Took Them Unawares

POV: Vita

They discharged me two days later. A nurse wheeled me through a private entrance so no photographer would catch the Marino heiress leaving the hospital without her baby.

I did not argue about the wheelchair. I did not have the strength to argue about anything.

Dominic had arranged for me to recover at a private wellness retreat upstate.

"Somewhere quiet," he had told me. "Somewhere you can rest properly, my love."

He kissed my forehead when he said it. I nodded, and some small, tired part of me was grateful. At the time, I believed he was worried about me. I believed his gentle voice and kind words meant something.

I was wrong.

The nurse changed everything.

She came to check my blood pressure before I left. She was an older woman who had clearly worked for wealthy families for many years. She knew when to keep her eyes down and her mouth shut.

Except this time, something slipped.

"Such a shame about Dr. Aris," she murmured as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm. "Nineteen years at this hospital, and he just walks away without a goodbye party. He didn't even collect his pension paperwork."

"Isn't he retiring?" I asked. "I heard he was moving to Florida."

She gave me a look I did not understand at the time. It held pity and warning.

Then she said nothing else.

I thought about that look during the drive home. I thought about Dr. Aris's trembling hands and the sweat along his hairline. I thought about the way he had avoided my eyes during the last examination.

A man did not abandon nineteen years of pension benefits as casually as he abandoned a parking space. A man ran like that when he was more afraid of staying than he was of losing everything he had built.

And so, I never went to the retreat.

I told the driver I had changed my mind. I said I wanted to go home for one night and sleep in my own bed before disappearing upstate for several weeks.

I did not tell Dominic.

I told myself I was trying not to bother him, that he was busy and had already arranged everything, that there was no reason to make a fuss. But inside me, I think I already knew the truth, and it was much simpler. I just wanted to surprise them.

I could imagine their faces when I showed up on my own, walking on my own two feet after surgery. I smiled as I imagined them fussing over me, trying to get me to sit down and take it slow.

The car turned onto our street just after three in the afternoon. Elena's small silver car was parked crookedly in the driveway, as though she had arrived in a hurry and could not be bothered to straighten it.

For some reason, I did not see anything wrong with that at the time, but thinking back later, I should have had alarm bells going off. I was too trusting. I was glad to see her car. I thought it would be comforting to have my cousin fuss over me after everything that had happened.

She had visited me every day since the miscarriage. She had held my hand, brushed my hair away from my face, and told me that everything would be all right.

I had trusted her.

I asked the driver to let me out by the side gate instead of the front entrance. I had a half-formed idea of surprising them both, perhaps catching Dominic off guard for once.

I let myself in through the garden door. My body was still sore, and every step felt heavier than it should have. My chest felt tight, but I could not explain why. I moved slowly through the house, one hand sliding along the wall for balance. I had just managed to walk down the hall when I heard them.

Laughter.

Elena's laugh came first. It was soft and careless, the carefree sound she used when she thought nobody important was listening. It was coming from the lounge downstairs, the private lounge we used when we wanted to be alone together.

Her laughter soon subsided, then she started to make soft groaning noises, and Dominic was down in his boxers, on his knees, with his head between her legs.

When he'd told me he couldn't make love to me because of his illness, I'd asked him for a little bit of intimacy, just his fingers, his mouth. But he never did that for me. He said he didn't like to go down on a woman, that it was gross, so it was only me he was grossed out with. My tears were drying up, and anger was taking over. How had I been such a fool not to see this happening right under my nose?

I bet they had been laughing about it behind my back. I was starting to get so angry that I needed to take a calming breath, or I would spoil recording my evidence.

"Oh god, I'm going to cum," she shouted out as he continued to keep his head between her legs. He kissed his way up to her breasts, giving them some loving too, and then he removed his boxers and, to my horror, did not even put on a condom.

He thrust into her, and together they moaned and rolled around on the floor. She was now on top.

"Ride me, baby, show daddy what you've got," he cooed at her as they continued this marathon on the lounge floor. He hated me being suggestive, trying to get him in the mood, yet he did all the things he said he didn't like with my cousin.

