5. Mel
— ? —
Mel
Present Day
They don’t wait to be invited in.
Vittoria sweeps past me like she owns the room, which, technically, she does, and Allegra follows a step behind, closing the door with a soft click that sounds like a lock engaging.
I stand there with my hand still on the doorknob, watching them arrange themselves in my space like predators settling in for a meal.
“Please,” Vittoria says, gesturing toward the chair by my vanity. “Sit.”
“I’ll stand.”
A flicker in her eyes, amusement, maybe, or satisfaction. “As you wish.”
Allegra has positioned herself by the window, arms crossed, backlit by the moonlight in a way that makes her features hard to read. She looks like she’s been waiting for this moment. Like she’s been rehearsing.
“I’ll be direct,” Vittoria says. “I see no reason to pretend anymore.”
“Pretend what?”
“That you belong here.” She says it casually, like she’s commenting on the weather. “You never did, of course. We all knew it from the beginning. But Santino was… infatuated. We thought perhaps it would burn itself out.”
I grip the doorknob tighter, using it to anchor myself. “If you’re trying to run me off-”
“I’m not trying anything. I’m simply telling you the truth.
” Vittoria settles into the armchair by the window, crossing her legs at the ankle with practiced elegance.
“You were a rebellion, Melanie. A way for my son to prove that he wasn’t under his parents’ control. You were never supposed to be a wife.”
“Santino chose me.”
“Santino was twenty-six years old and thinking with his-” She waves a hand. “Well. You understand.”
“You don’t know anything about what Santino and I have.”
“Had.” Allegra’s voice cuts in, smooth and sharp. “Past tense. Or haven’t you noticed?”
I turn to look at her. She’s smiling, and it’s the most honest expression I’ve ever seen on her face.
“Three years,” she continues. “That’s how long he held on. Longer than any of us expected, honestly. But he’s done now. Surely you’ve seen it.”
“I’ve seen you.” The words come out hard and bitter. “Following him around like a shadow. Inserting yourself into every part of his life-”
“Inserting myself?” She laughs, and the sound has a cruel edge to it. “I didn’t have to insert myself anywhere. He invited me. Every business trip, every late night, every meeting where you weren’t there and I was. He chose me, Melanie. Over and over again.”
“That’s not-”
“We have proof.”
Vittoria’s voice cuts through my denial like a knife. She reaches into her bag and withdraws a manila envelope, thick and heavy, and holds it out toward me.
I don’t want to take it. Every instinct I have screams at me to refuse, to turn away, to pretend this conversation isn’t happening.
I take it anyway.
The photos spill across my hands.
Santino and Allegra in a hotel lobby, her hand on his arm. The two of them at a restaurant, their heads bent close together. In the back of a car, his hand at the small of her back, her face turned toward his with an expression I recognize.
I’ve worn that expression. When I looked at him.
“These are from the business trips,” Allegra says. “The ones you were never invited on. I can give you dates if you’d like. Times. Room numbers.”
My hands are shaking. The photos blur and refocus as I flip through them, faster now, looking for anything at all that will prove they’re fake, that will give me a reason to throw them back in their faces.
And then I see it.
The lake.
The waterfall in the background, silver-white against dark rocks. The pool at the base, smooth as glass. And Santino, my Santino, sitting on the shore with Allegra tucked against his side, both of them smiling like they don’t have a care in the world.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no-”
“He took her there.” Vittoria’s voice is almost gentle now, which somehow makes it worse. “To your special place. I believe you know what that means.”
The photo shakes in my grip. Our place. The waterfall where we had our first real conversation. The lake where he told me he loved me. The cave where we -
He took her there.
He took her to the place that was supposed to be ours.
“You’re lying.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “These are fake. You doctored them.”
“We anticipated that response.” Allegra pushes off from the window, moves toward me with slow, deliberate steps. “Which is why I’m happy to provide more… personal details. The sound he makes when he’s about to finish, for example. The way he-”
“Stop.”
“Or the birthmark,” she continues, ignoring me. “On his inner thigh. Shaped a little like a crescent moon. You know the one I mean.”
I do know. I know exactly the one she means.
My knees go to water. I grab the bedpost to keep from falling.
“Leave,” I manage. “Get out of my room.”
“We’re not quite finished.” Vittoria rises from the chair, graceful and unhurried. “There’s the matter of what happens next.”
“I don’t care what happens next.”
“You will.” She nods at Allegra, who takes a step closer. “Tell her.”
“Here’s how this is going to work,” Allegra says.
“Santino leaves for Tokyo next week. Some pressing merger business that will keep him away for at least a month. While he’s gone, you’re going to pack your things and disappear.
You’ll sign the divorce papers we’ll have prepared.
You’ll accept the settlement we offer. And you’ll never contact him or this family again. ”
I laugh. It comes out broken and wrong, but I can’t help it. “And if I don’t?”
“Then things get unpleasant.” Allegra’s smile sharpens. “For you. And for your baby.”
Everything stops.
“What did you just say?”
“Your baby.” She tilts her head, mock-concerned. “Oh. Did you not know?”
I look at Vittoria. Her smile is the one she wears at charity dinners, all teeth and no warmth.
“Congratulations,” she says. “You’re pregnant.”
The blood test. The clinic. The results sent directly to Vittoria.
They knew. They knew before I did.
They made sure they would know first.
