Chapter 24 Beatrice
BEATRICE
The air smells like grass, warm pavement, and cherry popsicles.
Daniele is laughing—real, unrestrained, belly-deep laughter—as he sprints toward the swings. The kind of sound that melts something inside my chest. His curls bounce with every step, one shoelace untied, his whole little body buzzing with eight-year-old joy.
This is the childhood I always wanted for him.
I sit on a park bench, hands folded over my stomach, just… watching. Letting myself breathe. The past few weeks have been good for me. Healing, even. Talking to Marta helped more than I expected. She grounded me in ways I didn’t realize I needed.
I want another child. I want Daniele to have a sibling.
I want Matteo to have another baby—maybe a daughter this time.
A little girl would ruin him in the best way.
But my body… has other plans. Miscarriage after miscarriage has hollowed me out. Some days, it feels like I’m made of hope and bruises.
My phone buzzes.
Valerio: On my way to pick you up, principessa.
I roll my eyes and text back.
Beatrice: Surely eight years later we can retire that nickname. I’m by the swings with Danny.
Phone away. Eyes back on my boy.
Daniele is by the sandpit now, laughing with a couple of kids from school. He’s smiling wide, dimples deep. You’d never guess the child with the bright grin and dirt on his knees is heir to the largest mafia syndicate in the state, if not the country.
Matteo has worked hard to keep those worlds separate.
Sometimes, I almost forget how heavy it all really is.
Here, under shifting branches, with sunlight spilling over the grass and a dog barking at a squirrel, the weight loosens. I can breathe. I can pretend, just for a moment, that this is all we’ve ever known.
I soak it in. This little slice of ordinary. This peace I don’t take for granted.
This is what life is supposed to be.
And for a moment… just a moment… I think about forgiving myself. For the pressure I’ve put on my body. For the grief I’ve carried. For letting the desire for another child eclipse everything else.
Here, watching my son laugh in the sunlight, I remember what matters.
But maybe now it’s time to think who I was before I became a mother, a wife, a woman trying to outrun her past.
I need to relearn who Beatrice is.
The jingle of the ice cream truck rings through the park. I stand up, eyes tracking Daniele automatically—still at the sandpit, still laughing—before I walk toward the truck.
Summer has been brutal this year in New York, all heavy heat and smothering air, but clearing my head outside makes it bearable.
“Hello,” the server says warmly. “What can I get for you, ma’am?”
“One vanilla bean ice cream, please.”
A moment later it’s in my hand, cold and dripping at the edges. I turn back toward the bench—
And I only make it a few steps before someone yanks me violently to the side.
The cone slips from my hand.
I suck in a breath to scream—but a palm slams over my mouth, crushing the sound in my throat.
I thrash instinctively, heart hammering, legs scrambling for leverage.
“Shhh. Calm down, cara mia. It’s only me.”
That voice. Low. Smooth.
As familiar as a nightmare.
My entire body locks. My spine turns to stone. His grip on my arm is iron—tight enough to bruise, tight enough to burn.
“Ciao, cara.” His breath hits my cheek, hot and sour. “It’s been a while.”
Giacomo.
No. No, no, no—he can’t be here.
I try to twist away, but he drags me closer, and something hard jabs into my side—a blade, sharp enough to part fabric and skin.
“One wrong move,” he whispers, “and I slice you open right here.”
I freeze instantly. Every muscle. Every thought.
“Good girl, Bea,” he murmurs. “And here I thought he fucked the obedience right out of you.”
The way he says my name—spat, twisted—turns my stomach.
He leans in, serpent-slick. “Come. We have much to discuss. Let’s find somewhere quieter… somewhere just for us.”
No, I cannot go anywhere with him.
But Daniele is too close. A few yards away. Innocent. Unaware.
If I scream, if I fight, if I do anything reckless—he will go straight for my son.
So I don’t resist as he pulls me away from the crowd… not because I’m obedient, but because I’m a mother.
My mind races.
I count my steps. I count my breaths. Anything to track where he’s taking me and how far I am from my son.
My fingers itch for my phone, for the panic button Matteo installed months ago. But if I reach for it, even once, Giacomo will feel the shift in my body. He always could read my fear like scripture.
Valerio is on his way.
But Giacomo is here. A blade pressed to my ribs.
And every second stretches into something sharp.
He drags me toward the tree line—the far edge of the park, where shade swallows sound and no one dares wander. It’s quiet enough for an execution.
And he knows it. And I know it.
He shoves me forward. My knees buckle, but I catch myself before I hit the dirt. I turn slowly, forcing my spine straight, forcing my lungs to work.
