Chapter 1 - The First Unanswered Call
The voicemail beep echoed in the quiet space of Isabella’s kitchen, sharp and clinical.
She lowered her phone, her fingers trembling slightly against the cool glass screen. The pain in her lower abdomen rolled inward again, a fierce, tightening band that stole the breath right out of her lungs. She gripped the edge of the marble island, knuckles turning white as she fought the wave of nausea and contraction.
"Come on, Dante," she whispered into the empty room, her voice shaking. "Just pick up."
She didn't call his office. She didn't call Marco or any of the security detail assigned to the perimeter. For months, she had lived by the unwritten rule of the Moretti household: Never pull Dante away from his chessboard.
Tonight, however, the chessboard was a ballroom filled with politicians and flashbulbs, and the piece being sacrificed was her.
She waited five agonizing minutes, pacing slowly across the kitchen floor as the rain beat a furious tattoo against the massive glass windows overlooking Massachusetts Bay. The storm outside had intensified, howling through the cliffs and rattling the heavy storm shutters.
Her phone remained completely silent.
When the second contraction hit, sharper and closer than the first, Isabella realized she couldn't wait for him. She reached for the landline on the wall, her fingers flying over the emergency buttons to dial Dr. Sophia Marino’s private line.
"Sophia," Isabella said the moment the line connected, fighting to keep her voice steady. "It’s Isabella. The contractions are five minutes apart. I think it’s happening."
"Where is Dante?" Sophia’s voice was crisp, immediate, and entirely professional.
"He's... he's at the Continental Trade Summit in the city," Isabella lied instinctively, unwilling to admit aloud that her husband was entirely unreachable. "Traffic is bad because of the storm. I’m heading to St. Jude’s Memorial now."
"Don't drive yourself, Isabella," Sophia ordered sharply. "Call an ambulance or have your security detail take you. I’m meeting you at the delivery ward. I’ll clear the surgical team immediately."
Isabella hung up. She walked heavily toward the grand hallway, stopping at the foot of the sweeping staircase. Her overnight bag sat packed on the bench, exactly where she had left it three days ago.
She picked it up, her chest aching with a hollow, suffocating pain that had nothing to do with the labor contractions writhing through her body.
She dialed Dante’s cell phone a second time.
May you like
It went straight to voicemail again.
Forty-seven unanswered calls. That was how many she would end up making before the night was over. Each one a silent monument to a marriage built on glass foundations, shattering quietly under the weight of an empire.
