance will be transferred to your account. You will have enough to start over. Anywhere you want."

There was just one catch. One massive, terrifying catch written in bold letters on clause four: The surrogate shall waive all maternal rights. No contact, no visitation, no acknowledgment of existence.

I closed my eyes. Images of men throwing bricks through our windows, of my mother screaming on the kitchen floor, flashed through my mind. I didn't have a choice. I never really had one.

I gripped the pen, my fingers shaking, and pressed it to the line.

Alessia Romano.

With that single stroke of ink, I sold a piece of my future to a ghost. I didn't even know the name of the man whose child I was going to carry. The contract only referred to him as The Principal.

Ten months later, the world narrowed down to a white delivery room and agonizing pain.

Every muscle in my body burned. The monitors around me screamed a frantic rhythm, matching the wild pounding of my heart. The nurses were shouting things I couldn't understand, their faces blurred through my tears.

"One big push, Alessia! Come on, you're almost there!"

I gripped the cold metal rails of the hospital bed so hard my knuckles turned white. I didn't want to do this. For ten months, I had felt this tiny life growing inside me. Every kick, every flutter, had woven a thread around my heart, even when I desperately fought against it. I had spent every night telling myself not to love it. *Don't get attached, Alessia. It's not yours. It was never yours.*

But logic doesn't work when it comes to the heartbeat inside your own body.

With one last, desperate breath, I pushed.

A sharp, piercing cry echoed through the room. The heavy tension in the air instantly shattered.

"It's a boy," the doctor announced, lifting a tiny, squirming bundle.

My chest heaved as I gasped for air, tears streaming down my temples. "Let me... please, just let me see him," I begged, reaching out a trembling hand. "Just for a second."

"Miss Romano, you know the rules," the head nurse said, her voice tight but not unkind.

Before she could even clean the baby, the heavy double doors of the delivery room swung open with a loud thud.

The temperature in the room instantly dropped. The nurses fell dead silent, stepping back with their heads lowered.

A man stepped inside. He wasn't wearing a hospital gown or scrubs. He wore a dark, custom-made Italian suit that seemed to absorb the sterile light of the room. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a presence so suffocatingly heavy it made the air feel thick. His hair was pitch-black, combed back perfectly, framing a face that looked like it had been carved out of marble—sharp, cold, and utterly ruthless.

Lorenzo De Santis.

I recognized him instantly. Everyone knew that face, even if they only whispered his name in the dark. He was the undisputed Don of the city's underworld, a man who controlled everything from the shipping docks to the politicians.

He didn't look at the doctors. He didn't look at the state-of-the-room. His piercing, dark eyes locked straight onto the crying infant in the nurse's arms.

Lorenzo stepped forward, his leather shoes clicking sharply against the linoleum floor. He reached out, his large, calloused hands surprisingly steady as he took the small bundle from the nurse. The moment he held the baby against his chest, the child’s frantic cries began to soften into tiny, ragged whimpers.

I watched them, my heart tearing to shreds inside my chest. That was my blood. That was the baby I spent months protecting.

"Lorenzo..." My voice was barely a squeak, but it caught his attention.

For the first time, he turned his head and looked at me. His gaze was an absolute void—no warmth, no gratitude, no humanity. It was the look of a predator checking on a tool that had finished its job.

He walked over to the side of my bed, the baby tucked securely against his arm. With his free hand, he reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a sleek, black checkbook. He didn't use a table; he just held it up and ripped a piece of paper out with a sharp snap.

He tossed it onto my blanket. It landed right next to my hip.

"The final payment," Lorenzo said. His voice was a deep, gravelly baritone that sent a shiver straight down my spine. It lacked any sort of emotion. "Your family's debts are cleared. The hospital bills are paid in full."

"Let me just hold him," I sobbed, trying to sit up, but the pain in my abdomen anchored me down. "Please. Just five minutes. I just want to say goodbye."

Lorenzo didn't blink. He adjusted the blanket around the baby's head, shielding him from my sight.

"From this day on, he is not your son," he stated, his tone flat and absolute. "You do not exist to him. Do not ever try to find us, Alessia. If you look for him, if you even breathe his name in public, the contract is breached. And you won't like the consequences of breaking a promise to me."

He didn't wait for my response. He turned on his heel, his dark coat billowing slightly behind him as he walked toward the exit.

"Wait! Please!" I screamed, pulling at the wires attached to my arms. A monitor started to beep frantically as my blood pressure spiked. "Don't take him! Please!"

The heavy doors swung shut behind him, cutting off my cries.

I fell back against the pillows, clutching the white sheets to my chest. The room was completely quiet now, save for the mechanical hum of the machines. I looked down at the check lying on my lap. The numbers written on it were enough to buy a new life, a new home, a new future.

But as I stared at the empty space where my baby should have been, the crushing weight of reality settled in.

I had saved my family, but I had lost my soul.