He didn't wait for me to answer. Just grabbed his jacket and left. I heard the front door close, then the crunch of gravel under tires, then nothing. The bodyguard who always trailed him followed without a word.
The second the door shut, Carlo and Giovanna dropped the fake politeness. Giovanna's fingers drifted to the string of black pearls at her throat, a single precise touch, as if confirming something was still in place.
"We'll give you less than a month. If you don't conceive again, don't ever dare show your face in this house. You come from nothing. Both your parents gone, no name, no wealth. Without Marcello, you're no one. Don't think we'll tolerate you forever."
Their words kept cutting, sharper each time, until it felt like the walls themselves were pressing in. The dining room of the Castellano estate, with its oil paintings of dead patriarchs and its heavy curtains that smelled of old money and older secrets, had never felt smaller.
And Marcello? He never came back.
Marcello finally showed up that evening, calm as ever, like nothing happened. We got into the car, the leather still warm from the sun.
I glanced out the window and asked lightly, "You done with work?"