The Substitute Donna

On the third day after I was discharged, Paul finally appeared.

When he walked in, I was sitting by the window, holding a palm-sized baby onesie in my hand.

I heard his footsteps but didn’t turn around.

“Emily.”

Paul’s voice came from behind, carrying the cold scent of cigars from his coat.

I didn’t move.

The next second, his hand reached from behind, gripping my chin and slowly turning me toward him.

“Look at me.”

I was forced to raise my head.

“The day you called, I was negotiating with a group of Slakans,” Paul said, his tone flat. “There was a problem with an oil transport route. I had to deal with it.”

I noticed his tie was new, a custom piece from that hotel in Moscovia.

So… the video had been confirmed.

I lowered my eyes and nodded.

Paul seemed satisfied with my obedience.

He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear as his voice dropped. “My little sweetheart has been wronged. What compensation do you want, hmm?”

I pushed him away, took out two documents from beside me, flipped to the last page, and held them out to him.

“I want these. Sign it.”

Hearing that, Paul didn’t even glance at the documents before signing his name.

Seeing how readily he did it, my nose stung, but I lifted my head, refusing to let the tears fall again.

“Aren’t you going to look? Aren’t you afraid that what I’m asking for this time is expensive?”

Paul pulled me into his arms again, his chin resting casually on top of my head.

“Emily, you’re my princess. As long as you’re happy, no matter how expensive it is, it’s worth it.”

As he spoke, his hand moved toward my lower abdomen. “How was the last prenatal checkup? Is my heir healthy?”

I didn’t avoid him and just said calmly, “The doctor told me to go for another checkup today.”

Paul didn’t notice anything unusual. “Alright. I’ll go with you this time.”

At that moment, his phone rang.

Paul answered it right in front of me. Since we were so close, I could clearly hear the voice on the other end.

“I’m back in the country. Let’s meet.”

Elizabeth’s voice was cool, like the ballet she had danced her whole life.

Paul’s expression didn’t change. However, I noticed his fingers tighten slightly around the phone.

He hung up, then lowered his head to look at me with a gentle yet regretful expression.

“Sweetheart, you’ll have to go by yourself. Something came up in the family.”

Without waiting for my answer, he turned and left.

The door closed behind him, knocking down the framed photo in the entryway.

In the photo, twenty-two-year-old me was holding his arm and smiling, while thirty-two-year-old him was looking down at me.

I stared at the shattered frame on the ground, and suddenly thought of how we first met.

After graduating, I auditioned for the Metropolitan Ballet, but without a recommendation, I was turned away.

At the theater entrance, I offered the dance I didn’t get to perform to the moon and unexpectedly received a round of applause.

It was Paul.

The evening breeze brushed the strands of hair from his handsome face, and I saw the amazement and faint smile in his eyes.

A week later, I was in a car accident, and his helicopter happened to pass by.

When he kneeled by my hospital bed and took out a diamond ring, I thought it was fate.

Now I understood that in a mafia don’s dictionary, fate was called strategy.

I went into Paul’s study, took a deep breath, and pushed aside the statue of the Virgin Mary.

The moment I stepped into the hidden room, it felt like all the blood in my body was flowing backward.

The room was filled with things related to my aunt, Elizabeth.

The ballet shoes she had worn, her certificates from winning the National Ballet Competition, a pistol engraved with both her name and his, and those unfinished love diaries.

I trembled as I opened one, and a stack of intimate photos of them slipped out from between the pages.

Through those diaries, I learned the truth.

It turned out that my husband, Paul, had only ever loved one person in his life—my aunt, Elizabeth.

I was just her substitute, someone who resembled her appearance and identity as a dancer.

They had been a legendary couple from high school through college.

At the height of his love, he had been willing to give up his position as a mafia don and run away with her.

Her most famous ballet had been based on their love story.

His hatred even had him use a knife to carve out the tattoo of her name from his own body.

She had told him that even in death, she would never marry a mafia man, then disappeared without a trace.

So it turned out that all of Paul’s deepest love and hatred had been given to Elizabeth.

That’s why, after she disappeared, he looked for a similar face, her niece, to fill the void she left behind.

And in comparison, the affection he gave me was always a level below.

It explained why he could be so rough with me in bed, yet never allow me to speak, because it would shatter his illusion of Elizabeth.

When he learned of her again and that she was getting married, he ignored the risk of me miscarrying. He vented himself on me the entire night, before flying to Moscovia early the next morning to find her.

I looked again at the investigation board covered with my photos and couldn’t help but let out a cold laugh.

What a pity.

No matter how carefully Paul calculated everything, he was no match for the light stroke of fate.

As my tears fell onto the back of my hand, a dull pain came from my lower abdomen.

The doctor had said that if I went in for an injection today, the pregnancy might still be saved.

However, this was Paul’s mistake. I didn’t want to help him fix it.

I went to the hospital alone, handed the consent form for the abortion to the doctor, and said bluntly, “No need to save it. Please terminate the pregnancy.”

From the beginning of my pregnancy, I had been going to a private obstetrics hospital for checkups and not the family hospital.

So when the doctor saw the consent form signed by both husband and wife, they didn’t ask any questions and arranged the surgery.