“You-” I can’t finish the sentence. My hand flies to my stomach, pressing against the flat plane of it like I can feel it there. A flutter. A presence. Evidence that this isn’t a nightmare I’m going to wake up from.
“The child is a Bianchi,” Vittoria continues. “Regardless of what happens between you and my son, that child carries our name. Our blood. And we take care of our own.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” Allegra says, “that if you leave now, quietly, we’ll allow you visitation rights. Supervised, of course. But you’ll still be able to see the child on occasion.”
“And if I stay?”
They exchange a look, a silent communication I’m not privy to.
“If you stay,” Vittoria says, “we’ll take the child from you entirely.
Our lawyers are very good, Melanie. Very expensive.
Very creative. You’re an American with no job, no support system, and a husband who can barely stand to be in the same room with you.
How do you think a custody battle would go? ”
I can’t breathe. The room is too small, the air too thick, and their faces swim in front of me like mirages.
“You can’t do this.”
“We can do whatever we want.” Allegra’s voice is almost pitying. “That’s the difference between your world and ours. In our world, money makes the rules. And you don’t have any.”
“Santino won’t let you-”
“Santino doesn’t know about the baby yet.
” Vittoria’s smile widens. “And by the time he finds out, you’ll be gone.
He’ll grieve, of course. He’s sentimental that way.
But he’ll move on. He’ll marry someone appropriate.
And the child will be raised here, in this family, with every advantage you could never provide. ”
“With Allegra,” I say, and the word tastes like poison. “That’s what this is about. You want her to raise my child.”
“She would make such a wonderful mother,” Vittoria agrees. “Don’t you think?”
I look at Allegra, at her perfect hair and her perfect clothes and her perfect, vicious smile, and I see it now.
The whole plan, laid out like a chess board.
Remove me. Install her. Take the baby and raise it as a Bianchi, with no memory of the mother who loved it, who carried it, who would have done anything to protect it.
“Get out.” My voice comes out stronger than I feel. Louder. “Get out of my room.”
“Melanie-”
“Get out.”
I move to the door, yank it open, stand beside it like a sentry. “I heard what you said. I understand the threat. Now get out of my room before I start screaming loud enough to wake the whole house.”
Vittoria and Allegra exchange another look. Then Vittoria rises, smooths her skirt, and walks toward the door with Allegra at her heels.
“Think about what we’ve said,” she murmurs as she passes. “You have until Santino leaves for Tokyo to make the right choice.”
“The only right choice,” Allegra adds.
And then they’re gone, the door closing behind them with a soft click, and I’m alone.
***
I make it thirty seconds.
Thirty seconds of standing perfectly still, hands pressed flat against the door, breathing through my nose like I can hold everything inside if I just don’t move.
Then the sobs start, and I can’t stop them.
I slide down the door, curl into myself on the floor, and cry with the kind of violence that hurts. That tears things loose. That makes sounds I don’t recognize as my own.
Pregnant. I’m pregnant.
A baby growing in my body while my husband’s mistress threatens to take it.
A baby conceived in the dark, in the space between what we were and what we’ve become.
And he doesn’t even know it exists.
The thought propels me to my feet. I need air. I need space. I need to be somewhere that isn’t this room, this house, this prison disguised as a home.
I run.
Out the door, down the hallway, through the kitchen and out the back entrance.
The night air hits my face cold and sharp enough to sting, and I keep moving.
Into the vineyards. Between the rows of vines that have witnessed every milestone of my marriage.
Past the old stone wall where the pigeons used to lurk, where I first saw Santino and didn’t know my whole life was about to change.
I don’t stop until I’m deep in the oldest part of the vineyard, far from the house, far from anyone who might hear.
Then I collapse.
The dirt is cold against my knees, damp from recent rain, and I bury my hands in it like I can anchor myself to the ground. The sobs keep coming, wave after wave, and I’m drowning in them.
Twenty-eight years old.
Pregnant.
Alone in a foreign country with a family that wants to destroy me.
And the man I love, the man I married, is sleeping with someone else.
The image of them at the lake flashes through my mind. Our lake. Our waterfall. Allegra tucked against his side where I used to fit.
Allegra, in the place where we made promises.
The place where I thought we were forever.
I wrap my arms around my stomach, around the baby I didn’t know existed until an hour ago, and I rock back and forth in the dirt, crying for everything I’ve lost.
My marriage.
My husband.
My future.
And somewhere in the darkness, a baby who will be born into a war zone.
The wind picks up, carrying the scent of grapes and earth and approaching rain. I lift my face to the sky, let the cold air dry my tears, and I think about what Vittoria said.
You have until Santino leaves for Tokyo.
One week.
One week to figure out how to save myself and my child from a family with unlimited resources and no conscience.
I close my eyes and see Allegra’s smile. See the lake in that photograph. See the waterfall where I fell in love with a man who apparently fell right back out.
And I make a decision.
I’m not leaving.
And I’m not disappearing.
Vittoria wants a war. Fine.
I don’t know how yet. I don’t know what weapons I have left. But I know that Chiara is on my side, and I know that I understand every word they’ve said about me for three years, and I know that Vittoria Bianchi has underestimated me since the day I walked into her house covered in vineyard dirt.
She thinks I’m soft because I’ve been quiet.
She’s about to learn the difference.
The rain starts to fall as I push myself up from the ground, brushing the dirt from my knees with hands that have finally stopped shaking.
One week.
That’s all I need.
One week to burn this whole thing down.