Chapter 2
Emma began crying before anyone asked her another question.
Not from weakness.
From relief.
I sat beside her and placed one hand over hers while the nurse moved our son closer to the bed.
Margaret remained near the wall.
My bodyguards remained at the door.
Nobody touched her.
Nobody needed to.
“What did she try to do?” I asked Emma.
My wife looked toward my mother.
Margaret immediately said, “Adrian, don’t interrogate her after childbirth.”
Emma laughed weakly.
“You were doing it twenty minutes ago.”
I looked at her.
“What happened?”
Emma took a breath.
After our son was born, Margaret arrived before Linda.
She congratulated Emma.
Kissed her forehead.
Held the baby.
Perfect mother-in-law.
Then she began asking when I would arrive.
Emma said soon.
Margaret asked whether I had seen the baby yet.
No.
That was when her behavior changed.
“She told me this was my last chance.”
My jaw tightened.
“Last chance for what?”
“To leave you.”
Margaret scoffed.
Emma ignored her.
“She said once you saw your son, I’d become permanent.”
I looked at my mother.
“Permanent.”
Margaret lifted her chin.
“You know what she means.”
“No. I want to hear what you mean.”
Her voice became colder.
“Children change arrangements.”
There it was.
My marriage was an arrangement to her.
My son was a complication.
Emma continued.
Margaret told her the Moretti family needed an heir raised correctly. She said Emma had already turned me against too many traditions and that once I became a father, I would listen to my wife even more.
Emma refused to argue.
So Margaret threatened her.
“She said if I stayed, you’d see something you couldn’t forgive.”
Linda covered her mouth.
I looked at the black-stained gauze.
“The pigment.”
Emma nodded.
“And the bracelet?”
“I didn’t know.”
The nurse spoke.
“If another infant’s identification band had been placed on him, it would have created immediate confusion about which baby belonged to which mother.”
Margaret snapped, “I was correcting confusion.”
I stared at her.
“You created it.”
She said nothing.
Then Linda finally spoke again.
“This didn’t start today.”
I turned toward her.
She looked at Emma.
May you like
Then at me.
“Your mother has been trying to remove my daughter from your family since the pregnancy began.”
