บททั้งหมดของ A Promise Drowned in Silence: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 9

This was attempt number ninety-nine at getting pregnant with Orlando Leone. His mom, Caterina, dragged in some old strega obsessed with dusty Sicilian rituals.She made me chug a bunch of gross stuff—wine, oil, ashes, herbs—all supposedly "blessed" under the Madonna's statue. Her pitch? This was my golden shot at popping out an heir.Orlando kissed me soft, pressed me into the headboard. "Aria, don't stress. You'll always be my only wife."Cute, right? Meanwhile, the Leone Family—a hundred-year-old mafia dynasty—was running Sicily like a chessboard. But no heir? Panic mode. And guess who Caterina kept breathing down? Yep. Me.Every time Caterina pushed, I swore I'd lose it.And every single one of our almost hundred tries in the last six months? Interrupted by his secretary, Bianca Quinn—annoying but ugh, "charmingly quirky," according to him.Right on cue, just as things were heating up, Bianca called.My heart thudded. I waited for the usual—him pulling away.That line was fo

Bianca shot me a glance, then melted dramatically into Orlando's chest."If it's not his, then whose could it be?"Caterina clasped her hand. "Bianca, giving Orlando an heir ends our family's worries. You two look perfect together."She didn't even look my way.Orlando just smiled. Said nothing.I turned and headed for the stairs, gripping the railing. Knowing what was eating me from the inside, every step felt heavier.Back in the bedroom, I started packing. Funny how years of marriage barely filled a suitcase.Dad's old place up north—quiet, forgotten. Perfect for dying in peace.The door creaked. Fast footsteps."Aria, you're leaving?"Orlando grabbed me.Wish he'd done that last night. One hug might've saved me from that damn cistern.Too bad he reeked of Bianca's perfume. I almost gagged.He squeezed tighter. "I went to see Bianca yesterday 'cause she cut her finger. Then she showed me the test results, so... I stayed."Of course he did.My tears soaked his tie. My

The estate was even more dead than I remembered.Withered vines clawed up the cracked walls. Weeds reached my knees.I stared out at the sea in the distance—calm, uncaring—then stepped through the rusted gate.I cleaned up one room, lit the fireplace, and dried my soaked clothes.The burning in my stomach still wouldn't quit. Felt like ants were eating me alive from the inside.I popped two painkillers.Everything blurred. My mind drifted—back to when I was eighteen.Orlando had been ambushed in some back alley. I didn't even think. Just stepped in front of him.The bullet ripped through me. I still remembered the way he screamed.I'd used every connection my father had—politics, business—just to clear the path for Orlando to become Don.Dad had lost it. Threatened to cut me off.But I just smiled and told Orlando, 'It's fine. Having you is enough.'And now?I had nothing.My hands shook as I pulled out a pen and paper from my suitcase. Under the weak light, I wrote each

Another memory hit him like a gut punch.Bianca had once told him Caterina had a heart attack. He'd panicked, ditched Arianna alone on some seaside island, and rushed home—only to find Caterina and Bianca casually sipping afternoon tea.Caterina barely looked up. "Bianca overreacted. I was just a little dizzy, nothing serious."He hadn't questioned it.Worse, that same night, he let Bianca stay with him. In Arianna's favorite garden.He dropped to the floor, hollow. How many times had he screwed up?The lies. The setups. And Arianna—how much pain had she swallowed in silence?He, the guy who swore he loved her, had eaten up every lie. And each one shoved Arianna further into hell.The idea that she might really be gone? He couldn't breathe.Orlando tore out of the house and hit the road, speeding north toward the old estate.Highway lights streaked past like ghosts as his mind flooded with her.He was seven again. Just some scrawny, overlooked kid no one in the family took s

Five more days.Forty since Arianna vanished.Orlando had turned every city block upside down. Nothing. No trace.His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw covered in stubble, his face drawn and hollow.Right when despair was about to eat him alive, his secretary got a call—from some hospice way out on the coast."Is this Orlando Leone? We have a patient, Arianna Alfano. Critical condition. She gave us a bracelet with your name on it."Orlando's heart straight-up stopped. "The address," he snapped. "Give it to me. Now."The hospice sat by the sea, just outside the grid he'd scoured to death.He hung up and floored it, white-knuckling the wheel like that could somehow hold her together.'Aria, please... just hang on. Not yet.'But when he crashed into the hospital room, hope died fast. Arianna was already gone.Her skin was pale, the kind of pale that didn't come back. Tubes everywhere. The heart monitor was a flatline of silence."Doctor! Doctor!" Orlando grabbed a nurse. "She's ali