He Made Me Give Birth to Our Child in the Sky

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My husband's first love had a breakdown and threw herself from a rooftop.

In a fit of rage, he dragged me, eight months pregnant, to an abandoned carnival on the edge of Family territory and bound me to the seat of a drop tower ride. His soldiers stood by, faces blank as stone, as they lashed my wrists and ankles to the cold metal.

"If you hadn't provoked Bianca, would she have broken and jumped?"

Terrified of heights, I clutched at the restraints, my swollen belly making it hard to breathe. Tears streamed down my face as I admitted my mistake, my voice cracking as I begged him, "Lorenzo, please... let me go. I swore it. On my parents' graves, I'd never appear before Bianca again."

But my husband only looked at me with chilling indifference.

"Adriana, for the sake of the child, I won't set you aside." His voice was calm, almost gentle, but it only made the next words colder.

"But the pain you've caused Bianca, I want you to pay it back a hundred... no, a thousand times over."

Lorenzo ordered the ride set to run without stopping for an hour, then turned and walked away without a backward glance.

The machinery groaned to life, the seat jerking beneath me as the tower climbed higher and higher. I fought the restraints, screaming until my throat felt raw. Every time the ride plunged, my stomach flipped, the terror so intense I thought I might lose consciousness.

Then, on one brutal drop, pain ripped through my body, sharp and hot and unstoppable. A rush of fluid gushed between my legs, soaking my dress and the seat beneath me.

The next day, Lorenzo finally remembered I was still there.

"Adriana, Bianca is fine now," he said, his voice empty of concern. "Apologize to her, and I'll bring you down."

What he didn't know, what none of them knew, was that the platform had been drenched in blood for hours. My baby had been torn from my body somewhere between the sky and the earth, reduced to nothing but mangled flesh and silence.

"The Family physician called this morning. That woman is dodging her checkups. What trick is she running to steal my attention this time?"

Lorenzo frowned, a trace of disgust flickering through his dark eyes.

Beside him, Salvatore, the old steward who had bled for the Morettis before the Don was born, went pale. His voice trembled as he pressed his weathered hand flat over his heart. "Don Moretti, the Madam still hasn't been brought down. And she's terribly afraid of heights. She won't even step onto the second-floor balcony. Now, in her last month, could... could something have gone wrong?"

Lorenzo's expression froze for a split second, then hardened again, doubt flickering across his face. "Is that so? Adriana, afraid of heights?"

Before Salvatore could finish, Lorenzo waved a dismissive hand. "It's a carnival ride. It's not as if she's throwing herself off a building. Let her be frightened. It might teach her something, so she won't move against Bianca again."

Salvatore lowered his head and did not dare say another word.

But the Don's man at his shoulder could hold his tongue no longer. "Don Moretti, at first the Madam was screaming. Then she went silent. Completely. And she carries your child. Your own blood. Should you not at least have someone see to her?"

Lorenzo's expression shifted, the brief flicker of realization swallowed at once by scorn.

"I knew it. Even the fear of heights was a performance. If she were truly that terrified, how does she suddenly go quiet? Adriana is as manipulative as ever. Since she wants a show, let her stay up there until morning. Tomorrow I'll bring her to kneel before Bianca and beg forgiveness. Only then is this matter closed."

With that he waved his hand, cutting off any further protest, and strode toward the bedroom.

On his bed, Bianca lay half-bare beneath the soft sheets, her delicate shoulders pale in the dim light. Lorenzo's gaze darkened as he crossed the room, his throat working with desire. Without a word he leaned down and took her lips in a deep kiss.

Bianca whimpered softly, her fingers pressing weakly against his chest before her eyes opened. "Lorenzo... we're in your room. If Adriana finds out, she'll be upset."

Her voice trembled just enough to sound pitiful, her wide eyes brimming with guilt. "And what I did before... Lorenzo, I only did it because I love you too much. I thought if I were gone, Adriana would stop fighting you over me. I never wanted you to punish her for my sake. Should I go and apologize to her?"

She bit her lip, the picture of heartbreaking conflict. Her thumb rubbed slowly against the pads of her fingers, smoothing some invisible seam, and her sorrowful smile held a beat too long.

Sure enough, seeing her this way, Lorenzo's desire and his anger twined together. His hands moved to roughly knead the softness of her, his breath growing heavier as he flipped her beneath him with ease.

"Bianca, you're too kind. If not for you, I'd have died back then. Even your fear of heights came from pulling me clear. To think that Adriana told someone as gentle as you to jump off a building makes my chest ache."

His grip tightened, possessive, his voice dropping to a cold whisper. "If she ever does it again, even carrying my child, I'll make her pay with her life..."

