The message went out into the network. Into the whisper chain. Into the world of women who would read it over coffee and understand exactly what it meant. That the Valente alliance was over. That the Boss's wife had ended his bloodline before he even knew it existed. That Grazia Ferrante had made a decision she couldn't take back.
I set the phone down on the marble table. The screen went dark.
The house was very quiet.
Grazia's POV
Only a few seconds after I posted the photos, my phone lit up like a switchboard. Notifications stacked on top of each other, one after another. I read through the reactions slowly, deliberately, the way you'd read a hand of cards laid face-up on the table. Not a single one came from Simone's crew. Not Rocco, not Dario, not Luca. I doubted they hadn't seen it. They'd seen it. They were probably already on the phone with him, huddled around the back booth at the social club, figuring out how to contain the damage.
Let them.
Before long, my phone was buzzing without pause. My parents. The Valente household. Simone himself, calling and calling like a man who'd just realized the front door of his empire had been left unlocked. I ignored every one. I typed a single message to my mother: I'll be home later. I'll fill you in when I get there.
I packed my things quickly. The overnight bag, the documents, the bottle of painkillers the doctor had pressed into my hand with a look that said more than her words had. I was almost to the door when I saw the black sedan pulling into the driveway of the townhouse. The engine hadn't even died before Simone was out, his door slamming hard enough to echo off the stone facade. He crossed the distance like a man who still believed that closing space meant closing an argument.
"Grazia! What's going on? You got rid of our baby just because I gave her an heir?"
I stared at him. The light from the porch caught the hard line of his jaw, the vein pulsing at his temple. He looked like his father in that moment. Not the composed Don the old man had been at the end, but the younger version, the one who'd thrown a chair through a plate-glass window when someone defied him at a sit-down.
"And why didn't you ever tell me you were carrying?"