“I have a daughter.”
His head jerks to mine, his eyes widening in shock.
“That’s what Matteo – what he took from me, that day. Who he was talking about. A little girl, with green eyes.”
The words feel like razor blades in my throat.
“V’Arezzo eyes.” The quiet statement surprises me, but I suppose it shouldn’t. He sees more than I ever realized. “You left – last year. That’s why?”
“Yes.”
When I shift back, curling up on the bed, he hesitates before he slowly lowers himself opposite me. We lay facing each other, inches apart as I summon up those memories that I locked away, locked down.
“I didn’t realize.” I grip the bedding in my fingers. “Not for a long time. We were careful, but not careful enough. And when I finally understood… I was so scared.”
Petrified in a way I had never been before, at the possibility of a child.
“It ripped my world apart,” I murmur. “I didn’t know what to do. So I went home. And my father - he wasfuriouswith me. For the first time, he treated me like I had failed. I wouldn’t tell him who I’d been with, so he assumed it was a Corvo. If he’d known it was Dante… I was scared, but I didn’t want him to use her. She would have been a bargaining chip. Something to be hoarded and traded to the highest bidder, to make the V’Arezzo’s pay whatever price he wanted.”
Like I was, in the end. And so was she, despite everything I did to stop it from happening.
His fingers reach for mine again. And it loosens something in my chest to hold onto him as it pours out.
“On the day that she was born, it rained. And as soon as it was over, the rain stopped. But they took her.”
There is no judgment in his gaze. “Did you want them to?”
“I… I don’t know,” I admit it. The truth. “Maybe before. I never planned to be a mother so young. But not once she was here. I wanted to hold her, to think and plan and try to find a way to keep her, but the midwife walked out with her, and my father told me she would be adopted. Slipped into the system, so nobody would know.”
The cotton turns damp beneath my face. “I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted her close, with people who would care about her. And Dom – he knew. He was with me, and he suggested his sister and her husband. They were struggling to have children of their own, desperate for their own family, and they were – Iknewthem. Knew they would take care of her.”
My breath shudders. “So I made a deal with my father. She would go to Bea and Pepe, and I would focus on my role as the Corvo heir. I wouldn’t… step out of line, wouldn’t do anything to embarrass him. And I would never, ever see her, or speak of her. So I named her Alessia, and Dom took her to them. And… that was that. It took me a few weeks to recover, and then I came back to campus like nothing had ever happened. I lied to Dante. I couldn’t – I knew he would fight for her, and I was soscaredthat my father would change his mind. That I would lose even that little piece of her.”
I pretended that nothing had changed.
Like I had not changed, irrevocably altered. No longer only the Corvo heir, focused and cold.
Everything changed.
“They loved her so much.” My voice breaks. “They were the kind of parents I would have liked to have. That she deserved tohave. And Matteo – he killed them, and he took Alessia. I don’t know where she is now.”
“Cat.” He brushes tear-soaked hair away from my face. I close my eyes, feeling his lips on my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. He whispers it over and over again as I lean into him, his arms wrapping around me, holding me together. “I’m sorry.”
It’s a long time before I lift my head again. Stefan’s eyelashes cast dark shadows across his cheeks, the thin lines of light gone under the blanket of night.
“They always win.” My voice feels hoarse. Stefan frowns, trying to follow my words. “Men like Salvatore, and Matteo. They always win because it’s easy, when you have nothing you care about. Nothing tolose.”
He hums into my hair. “I don’t believe that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
His fingers trace shapes on my back. “Look at what you have done, Caterina Corvo. How far would you go for the ones you love?”
I try to answer, but… I can’t.
“Are you done?” The question is gentle. “Done fighting?”