Lorenzo tenderly kissed the faint scratches marring Bianca's delicate skin, the marks she claimed were left from her fall. His gaze, the one that had signed men into the ground without a flicker, softened with pain, as if the mere sight of her injuries broke him. On the bed that had once been mine, the two of them indulged in passion, their bodies entwined beneath the sheets.

Above them, the union portrait swayed slightly with the motion. My eyes were fixed on the photo, on the woman I used to be, the one who once gazed at Lorenzo with all the love in the world. In return, his face, even in that captured moment, was indifferent.

That was when I realized, even a soul could shed tears.

At least Lorenzo could rest easy now. There was no chance of me ever coming between them again.

Because I was already dead.

When Lorenzo first came for me, I was so terrified I tried to run. My swollen, eight-months-pregnant belly made it nearly impossible, but I still stumbled forward, desperate. He stood there watching, his arms folded, the two fingers on his signet ring gone perfectly still, as I ran aimlessly like a cornered animal. In the end, it was useless. His enforcers easily caught me and dragged me back.

Losing patience, Lorenzo forced me onto the cold seat of the drop tower, the rusted skeleton of a carnival long abandoned at the edge of Moretti territory, where no witness would ever wander and no scream would carry. His hands pinned me down until the thick straps and ropes bound my limbs in place. I screamed and pleaded, my voice cracking as the ride began to lift me higher and higher into the sky.

I was still screaming when I felt a hot gush of liquid flow down my legs. My water had broken. I sobbed, gasping for breath, begging him, begging my husband, to save our child.

For a moment, just one fleeting moment, I saw hesitation flicker in his eyes. But before hope could bloom, the soft voice beside him spoke up.

Bianca leaned into his side, her face pale and pitiful, her thumb rubbing the pad of her fingers as if smoothing an invisible seam. "I thought Adriana's due date wasn't until next week? But... she does look scared. She even wet herself before the ride went up... Maybe we should just let it go. I'm fine now anyway."

That was all it took. In the next breath, Lorenzo's expression twisted with disgust.

"Adriana! You're vile. Using our child just to win my sympathy? Stay up there and think about what you've done!"

A hundred yards above the ground, the wind howled, cutting through my thin dress like a blade. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, but the pain twisting in my abdomen was even worse.

The baby was coming.

I thrashed against the ropes, the fibers cutting into my wrists until layers of skin peeled away. Blood dripped down my arms, but I didn't stop. My fingers clawed desperately at the knots until, somehow, they began to loosen.

The third time the ride shot upward, I gathered every last ounce of strength I had left. And that's when I heard it, a fragile, kitten-like cry.

My baby was born, right there in the sky.

I was too weak to hold it, too broken to even see if it was a boy or a girl. Before I could reach out, the ride jolted violently. The tower had reached its peak again.

The next second, it plunged.

The tiny, fragile body was ripped from my arms. My baby, so small, so helpless, slammed into the unforgiving ground below.

I reached for it, screaming until my throat gave out, my ruined right hand curling uselessly toward my belly where it had learned to guard what I loved, but my shredded fingers couldn't catch hold. All I could do was watch as that perfect little life was reduced to nothing but blood and flesh on the cold concrete.

My own blood followed, painting the air crimson, a midsummer snowfall of death.

In that final, agonized scream, my breath gave out.

And where was Lorenzo?

He was nowhere near me. Instead, he'd summoned the finest physicians the Family's money could quietly buy, not for me, not for our child, but for Bianca. All because he didn't want a shallow scratch on her arm to leave a scar.

He brought her fresh roses, carefully selected from a florist who imported them from halfway across the world. He even secured a one-of-a-kind designer necklace, placing it gently in her hands to comfort her fragile nerves.

When one of the household soldiers tried to report what had happened to me, Lorenzo cut him off without hesitation.

"Even if she's dead, she brought it upon herself," he said, without a trace of emotion.

"In two days, it'll be her due date. I'll bring Adriana over to apologize to you," Lorenzo said, his fingers lazily stroking Bianca's hair as she curled up in his lap.

Bianca traced light circles on his chest with her delicate fingers, her head resting softly against him.

"Maybe we should just forget it," she whispered, her voice soft and filled with guilt, holding the tremor a beat too long. "I believe Adriana didn't mean to do it. In the end, it's my fault. I shouldn't have come back. But... I just wanted to be by your side. I never wanted to cause trouble between you two."

Lorenzo caught her wandering hand, his voice unbearably tender.

"Bianca, you've saved my life. Just for that, I'll protect you until the day I die."

He gently brushed her hair back, his gaze darkening with affection. "Adriana's my wife. She should have embraced you with me. But instead, she kept targeting you, forcing you to the edge."

His jaw tightened, a flicker of rage seeping through his soft words. "I don't even want to imagine... if my men hadn't pulled you off that roof in time, I could've lost you forever. I would never have forgiven myself."