“What do you want, Giacomo?” My voice is steady enough to surprise even me. Inside, I’m unraveling thread by thread, but he can’t see that. He feeds on it.
He tilts his head, twirling the dagger lazily between his fingers. The blade flashes once, bright as a cruel smile.
“You look well, cara. The years have kissed you kindly.” His gaze drags across me. “Like aged wine… richer, headier, more dangerous.”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of shuddering.
“What do you want?” I repeat, sharper.
He sighs dramatically. “Always impatient.” The dagger rises slowly, the tip hovering between my eyes. “You wounded me, Beatrice. You slipped under my guard and sliced through everything I built.”
He steps close enough that I smell the cologne he used to wear. Now, it coats the inside of my throat like poison.
“You’re an ant,” he whispers. “A little insect on the wheel of this world. And somehow, you crushed me.”
A chill breaks across my skin.
I don’t move. I don’t blink.
“You didn’t just betray me,” he continues, pacing now, boots snapping twigs beneath them.
“You humiliated me. Undermined my title. Ruined my standing. Your husband—” the word curdles in his mouth “—stole what was mine. The power. The throne. The future I carved with my own hands. And you—” he points the dagger at my chest “—you lit the match that burned it down.”
He spins back toward me, eyes wild, unhinged. “And the worst part?”
Silence drips between us.
“You made me question my own mind.” His voice trembles—not with sorrow, but with something far more cracked. “You made me believe I was insane. You were mine. Mine. And yet you let him touch you. You let him fuck you.”
The air leaves my lungs like a blow. But I stand my ground. I keep my chin high.
I will not give him my fear—not the way he wants it.
He steps so close the dagger grazes my collarbone, cold and hungry.
“You thought you could disappear into his world,” he murmurs. “You thought you could hide from me, rebuild without me, start a family without me…”
His smile sharpens.
“But you forgot one thing.”
He leans in.
“You forgot who fathered your son.”
He closes the distance like a bullet—no warning, no breath between us—and suddenly my back slams into the tree. Bark tears into my spine. My head cracks hard enough against the trunk that my ears ring.
My phone slips from my hand and hits the ground, skidding into the leaves.
“Stop fucking lying!” he roars, his face inches from mine, his breath thick with metal and something rotten. He snatches the fallen phone and hurls it into the undergrowth. “You will listen. When. I. Speak.”
His hand clamps around my throat. My pulse hammers against his palm, frantic, helpless.
“You stole him from me!” His voice breaks into something feral. “My heir. My legacy. My blood.”
Panic spikes through me, white-hot and blinding. No. No, please—not this. Not him.
I lock my jaw, swallowing the sound clawing up my throat. I cannot break. I cannot give him anything.
He studies my face like he’s dissecting every flicker, every breath—searching for confirmation, for guilt, for weakness.
“You really thought I wouldn’t find out?” His laugh is jagged. “I knew the day you gave birth. I knew the minute you hid him. I knew.”
He steps back half an inch, just enough to look at me fully—but the dagger stays raised, gleaming like a promise.
“He has my eyes, Beatrice.” His smile is ruinous. “You tried to bury the truth under another man’s name. Another man’s power. But he is mine. He is a Feriama.”
My throat is raw when I force the words out. “He’s not. He is Matteo’s. He’s a Davacalli.”
The slap comes so fast I don’t see it—only feel the crack of pain explode across my face. My skull hits the tree again, bark tearing my scalp as stars burst behind my eyes.
“Don’t fucking lie to me!” he bellows.
His fist twists in my hair, yanking my head back cruelly. My vision jerks. A tear escapes simply from the shock.
“You should be kissing my feet for letting you live. For sparing your precious family.” His voice drops lower, darker. “Don’t mistake my mercy for weakness, cara mia. I will slit your throat and sleep like a child.”
His hand moves from my hair back to my neck, squeezing harder. The world narrows to the crush of his fingers and the sharp press of the blade at my collarbone.
“Your lies,” he snarls. “Your betrayal. You cursed your own womb with it. That’s why you couldn’t give him an heir. That’s why Matteo parades my son like a trophy—a lie wrapped in his name.”
Heat burns behind my eyes—not fear, but fury. The words cut deeper than any knife. My womb. My child. How dare he—
“I’ve watched you.” He releases me suddenly, and I fall to my knees, air tearing into my lungs in ragged bursts. “For eight long years, I watched. I waited. I planned.”
He crouches beside me, the dagger gently tapping under my chin.
“And now,” he whispers, “I take back what’s mine.”
A sudden buzz fractures the moment.