Episode 2

The hospital room, previously immersed in a tense silence, was filled with an electric energy. Donato seemed to have grown a few inches in pride—an heir, finally, the Santori blood would continue.

He approached Fiorella's bed, his hand hesitating in the air before touching her shoulder, but the door was flung open. Alessa entered, breathless, her eyes flashing.

"Pregnant?" Alessa let out a snorting laugh, walking to the foot of the bed with a sneering smile. "What a convenient miracle, don't you think, Donato?"

Donato frowned, the momentary happiness being obscured by his sister-in-law's presence.

"What are you doing here, Alessa?"

"I came to see how my 'dear' sister is," Alessa hissed, ignoring Fiorella's bandaged hand. "But I couldn't help but hear the news, I just find it strange... Could this child really be yours, Donato?"

Fiorella felt her heart skip a beat. She looked at Donato, hoping he would defend her with the fury of a husband betrayed in his honor.

"What are you talking about?" Donato growled.

"Oh, let's be realistic, you've been together for eight years and she's never gotten pregnant, not once!" Alessa circled the bed, like a predator. "Now, with only a few months left until the marriage contract ends for lack of heirs, Fiorella shows up pregnant? At the exact moment she would be discarded? What a delicious coincidence for someone who doesn't want to lose the good life, right?"

Fiorella gripped the sheets. Alessa's words were like knives. She wanted to scream that she had been pregnant before, that she had cried blood in solitary miscarriages while Donato was at the nightclub with Alessa, but the voice wouldn't come out.

"This child is mine!" Donato snapped, his voice echoing through the walls. "Go home, Alessa. Now!"

"But Donato..." Alessa tried, pouting.

"Get out!" He pointed to the door.

Alessa shrugged, casting one last look of contempt at Fiorella before leaving.

The silence that followed was worse than the shouting. Donato sat in the armchair next to the bed. He knew that Fiorella was faithful. In eight years, they had never spent a single night apart, even after the worst arguments, he would return to her bed. On every business trip, she was there, like his silent shadow, there was no room for another man.

But Alessa's poison was potent.

Donato looked at Fiorella's womb. Eight years of nothing and now, just now? The seed of doubt, planted so skillfully by Fiorella's sister, began to germinate in the fertile ground of a Mafia Don's paranoia.

"Love..." Fiorella's voice was weak, almost a whisper. "Do you believe her?"

He didn't answer immediately. He got up, walked to the window, and watched the city lights. Doubt was a betrayal in itself.

"I know we never sleep apart, Fiorella," he said, without turning around. "But I admit the timing is... curious."

Fiorella felt the last drop of hope evaporate. He didn't believe her, not even with the proof of a broken bone and a life growing inside her. He was capable of seeing her.

"Curious?" she repeated, her voice gaining a bitter strength. "What's curious is that you prefer to believe a convenient lie than the fact that your wife has been neglected by you for almost a decade."

Donato turned around, his eyes cold.

"We'll see what the DNA test says when he's born. Until then, you'll be watched 24 hours a day. If this child is mine, Fiorella, you'll have everything, if not..."

He didn't need to finish the sentence. The threat of death hung in the air, dense and lethal. Fiorella closed her eyes. At that moment, she didn't feel fear. She felt the freedom of someone who had nothing left to lose.

The Santori mansion was lit up, but the atmosphere was heavy. In the dining room, the elite of Cosa Nostra awaited: Lucia and Alessandro, Donato's parents, and the patriarch Massimo, whose sharp eyes didn't miss a detail of the tension between the couple.

As soon as Fiorella entered, pale and with her broken finger duly immobilized, Massimo stood up. He ignored his grandson and walked to her, kissing her forehead with an affection that Donato hadn't shown for years.

"Welcome back, little one. A great-grandchild..." The old man smiled, but soon glared at his grandson. Donato's cell phone was vibrating, seeming more interested in business than in his injured wife.

"One day you'll regret it, Donato," Massimo hissed to his grandson. "And pray it's not too late."

Donato didn't answer. The cell phone rang and he withdrew to the office. It was Oliver Underwood, the Don of the American Mafia and his former brother-in-law. Oliver was married to Melissa, Donato's sister, who had already passed away.

When Donato returned to the table, his face was livid, burdened with a confusion he couldn't hide.

"What happened, my son?" Alessandro asked.

"It was Underwood, he called to warn that he's going to marry Mila Sokolov."

Massimo slammed his fist on the table, making the crystals vibrate.

"Viktor's bastard?" the old man growled. "I don't know how my daughter Elena is able to endure this. Viktor betrayed her and now this girl is going to join the Americans?"

"Nono... that's where things get complicated," Donato sat down, running his hand over his face. "Oliver found out that Mila isn't a bastard, she's the legitimate daughter of Viktor and Aunt Elena, the babies were switched at the maternity ward. The supposed mistress wanted to destroy the Sokolovs. Viktor was telling the truth all along: he never betrayed Aunt Elena."

Silence paralyzed the table. Lucia brought her hand to her mouth, feeling the weight of the injustice committed against her own niece.

"The girl suffered hell," Donato continued. "Mila lived locked in a basement for ten years by the woman who stole her, then she was thrown into an orphanage. She is a survivor and the blood heir of Elena."

"How is Oliver so sure?" Alessandro questioned.

"She's red-haired like all the Santoris, she has thrombophilia, just like grandma and Aunt Elena, and her blood is Rh Null, the rare blood of our lineage. Besides, she has our birthmark on her rib... the heart."

