Isolation
POV: Evie
The garden has eight exits. I know because I count them every time.
French doors to the east hall. Service gate by the herb wall.
Narrow path toward the old greenhouse. Iron gate leading to the drive.
Terrace steps. Kitchen passage. Low stone wall near the cypress trees.
Drainage arch beneath the west hedge if one is desperate, soaked, and willing to emerge somewhere undignified.
Eight. None usable. This is the part no one explains about exits. A door is only an exit if you’re allowed to survive what waits on the other side.
The night is cold enough to make the stone bench beneath me feel personal.
It seeps through the coat, through the dress, settling somewhere along my spine like a decision I haven’t agreed to but can’t undo.
Above, the sky is clear and indifferent, scattered with stars that have never had to negotiate with armed men or Italian patriarchs.
Lucky stars.
I sit with my coat wrapped around me and one hand pressed flat to my stomach. I’ve stopped moving my hand away, though that feels like defeat. Or maybe just adaptation. The difference depends on whether one’s feeling poetic, and I’m absolutely not.
I breathe in through my mouth because the garden smells too alive tonight. Damp soil. Rosemary. Stone. Something blooming out of season, because apparently even the plants in this house enjoy poor boundaries.
My stomach turns, but only mildly. Progress.
I close my eyes. Immediately regret it. The dark behind my eyelids isn’t empty. It’s full.
My father’s study. Rain against the glass. His hand beside my name on the contract.
I’m sorry.
Don’t be. Be right.
I open my eyes, and the garden replaces him. Clean lines. Controlled growth. A space that pretends at freedom while remaining entirely owned.
My father is dead, and the man who killed him is still breathing.
Dante Vitale. The untouchable son. Exiled but not destroyed. Managed but not punished. A man treated like a bad habit belonging to someone important. I had been building toward him one thread at a time. A receipt. A timing gap. A witness sighting. A partial confession spoken by silence.
And every thread ran through Alessandro’s hand before it reached mine.
Which still pisses me off.
In fact, when I really think about him, everything about Alessandro pisses me off. He knew his son was unstable. Knew the alliance was a correction. Knew the marriage wasn’t protection but containment dressed in ceremonial fabric.
And after my father died, he chose silence. Maybe not forever. Maybe not without cost. But he chose it long enough that I’m here now, sitting in his garden with his children inside me, trying to decide whether survival and complicity have begun sleeping in the same bed.
That thought lingers longer than it should. I don’t dismiss it. I catalogue it. Then I push it aside before it grows teeth.
I open my eyes. Eight exits. Still eight.
The crack settles under my ribs. Not sharp tonight. Wider. Quieter. Which is worse.
I sit up straighter. Cataloguing helps.
Weight one: father dead.
Weight two: Dante untouchable.
Weight three: Alessandro chose silence.
Weight four: I’m pregnant.
Weight five: twins.
Weight six: he doesn’t know.
Weight seven: he might already know.
I pause there. The idea has been following me all day, quiet-footed and persistent, like a shadow that refuses to detach. What if he knows? I replay the morning. The guards. Teresa. The dining room.
Nothing obvious. But obvious isn’t his style. Alessandro doesn’t react where you can see it. He adjusts. Quietly. Deliberately. Irrevocably.
If he knew, would anything look different? Or would it look exactly the same until it wasn’t?
I exhale slowly. I don’t like variables I can’t observe. I like them even less when they live inside my own body.
“That’s new,” I tell the garden. “Even my womb may be under surveillance.”
The rosemary doesn’t respond. Wise.
A breeze moves through the cypress trees, soft but cold, shifting the leaves just enough to sound like movement that isn’t there. I listen. Not because I think I’m alone. Because I know I’m not. There’s always someone within range. Always someone watching, even if they pretend not to.
Especially then.
I stand because sitting still has become dangerous.
Stillness invites thought. Thought invites the crack.
Movement is safer. The path curves through the garden in deliberate lines, all geometry and obedience.
Nothing grows here without permission. Even the wildness has been edited into respectability.
Very Vitale.
I walk slowly because presentation matters. Especially when one is falling apart in installments. The gravel shifts beneath my shoes, not loud enough to draw attention. Not soft enough to disappear entirely.
Balanced. Everything here is balanced. The greenhouse sits at the far end of the garden, dark and glassy. Its windows reflect more than they reveal, a structure designed to hold fragile things under the illusion of open air.
Also very Vitale.
I can see my reflection in the panes as I pass. Pale face. Dark coat. Hair pinned badly now because I removed three pins earlier without noticing.
I look almost like myself. Almost. That’s becoming a problem. A big secret should change your reflection. There should be some visible evidence. A warning label. A structural notice. Caution: future under renovation.
Instead, I still look like Evie Brennan. Daughter. Guest. Threat.
Mistress?
No.
I stop walking.
No. Absolutely not. That word belongs to other women in other stories. Women placed carefully in rooms by men who call it arrangement and expect gratitude for the silk sheets. Women who learn the shape of their boundaries and decorate them.
I’m not that. I’m not his mistress. I’m not his bride. I’m not his anything.
Except…
The thought slides low and sharp, precise enough to land before I can block it.
Except carrying his children.
I press a hand to my stomach again. Traitorous hand. Traitorous body. Traitorous logic. But biology has very little respect for ideological distinctions. It doesn’t care about alliances or revenge, or who chose silence and who paid for it. It builds. Relentless. Efficient. Permanent.
I begin walking again, faster this time. Eight exits. No, from here: seven. The terrace doors are blocked by the hedge angle. Service gate visible. Greenhouse path. Iron-drive gate. Kitchen passage. Stone wall. Drainage arch. French doors reflected in glass, not directly accessible.
Seven.
I count again. Seven.
Good. Counting isn’t fear. Counting is discipline. Fear runs. Discipline measures.
I turn at the end of the path and walk back the way I came. The house rises ahead of me, lit in sections. Windows glowing where rooms are occupied, dark where they are not. A structure that breathes in controlled intervals.
His house. His system. His silence.
I wonder, briefly, where he is. Not because I need to know. Because not knowing feels like leaving a variable unaccounted for.
His study, most likely. Or the council room. Or walking through some part of the estate, making quiet adjustments no one will notice until they are already in effect.
He moves like that.
Irrelevant. Focus.
Seven exits. Still seven. None usable.
Unless…
No.
I stop that line of thought, too. Hope is inefficient. It leads to poor decisions and unnecessary risk. I don’t need hope. I need leverage.