Chapter 7 #3
For the first time, my brothers really saw me. They saw my blazer, which, despite my defensive posture, could no longer hide the unmistakable seven-month bump.
The shock on Enzo’s face was plain to see. He took a step forward.
“Bianca?” His voice was almost a whisper, confused. “What… what is he talking about? What pregnancy?”
I couldn’t breathe. The whole room was spinning. My armor, my reputation, my secret… all shattered on the floor, along with the decanter. I was exposed. In front of the men I’d spent my life trying to prove I was stronger than.
“It’s my son!” Marco shouted, taking a step toward me, stunning the room. “The child she’s carrying is mine!”
It was a mistake.
The moment Marco moved, Enzo reacted. The Ferraros’ protective instinct was a primal thing. Enzo crossed the three meters that separated them and struck him.
It was a heavy, brutal punch that caught Marco off guard. Marco’s head snapped to the side, and he staggered backward, slamming into the wall, blood instantly trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t touch her!” Enzo roared.
“Enzo, stop!” I shouted, but my voice was lost in the chaos.
Matteo didn't move to attack. He did something even colder. With a nod, he signaled to the security guards.
“Get him out of here.”
Marco wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn’t seem angry about the punch; he looked like a man waking up from a nightmare. His wild green eyes met mine.
“Bianca!” he shouted as the security guards grabbed him by the arms.
Marco didn’t fight the men. He fought me—with his eyes.
“I was tricked! Silvio lied! I would never have left if I’d known! Bianca, please! He’s my son!”
My rage had burned itself out. Only panic remained—pure horror. My brothers knew. The world would know.
“Get him out of here!” I shouted at the security guards, my voice finally breaking into a sob.
They dragged him out. Marco didn’t stop screaming my name down the hallway, his voice echoing, filled with pain that was identical to mine.
The door finally closed.
I turned around, shaking uncontrollably. The strength that had kept me standing vanished. I clung to the edge of the mahogany table as the whole world tilted dangerously.
Enzo and Matteo were still there. Motionless. They weren’t looking at me; they were staring intently at my belly.
The CEO’s mask—my armor of coldness—was in pieces. I instinctively pulled at my blazer, in a futile gesture to hide the obvious.
“Bianca?” Matteo’s voice was the first to speak. It wasn’t the sarcastic tone he always used with me. It was a voice I didn’t recognize: low, hoarse, laden with deep shock.
I couldn’t answer. My throat was tight.
“Seven months.” It was Enzo who spoke now, taking a step forward. He wasn’t asking. He was stating a fact. His eyes, always so volcanic, were dark. “You’ve been hiding this for seven months. From us…”
His words were an accusation, and my defenses snapped back into place.
“That’s none of your business,” I said, my voice unsteady despite my effort to keep it cool.
“It’s none of our business?” Matteo exploded, his shock giving way to Ferraro outrage. He advanced, stopping a few meters from me. “That bastard humiliates you in front of all of Italy, disappears, and you’re carrying his child? And you don’t tell us?”
The injustice of their concern was suffocating. They… The men I’d had to save from themselves.
I let out a laugh. The sound was ugly, broken, and echoed through the devastated room.
“Tell you? What for?”
My voice rose, sharp as the glass on the floor. I straightened up, using my anger as a corset.
“So you could ‘fix’ it? So you could deal with it?”
I pointed an unsteady finger at Enzo.
“So you could do what? Punch him in the middle of a restaurant and almost ruin Ferraro Uomo’s reputation?”
Then I turned to Matteo.
“Or you? What would you have suggested, Matteo? That I seek therapy?” My voice dripped with sarcasm. “Maybe you’d tell me to hide the baby, run away for six years, and pretend nothing happened? Give me a break.”
They both recoiled as if I’d slapped them. The mention of their failures—Larissa’s pain and Priscilla’s secret—hit home.
“That’s low, Bianca. Even for you,” Enzo growled, the pain evident on his face. “We just… we would have protected you.”
“I don’t need protection!” I shouted. “I am the fucking protection! Who do you think held this empire together while the two of you were falling apart because of them? Me!”
I was gasping for breath, the baby kicking violently inside me, protesting my anguish.
“Bianca, stop this.” Matteo stepped closer, and for the first time, I saw real tears glistening in his eyes. He was no longer the brother who used to tease me. He was a father and a husband. “You’re shaking, you’re pregnant, and we just want to help…”
Help… Pity…
I was tired of pity; it only made me feel even worse about everything that had happened to me.
I had promised myself many times that I wouldn’t let men like my brothers destroy me the way they had destroyed their wives, yet despite having spent my whole life telling myself I was strong, their expressions only showed just how much I had failed.
“I don’t need your help,” I hissed. “I don’t need your pity. I’m not like you. I’m not a victim who needs to be saved. I cleaned up your mess. I held this empire together. I didn’t ask for your help before, and I don’t want it now.” My voice dropped to a near whisper. “I need to be alone.”
They hesitated, a shared pain between them. Two powerful men, utterly helpless in the face of my ruin.
“Bianca, don’t be…” Enzo began.
“GET OUT!”
My roar was primal, the sound of something cornered finally breaking free. It was so loud it made the shards of glass on the floor vibrate.
“NOW! BOTH OF YOU! GET OUT!”
They stared at me. Shock, pain, anger, and finally, a defeated realization.
Enzo, his jaw clenched, nodded once. He placed his hand on Matteo’s shoulder; Matteo looked as if he were about to cry out of frustration.
“Let’s go,” Enzo said, his voice exhausted. “She needs…”
“I don’t need anything!” I shouted at their backs. “Just get out!”
They left, closing the broken doors as tightly as they could.
I was alone.
My legs, which had held me up during the battle, finally gave way. The rigid strength in my spine dissolved.
I slid down the side of my desk, falling to my knees on the marble floor, among the shards of glass and the puddle of whiskey. The armor was gone. I buried my face in my shaking hands, and for the first time since I’d been abandoned at the altar, Bianca Ferraro broke down.