I shoved his arm away. "Go find the doctor. I'm begging you, Cesare."

"Serafina, don't be ridiculous. No Family doctor is going to waste his time on someone of your standing."

"The drug's already taken effect. It's too late. Be good. Once Sienna gives birth to the legitimate heir, we can have another child."

I seized his hand and held on with everything I had. "Cesare, listen to me. I am a Valente. Serafina Valente. Don Valente's daughter. Go get the doctor. Save this child."

But he thought I was lying. He wrenched his hand free, anger flashing across his face.

"You've truly disappointed me. If you're going to lie, at least make it believable. This is the city, not your little Hudson Valley cottage. One wrong word here can get you buried where nobody finds you."

He straightened his cuffs and walked out.

"A miscarriage won't kill you. Look after yourself."

I watched his retreating figure until it disappeared. Every last shred of hope in me went with it.

I curled into the corner, the pain splitting me open. I could feel it, every moment of it, the child slipping away from my body.

The child I had longed for day and night, killed by its own father on the very first day he learned of its existence.

I was unconscious through the night. The skirt beneath me soaked through with blood.

The door crashed open with a kick. Sienna Marchetti strode in, flanked by several older servants. The hallway beyond her was still. No guards intervened. No one in this house answered to me anymore.

She glanced at me, drenched in blood from the waist down, then settled into a chair by the table and poured herself a glass of wine as if she had all the time in the world.

"Don't blame me. The child in my belly has to be the firstborn heir. That's the only way I'll have any standing in the Delgado household. Surely you understand."

I braced myself against the wall, barely upright. "So you had my child killed."

Sienna let out a short laugh. "Now that's unfair. Cesare was the one who laced the food. Cesare was the one who didn't want it. All I did was mention it in passing."

I stared at her, unblinking. My nails dug into my palms until the skin split.

She rose and walked over to me, one hand resting on her belly.

"Besides, you should count yourself lucky. Even if your child had survived, it would have been taken from you and raised under the legitimate wife. Better this way, really."