Chapter 10
He seized Katarina by the throat. His fingers locked like iron around the column of her neck, and
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After Learned His Love Was a Lie, I Disappeared
he snarled the question through clenched teeth, his face close enough to hers that she could see
the burst vessels threading his eyes. The two soldiers at the door did not move. No one in the
‘oom breathed.
‘It had to be you. How else would Gioia have found out?”
That day you showed up uninvited, she must have seen you!”
Katarina clawed at his hand, shaking her head frantically, gasping for breath. Her heels scraped
against the marble floor as he lifted her half off the ground, and the sound was thin and
desperate, like an animal in a trap.
‘Katarina Ferro! I warned you never to let this reach Gioia!”
Katarina stared at the man before her in sheer terror. She was carrying his child, and he was
rying to kill her. Her fingers found the hollow of her throat, pressing there out of reflex even as
nis grip crushed against them, the gesture collapsing into something that was no longer
performance but pure animal fear.
‘No, Ermanno, I didn’t mean to!”
‘Please, for the baby’s sake, spare me!”
Ermanno’s eyes were bloodshot, the veins standing out at his temples like cords. “The baby? You
dare bring up the baby now?”
You must have paraded yourself in front of Gioia, flaunted everything, and drove her away!”
He drove his foot into Katarina’s slightly swollen belly. She crumpled instantly, her knees hitting
he marble with a crack that echoed off the study walls, and she clutched her stomach, writhing
on the floor. Blood seeped out beneath her, spreading in a slow, dark stain across the pale stone.
One of the household attendants pressed her fist against her mouth. The soldiers looked at the
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ceiling.
Katarina begged him, sobbing, crawling toward him on her elbows, and he kicked her aside with
he flat of his shoe as though she were something that had fallen from a shelf.
I told you what you were. A plaything. Not fit to be seen in polite company. And you had the
nerve to flaunt yourself in front of Gioia!”
I couldn’t even bear to see her shed a single tear, and you used that thing in your belly to lord it
over her!”
Someone! Drag her out and get rid of the bastard in her womb!”
Katarina let out one ragged scream, “No!” and then the pain swallowed her whole. Two soldiers
stepped forward without hesitation, lifting her by the arms. Her feet dragged across the marble,
eaving a thin smear of red, and the study doors closed behind her with a sound like a coffin lid
settling into place.
Ermanno tore the separation documents to shreds, piece by piece, his hands shaking so badly
hat the paper caught and ripped in uneven strips. Then he pulled the lovebird handkerchief from
his breast pocket and clutched it against his chest, pressing it there the way a man presses a
wound to stop the bleeding, and wept like a child through the entire night. The study lamp
burned down to nothing. The soldiers outside the door heard him and said nothing to each other,
because there was nothing to say. A Don weeping was not something that existed in their world,
and so they decided, silently and collectively, that it had not happened.
Rosa watched the broken man before her. Her hands were still folded, left over right, thumbs
pressed together. Then, without flinching, she unfolded them, and the truth came out.
‘Sir, Signora went to the safehouse. I don’t know what she saw there, but when she came back,
she looked like her soul had left her body. Her face was streaked with tears…”
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