Elena cried out her pleasure again, and he rolled her over and picked up the pace of his thrusts. I could see sweat trickling down his back as he put everything into her pleasure and his own release.

When it was over and Dominic had reached his limit, he cuddled Elena and kept kissing her for some time after. Something he had not done with me in a very long time. He never cuddled after, never gave me loving kisses.

The jealousy rose and then faded away. Why should I be jealous? My cousin always seemed to get everything I had or showed an interest in. She was the favoured one in the family, the one they all loved and treated like a princess. Whereas I was just me, the plain and boring one.

It hurts to know you've been betrayed by the people you love. It hurts so much. As if that was not enough, I heard Dominic's voice, low and rough. I had not heard him sound that relaxed in a long time.

"Sweetheart, why won't you let me divorce Vita, and we shack up together? I've told you before, it was always you I wanted, not her, and you pushed me onto her. I need you." He moaned at her as he continued to pepper kisses up her neck.

I seethed at the mention of him never having wanted me.

I should have called out. I should have walked straight into the lounge and announced myself. It was my home. I was his wife. I had every right to enter any room without warning.

Instead, I froze at the bottom of the stairs, one hand gripping the banister, and recorded everything.

I recorded the way Dominic touched her, and the way Elena leaned into him. I recorded the quiet jokes they shared, the private smiles, the ease between them.

It was clear this was not their first time together. They had their own language. They knew exactly where to touch each other, exactly how to make each other laugh.

I had the terrible feeling they had been laughing about me for months. Perhaps they had discussed me after every family dinner. Perhaps they had mocked the way I trusted Dominic, the way I defended Elena, the way I believed their excuses.

The thought made anger rise through me so quickly that I had to take a slow breath. I was a mafia princess. I could not let my emotions ruin the recording.

"Divorce her? And give up her money?" Elena replied with a soft laugh. The words hit me harder than the sight of them together.

"Don't be foolish, Dom. I like my allowance exactly where it is. I've told you before, she's loaded, and I've spent all my inheritance. I need you here. You don't spend your wages on anyone but me, while she pays for everything else. You have no bills to worry about, and you get to buy me pretty things on her credit card. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned. Why would I give that up? I get to have both you and her money. Why change a good thing when you already have it?"

"You could have everything after I divorce her. My trust fund unlocks on our fifth anniversary, and I get to keep her company too after the divorce," Dominic said. "You know I could take care of you without her money."

"I know."

"Then why keep waiting?"

"Because you married her for a reason." He sighed.

"Elena."

"No. You knew exactly what you were doing when you married Vita. You needed the Marino name, the inheritance, and access to her accounts. You don't get to act innocent now."

My fingers tightened around the phone. I had always thought Dominic loved me before our marriage changed. I had believed our early years had been genuine, even if things had grown colder afterward. Now I wondered if there had ever been anything real between us at all.

"What if she wants another child?" he asked.

"Let her want one. The doctors will keep pumping her full of a stranger's seed, and we'll keep sending her to the emergency room," Elena laughed.

"Elena, she already suspects something."

"She suspects nothing."

"You're sure?"

"She trusts you completely. She thinks you're grieving. She thinks you blame yourself for the miscarriage." A short silence followed, then Elena laughed again. "That woman would believe anything if you touched her forehead and called her my love."

My vision blurred. I had to lower the phone for a moment. My hand shook, and I nearly dropped it. Dominic had called me that only hours earlier.

"She still thinks the baby was mine," Dominic said, his voice thick with smug amusement. "Did you see her face when the doctor suggested insemination? She didn't even ask where the sample came from. She just trusted us."

"Of course she did," Elena replied. "She never questions anything."

"And now we have to deal with the inheritance clause."

"What inheritance clause?" Elena asked, though her voice suggested she already knew.

"The succession rules. Five years of marriage, a clean transfer, and control passes to me. If she has a child before then, things become complicated."

"She can't carry Marino blood through you," Elena said. "The Commission would never approve it."

"Exactly."

The room seemed to tilt beneath me. The miscarriage had not been an accident. The doctors had not been confused. And Dominic had not been innocent.

I could not breathe.