Chapter 4

New York got its first snow of the season on the day Sofia and I were discharged.

We returned to the apartment we'd bought before our marriages. Dust filmed the furniture, the basil on the windowsill had died, and the refrigerator held nothing but an expired bottle of maple syrup.

We hired cleaners and arranged for a storage company to collect our belongings from the Moretti estate. The nursery furniture never came with us. I donated it to a Brooklyn shelter for mothers and children.

While the movers confirmed the inventory, Sofia found Valentina's latest post.

The three of them were at the Moretti estate on the Rhode Island coast. Luca stood beside Valentina with his coat around her shoulders. Dante held her medication case. Behind them, gray water met a gray sky, and the family helicopter waited on the lawn.

[The winter trip we promised each other ten years ago. Finally, no one missing.]

The photo had been posted on our ninth day in the hospital.

While we were undergoing surgeries, signing death certificates, and preparing divorce papers, they had been watching the ocean with her.

I saved the post and sent it to my attorney along with the delivery receipts.

[File for a default judgment. I'm done waiting for them to cooperate.]

Sofia was less restrained. She emailed Luca an appointment notice and a waiver of marital assets.

[Monday, 9:00 a.m., Queens County Supreme Court. If you don't appear, my attorney will have you formally served at your precinct.]

Ten minutes later, my phone rang from an unknown number.

It was Dante.

"Where are you?"

"That no longer concerns you."

"Everything from the nursery is gone." For the first time, real unease threaded his voice. "The crib, the monitor, both boxes of clothes. What are you doing?"

"Come to court Monday and you'll find out."

"Where is the baby?"

My breath caught.

It had finally occurred to him that he'd heard me say our child was gone but had never confirmed it with his own eyes.

In the background, Luca said something too low for me to make out. Dante's tone cooled again.

"You can't keep using the children to scare us. Valentina admitted she found the screenshot on Sofia's old tablet. She has no reason to fabricate it."

I almost laughed.

[No reason?]

On Monday morning, Sofia and I arrived at the courthouse early. We wore fitted black coats and loose scarves that hid our healing incisions. People hurried through the lobby without a second glance, unaware that the two calm women beside the security line had buried their babies less than three weeks earlier.

Valentina arrived at 8:55.

She wore cream cashmere and the kind of artfully concealed exhaustion that required an expensive makeup artist.

"I'm here to explain for them," she said, approaching us with a voice as soft as prayer. "That trip was planned years ago. Dante and Luca thought you needed space, so they didn't want to crowd you. Please don't destroy two families over a misunderstanding. You have babies coming. You need to think about them."

Sofia lifted her eyes. "Can you explain their marriages and sign their divorce papers too?"

Valentina's expression tightened for half a second.

I studied her. "Do you actually care what happens to our children?"

Her gaze flickered.

Her phone vibrated. She looked at the screen, stepped forward, and suddenly pitched toward me as if her heel had slipped on the marble.

I turned and caught her shoulder on instinct.

Valentina twisted as she fell, landing hard on the floor. Her palm scraped the metal barrier, and blood welled across the skin.

Fast footsteps thundered through the entrance.

"Valentina!"

Dante and Luca reached us together. Dante dropped to check her pupils and pulse. Luca stepped between her and us, his body automatically forming a shield.

"What did you do?" he demanded.

He didn't shout or call us names. He didn't have to. His verdict had arrived before the question.

Sofia slowly unwound her scarf. "Nothing."

As Dante helped Valentina stand, he finally looked at me.

His gaze moved from my face to the front of my coat and stopped at the flat line where my stomach should have curved.

He froze.

Luca saw Sofia's waist at the same moment. Then he noticed the hospital band still tucked beneath her sleeve.

The color drained from both their faces. Then they spoke at the same time.

“Where’s the baby?”