Hearing Lorenzo's words, a flicker of unease crossed Bianca's delicate face. She shrank her neck slightly, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as she fell silent. Her thumb moved once against the pads of her fingers, smoothing some seam only she could feel.

Bitterness welled up inside me, familiar and almost comforting by now. Half a year ago, Bianca had suddenly returned from her years in exile abroad. Lorenzo told me she was all alone, with nowhere left to run, no Family left to shelter her. Without even a word to me, he brought her behind the walls of our estate, past the soldiers at the gate, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

At first, I didn't mind. I even felt sorry for the fragile girl and cared for her in every way I couldseeing her plate was full at the long table, that she had warm clothes, that the stewards treated her as one of the blood. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be a good wife to the Don.

Until the night everything changed. Bianca picked up a glass of red wine, poured it over herself, then collapsed onto her knees in front of me, trembling and pleading for mercy. Her voice was so soft, so pitiful, that any soldier passing the door would've sworn I'd been tormenting her for days.

From that moment on, the way Lorenzo looked at me shifted. That night, he didn't even give me a chance to explain. His fury broke like a storm, and before I understood what was happening, two of his enforcers dragged me to the attic and locked the door. He left me there, hungry and freezing, for three full days. When he finally came back, his voice was colder than I'd ever heard.

"Adriana, you've really disappointed me," he said, his gaze filled with disgust. "You have no idea what Bianca means to me. If you dare lay a hand on her again, wife or not, I'll make you pay in blood."

After that, incidents like that kept happeningsmall, carefully staged moments where Bianca was the victim and I was the cruel villain. Each one chipped away at Lorenzo's patience, until his eyes held nothing but icy contempt whenever he looked at me.

I had planned to endure it, at least until the baby was born. Once our child arrived safely, I was going to ask him to dissolve the union and slip away quietly. But before I could, Bianca threw herself from a rooftop.

The reason for it? Hateful messages and vicious voice recordingssupposedly from me.

The words were brutal, cruel enough to drive anyone to the edge. But they weren't mine. Yet no matter how I pleaded, Lorenzo didn't believe me. All he could see was Bianca's pale, trembling form lying in the bed the Family physician had made for her, her tears falling one after another. His heart ached so much for her, his eyes turned red with rage.

Even with our baby almost ready to be born, his only concern was avenging his beloved.

"Don... the Signora, she... she seems... You should see for yourself."

Lorenzo's fingers froze around the pen in his hand. His brow furrowed, his expression a mix of irritation and indifference. "She's still throwing a tantrum after all this time?"

The soldier hesitated, his hands clasped nervously before him. After several seconds, he finally forced it out. "No, Don... It's not that. It's just... the Signora seems to have stopped breathing."

Lorenzo's large hands, the ones that had been holding Bianca so tenderly a moment ago, went still. For a moment, there was silencetoo long to be casual, too short to mean anything real. Then a cold, careless laugh escaped his throat.

"She's really going that far to get out of an apology? Playing dead, just to avoid facing Bianca?"

His voice sharpened to an edge. "Tell hereven if she's dying, she apologizes first. If she refuses, don't say I didn't warn her."

Sweat glistened on the soldier's forehead. He wanted to say more, but the fury carved into the Don's face pressed the words back down his throat. In the end, all he could do was step back and withdraw, quiet as a man leaving a wake.

In Lorenzo's arms, Bianca tilted her head, her innocent eyes wide with concern.

"Lorenzo, maybe you should let it go," she whispered. "Even if Adriana hates me and makes things hard, she's still your wife. As long as I can stay at your side, I can endure it."

Lorenzo's arm tightened around her slender waist, drawing her closer against him.

"Bianca, you don't need to fear that petty woman. Adriana isn't worth a single one of your worries." His voice softened into something almost gentle. "This time, I'll make certain she learns her place. Only then will she understand exactly what she is in this house."

"But..."

"No buts. Just trust me."

A teardrop landed on the back of my hand, cold and weightless, yet cutting deeper than any blade. That was when I realizedI was already crying.

So even souls can feel pain.

Lorenzo said nothing more after that, but for the rest of the afternoon his mind was somewhere else. His fingers drummed restlessly against the desk, and every few minutes his eyes cut toward the door. By the time an hour had passed, he had looked more than ten times.

Finally, with a low, frustrated breath, he shut the ledger before him and pushed back from the desk. Running a hand through his hair, he forced a gentle smile onto his face and stroked Bianca's hair.

"I don't know what game Adriana thinks she's playing this time," he said softly, "but I'll go drag her back myself to apologize."

At the gates of the abandoned carnival on the edge of Moretti territory, Lorenzo's long strides carried him forward, impatience coming off him like heat in the still air. Even from a distance, his sharp gaze locked onto the drop tower rising against the grey sky.

Its rusted frame gleamed coldly in the sunlightbut the ground beneath it was soaked in red.

