My knuckles dug into my palms. I clenched my fists so hard the bones bit into flesh. A fire raged inside me, tearing through my chest, but I couldn't make a sound.

My child was still out there. I couldn't afford to fall apart. Not yet.

I drew a deep breath, reached out, and ruffled Carina's hair.

"Okay. Mommy forgives you."

Seeing my expression soften, Dante exhaled with visible relief and pulled out a chair for me with exaggerated attentiveness. That smile surfaced, quick and easy, a half-second ahead of whatever he was about to say.

"I knew it. You talk tough, but you're soft on the inside. There's no way you'd stay mad at the daughter you nearly died bringing into this world."

I said nothing. I lowered my head and took a sip of coffee.

"Oh, by the way, babe. Carina's academy is organizing a field trip to Ashford tomorrow. I figured I'd tag along, spend a few days with her. The joint account's running low. Could you transfer another three hundred thousand into it?"

I looked up, my gaze settling on him.

When I first met Dante, he was nobody — no Family, no name, no blood worth claiming. A street-level errand runner for the dock crews, riding a beat-up secondhand scooter through neighborhoods where the Montecarlo name meant everything and his meant nothing, living in a three-hundred-dollar-a-month rental with a leaking ceiling.

I owned and operated a sprawling empire — laundered restaurant chains, underground casinos, protection rackets, and a flagship luxury hotel that served as the Family's most visible legitimate front. The Montecarlo name carried weight on every block from the waterfront to the financial district, and the bottom line was healthy enough to fund a small war.

I never cared that Dante had no money. I chose him as a live-in husband because he seemed honest and family-oriented, someone who could manage the household while I ran the operations. No in-law drama, no power struggles over rank or territory. He married into the Family under my name, which meant he had access and comfort but no formal seat at the table, no authority over anything that mattered.

I'd even let the children carry his last name, just to protect his pride.

When we first got married, I bought him a shirt that cost a few hundred dollars. He tried to return it three times.

Now, barely five years later, he could ask me for three hundred thousand without blinking.