Chapter 2: The Gate

Valentina POV

I woke up cold.

That was the first thing. The cold, and then the ceiling—wrong color, wrong height—and then the smell of a room that wasn't mine. My body understood before my mind did. I was already sitting up, pulling the bedsheet tight to my chest, and counting everything that was wrong.

My dress was on the floor. My shoes were right beside it. I was in my slip and nothing else, and there was a man asleep beside me. He was turned away, breathing slowly and evenly, as if none of this was unusual.

I knew his face. It was Enzo, the family driver. I had spoken to him maybe four times, always by accident, always briefly.

I got out of the bed without making a sound. I put my clothes back on with my back turned to him, keeping my hands steady. I told myself to think. I told myself to breathe. There had to be an explanation. There had to be one because I remembered dinner, I remembered the drink going wrong, and I remembered absolutely nothing after that. That was the answer—something had happened to me. Something had been done to me, and Marco would understand that when I told him.

Marco would understand.

I opened the door.

He was standing right there in the corridor. He was already fully dressed with his arms folded. His face was completely blank—the exact face he wore in business meetings when someone had wasted his time and he was deciding how to handle them.

"Marco." My voice came out steadier than I actually felt.

"Don't." He didn't even look at me. Instead, he stared at the wall just past my head.

"Let me tell you what happened."

"I know what happened."

"You don't." I took a step toward him. "Marco, look at me. Something was wrong with my drink. I don't remember leaving the table. I don't remember anything after that. I would never—"

"Stop talking."

"Please." I heard my voice crack, and I hated myself for it. "Please, just look at me. You've known me for years. You know who I am. Does this—does any of this make sense to you? Does it?"

He finally looked at me then, but I instantly wished he hadn't. There was nothing in his eyes. No anger, no hurt, nothing that showed I still mattered to him as a person.

"It makes perfect sense," he said quietly.

"Marco—"

"You wanted security. You wanted the family name. I was just convenient." He slowly unfolded his arms, acting as if he were finishing a thought he’d been holding onto for a very long time. "You're not the first woman to try it, and you won't be the last."

The words hit me like an open hand. "That is not who I am."

"I don't actually care who you are," he said, turning his back to me. "Get your things and get out."

"Please." I grabbed his arm, and he went completely stiff. "Please, I am begging you. Just one conversation. Five minutes. If you still want me to leave after five minutes, I will go. I will leave without saying another word. But please give me five minutes because something happened to me last night, and I need you to hear me."

He looked down at my hand on his arm. I let go.

"You have nothing to say that I want to hear," he said.

I followed him downstairs because I had no dignity left to protect. I was crying by the time we reached the main entrance hall. The tears fell silently, the way they do when you are trying your hardest to stop them, coming without permission.

"Marco, please. I love you. I love you, and I am standing here telling you that I did not do this. I would never do this, and somewhere inside you, you know that. You know me."

"I thought I did."

"You do. You do know me." I stepped directly in front of him so he had to stop. My face was completely wet, but I didn't wipe it away. "Look at me. This is me. This is the same woman you've been with. I have never lied to you. Not once. Please."

He looked at me the way someone looks at a piece of trash stuck to their shoe.

"Move," he said.

I moved.

He opened the front door. The rain was coming down hard—grey, cold, and heavy enough to soak through everything instantly. I stared out at the storm, and then I looked back at him, trying one final time because I had nothing left to lose.

"I have nowhere to go," I whispered.

"That stopped being my problem the moment you slept with my driver."

I flinched as if he had struck me across the face. I couldn't help it.

"I didn't—"

"Out."

"Marco."

"What is all this noise?" Carmela's voice came calmly from the top of the stairs. She walked down slowly, trailing one hand along the banister. She was perfectly dressed, looking as though she had been awake for hours and had planned to be here for this exact moment.

I turned toward her, feeling a desperate, embarrassing wave of hope open up in my chest.

"Donna Carmela." My voice broke on her name. "Please. Please, I know you don't—I know we haven't always been close—but please, just tell him. Tell him to listen to me. You were there last night. You saw me. You know I wasn't acting normally."

Carmela looked at me for a long, quiet moment, as if she were examining an object she had already decided to throw away.

Then, she reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small stack of cash. She held it out between two fingers, the way you hold something dirty that you don't want to touch.

"For a taxi," she said.

I stared at the money.

"Take it," she said, "and don't make this any uglier than it already is."

"I don't want your money." My entire body was shaking now—my hands, my voice, my chest. "I want him to listen to me. I just want five minutes."

"What you want," Carmela said, her voice dropping to a very quiet, terrifying whisper, "does not matter. It has never mattered. Did you truly believe you belonged in this house?" She tilted her head, looking almost curious. "A girl like you. With your background. With your mother's history."

I went completely still.

A sharp, sudden memory cut through the panic in my chest, flashing behind my eyes. I saw my mother standing under the flickering, buzzing neon sign of a cheap motel on the outskirts of Palermo. Her lipstick was smeared, her cheap sequined dress caught the glare of passing headlights, and her eyes were tired—so deeply tired—as she counted a handful of wrinkled bills. She had turned to me, her voice raspy from smoke, and whispered, “We do what we have to do to survive, Valentina. Never count on a man to keep you warm.” She had given everything to keep me fed, selling the only thing she had left, trapped in a cycle she couldn't escape until it finally broke her.

I snapped back to the cold reality of the hallway.

"Don't," I said, my voice trembling with a mix of grief and defense.

"My son has a reputation to protect." Carmela set the money down on a side table since I wouldn't take it from her hand. "I will not have his name dragged through the mud by a girl whose mother slept around half of Palermo."

The room went completely silent. Marco stood there and said absolutely nothing.

"She was not—" I started.

"Take the money." Carmela turned away from me, completely done with the conversation. She looked at Marco, her voice returning to its normal, calm, and clean tone. "Have the floors cleaned after she leaves. And Marco," she paused on the stairs, "we don't mix with trash."

She walked back upstairs without another word.

Marco opened the front gate.

I walked through it because there was literally nothing else left to do. The cold rain hit me immediately, soaking my hair, my dress, and the back of my neck. I stopped on the other side of the gate and turned back, because even now, a stupid part of me was still hoping.

He was already pulling the iron gate shut.

"Marco." The word was torn right out of my chest.

He stopped. He looked at me through the iron bars in the pouring rain. His face was exactly the same as it had been since I woke up—cold, decided, and empty of everything I had spent years believing was there.

He closed the gate completely.

The lock turned with a heavy click.

I stood in the rain and let it pour down on me. I thought about the fabric I had saved, the dress I had sewn so perfectly, and the secret I had been planning to tell him in the car on the way home.

Slowly, I placed my hand over my stomach.

Then, I turned around and walked away into the grey storm.