The Silence That Heard Everything
In my seventh year of marriage to Lorenzo Moretti, the Don of New York's Moretti family, I was in a car accident. The cruelest irony? I had just regained my hearing.
Through the searing pain of steel twisting in my flesh, I managed to place a secure video call to Lorenzo.
Before I could even form the signs to explain, I heard my best friend’s cloying voice. "Lorenzo, are you going to stay with me and our daughter tonight?"
His face remained a mask of indifference as he signed that he was tied up with urgent family business and wouldn't be home, yet I heard him whisper tenderly to her, "Of course, baby!"
A sharp, tearing pain seized my lower abdomen. I looked down to see bright red blood streaming from between my thighs.
I frantically signed to him, my lips forming the words I couldn't speak, "Save the baby!"
But Lorenzo ignored my pleas, ending the call abruptly. When I tried to call back, his number was blocked.
I felt the last, faint flutter of my eight-month-old baby inside me, and then… nothing. He was gone.
At that exact moment, a photo arrived on my phone from a private account. It was her and Lorenzo, celebrating their child's birthday. In the picture, the little girl was sweetly calling Lorenzo "Papa."
Whatever was left of my heart incinerated. A surge of pure adrenaline and rage propelled me, and I dragged my mangled legs from the wreckage, crawling away just as the car exploded behind me.
I stared at the soaring flames, wrenched the wedding ring from my finger, and hurled it into the fire. Then, I sent a message to my estranged father: "Father, I agree to come home and take over the Vacchiano family business."