"Thrombophilia and rare blood..." Massimo murmured, looking at Donato sternly. "It's our mark. It requires extreme care. If Mila survived all this, she is a warrior."

Donato finally looked at Fiorella. The cruel doubt that Alessa planted about her pregnancy still echoed, but the story of Mila—a legitimate heir who was denied and mistreated because of lies—left him uneasy. He looked at Fiorella's bandaged hand and at the tired face of the woman he had ignored for eight years.

Fiorella stood up slowly, feeling the dizziness of anemia and the pain of her broken finger.

"I need to rest," she said, her voice cold, without looking at anyone. "Excuse me."

As she climbed the stairs, Massimo's voice echoed in the hall, like a prophetic warning for Donato:

"Mila's fate shows what happens when the blood of a Don is left in the hands of those who hate him. Be careful not to discover the truth about your own heir when it's too late to ask for forgiveness, Donato."

Later, in the bedroom, Fiorella tried to get into the shower stall, her fingers throbbed under the bandage and the coffee burns still stung.

The door opened and Donato entered, already loosening the knot of his tie.

"Get out," Fiorella said, her voice tired.

"I'll help you," Donato retorted, approaching with the arrogance of someone who commands everything. "We're married, I know every curve of your body. I've licked, sucked, and fucked you so many times that I've lost count. No need for modesty now."

Fiorella felt a lump in her throat.

"Shower is different, Donato."

"Don't be ridiculous. We always take showers together after making love."

Fiorella stopped and stared at him, her eyes filled with deep sorrow.

"We never take showers together after sex, you must be confusing me with someone else."

Donato frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"When you finish, you go to the bathroom alone, clean yourself, and leave, only then do I enter. It's always been like that."

Donato turned her to face him, holding her arms firmly, but without hurting her.

"I never betrayed you, Fiorella, understand? You are the only one in my life and in my bed, I'm not confusing you with anyone!"

He took the liquid soap she used to start lathering her, but stopped when he read the label. It was a cheap brand, from a common supermarket.

"Why are you using this?" he questioned, his voice filled with strangeness. "Where are the expensive French soaps and oils that I have bought for you every month?"

Fiorella let out a short, lifeless laugh, a solitary tear running down her face.

"Donato... I never got anything from you, everything I have, from my soap to my work clothes, I bought with my effort, with the salary that you think is 'nonsense'. I don't have your cards, I don't have access to your account."

Donato stepped back, as if he had been punched.

"What? I sign the invoices for personal expenses of the house every month... Alessa said that you spent fortunes with trivialities..."

"Then ask Alessa where that money is," Fiorella said, picking up the sponge with her injured hand and groaning in pain. "Because in my account, not a penny of yours has ever entered."

Tuesday morning dawned heavy in Sicily. The sun crossed the velvet curtains, but there was no warmth inside the main room of the Santori mansion. The silence that Donato appreciated so much was broken by a sound that made him wake up in a terrible mood: the muffled sound of Fiorella in the bathroom, fighting against the nausea of pregnancy.

Donato opened his eyes and groped for the empty side of the bed. The sheet was cold, there was no awakening with kisses on the face, there was no whisper of "good morning, my love," nor the words of affection that he, although he would never admit it, he was addicted to.

He sat on the bed, his hair messy and his expression obscured by irritation. For him, the world should stop when he opened his eyes.

"Fiorella!" he called, his voice thick with sleep and impatience. "What's all that noise?"

She didn't answer immediately. The sound of retching continued for a few more seconds before Fiorella appeared in the bathroom door. She was pale, holding her belly with one hand and the door frame with the other. Cold sweat shone on her forehead.

"Sorry, Donato..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "The nausea is very strong today, I can barely stand."

Donato got out of bed, ignoring his wife's condition. He walked to her, stopping a few inches away, exuding an aura of wounded authority.

"I woke up alone, Fiorella. Where's my coffee? Where are my clothes set aside?" He pointed to the closed closet. "You know I hate starting the day without your care."

Fiorella felt a new wave of nausea, but took a deep breath, trying to stand firm.

"Love, I'm so sorry... I promise I'll reward you later, really, but now I'm feeling very bad, I just need a moment."

Donato let out a dry laugh, loaded with mockery. He stared at her coldly, crossing his arms.

"Reward?" He raised an eyebrow. "That's an excuse not to fulfill your obligations, Fiorella. Just because you finally got pregnant, you think you can retire from your duties as a wife?"

"It's not that, Donato... it's a reaction of my body. I'm really not well."

"Funny," he interrupted her, with disdain. "Alessa always told me that you would use any pretext to play the victim and gain attention. A pregnancy is not a disease. My mother had me and Melissa, and she never stopped serving my father perfectly because of nausea."

Fiorella felt a lump in her throat. Comparing her to her mother-in-law, Lucia, in a moment of fragility, was his favorite low blow.

"But I'm trying..." she tried to say.

"Well, try harder. This is pure nonsense." Donato turned his back on her. "I'm going to take a shower in the other room so I don't have to hear you moaning. When I come out, I hope you've returned to normal and are ready to work. I don't tolerate laziness, not even from you."

He slammed the door shut, leaving Fiorella alone with her pain and her exhaustion. Donato was so accustomed to her absolute devotion that any moment in which Fiorella prioritized her own health was seen by him as a personal offense, a break in the protocol of "perfection" that he demanded of his wife.

While he dressed alone, puffing with anger for having to choose his own tie, Fiorella only cried in silence on the bathroom floor, wondering how long she would be able to hide that this child was the only thing that kept her alive.

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