The stench of blood hung heavy in the air, mixing with the faint scent of rust and damp earth. This was the abandoned carnival at the edge of Moretti territory, where debts were settled far from witnesses, and now something had bled out into its cracked concrete. Lorenzo instinctively raised a hand to cover his nose, his expression twisted in discomfort.

"What the hell is that smell? What's Adriana up to this time?!" His voice was impatient, as if all of this was nothing more than another one of my childish games.

His enforcer stood to the side, forehead beaded with sweat. The man's hands clenched nervously, but his voice remained low, the way a soldier's does when he brings the Don something the Don does not want. "Boss... perhaps you should see for yourself."

With a stiff motion, the enforcer stepped aside, revealing the two shapes lying side by side on the bloodstained ground. Both were covered with white cloth. One larger. One heartbreakingly small.

Lorenzo's large hands hovered uncertainly between the two. His fingers curled and uncurled, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face. His brows furrowed, confusion flickering in his usually cold eyes. The men around him had gone still, the way men go still when they feel the ground shifting under an oath.

I clutched my chest, though there was no heartbeat there anymore, only the hollow ache of something long gone. I knew what was about to happen and the knowledge was suffocating. Still, I couldn't look away.

After what felt like an eternity, Lorenzo finally reached out toward the smaller bundle. His fingers trembled slightly as he pinched the edge of the cloth, slowly lifting it.

A sharp, high-pitched scream cut through the air before he could see anything.

"Lorenzo! What are you doing?! You're not actually going to touch that, are you? That's a stray cat's corpse!"

Bianca's shrill voice rang out as she stumbled toward him, her body trembling as she threw herself into his arms. Her face pressed into his chest, her small hands clutching at his shirt. For half a breath her smile held a beat too long, and her thumb rubbed the pads of her fingers as if smoothing an invisible seam.

Lorenzo's body stiffened under her touch, but her words seemed to flip a switch in his mind. His expression darkened, disgust flashing across his face. Without another thought, his leg shot out, kicking the small bundle aside.

The tiny body rolled limply across the pavement, the once-pure white cloth unraveling just slightly, exposing a flash of soft, fragile skin.

"Get some dogs in here," Lorenzo barked, his voice cold and sharp. "Let them deal with it."

The order was carried out instantly, the way orders are in a Family where hesitation costs a man his life. Stray dogs, drawn in by the scent of blood and flesh, swarmed the area within seconds. Their teeth tore into the small corpse without hesitation, their low growls blending with the wet, sickening sounds of ripping flesh.

I screamed, the sound tearing out of me like a wounded animal. I lunged forward, trying to claw at Lorenzo, trying to push the dogs away, trying to hold what was left of my baby. But my hands passed straight through everything.

I couldn't touch anything. I couldn't stop any of it.

But the pain, oh, the pain was real. It burned and twisted inside me, a thousand times worse than the agony of childbirth.

What had I done wrong? What had my child done wrong?

The dogs didn't stop until there was nothing left but scraps of cloth and dark, wet patches on the ground. As the last of the flesh disappeared, I caught a glimpse of Bianca, standing slightly apart from Lorenzo. A faint smile curled at the corners of her lips, a sinister gleam flashing in her eyes before she quickly lowered her gaze.

"Enough with these games!" Lorenzo's furious roar broke the silence. "Where's Adriana?! Where the hell is she hiding?!" His fists clenched at his sides, veins bulging under his skin. "She drove Bianca to jump off a building and now she's trying to scare her with some dead cat? How did I never see how vicious Adriana really is?!"

He turned, voice dripping with contempt. "Adriana! Didn't you love that baby more than anything? If you don't crawl out right now, I swear, once the real baby is born, I'll cut you loose. I'll strip the Falcone name off you and put you out. And don't even dream about the child. You'll never see it again!"

I collapsed onto the ground, trembling with rage and heartbreak, my right hand curling against a belly that no longer held anything, fingers closing over the old scar as if I could still shield what was already gone. My silent laughter mixed with tears I could no longer wipe away.

My parents were gone, murdered, their dying wish a blood-bound pact that had chained me to this man. Lorenzo, the Don I had once trusted with my whole heart, had broken faith without hesitation for Bianca, the one who abandoned him when the Family was near ruin. The only thing I had left was my baby. And now, my child, our child, had been torn apart by dogs, thrown away like trash, and the man who fathered that child had stood by and watched.

Not even a body remained.

I swore, from the depths of whatever was left of my soul, that Lorenzo would rot in hell for this.

His voice rose again, loud and furious, demanding that I show myself. But there was no one left to answer him.

Finally, the enforcer, pale and trembling, forced himself to step forward. His hands shook as he reached down, slowly lifting the white cloth covering the larger form. His voice wavered, breaking the code that keeps a soldier's mouth shut before the Don.

"Boss... Madam is right here. And your child... you just fed it to the stray dogs."