Before the Council Named Me Donna Chapter 08

Before the Council Named Me Donna Chapter 08

Nico did not argue, did not bargain, and did not turn my exhaustion into an opening. He only waited until I looked away and said, “Being pregnant with Matteo’s child does not make you damaged, Elena. It makes him an idiot for losing you.”

The bluntness startled a laugh out of me, small and tired but real. Nico’s expression softened for a second before he looked away, giving me the dignity of pretending he had not noticed.

We did not go upstairs to the safe apartment. After sitting in the garage for a long moment, I asked Nico to take me to the Rossi townhouse, and he drove me there without asking why.

I had planned to tell my parents everything with perfect composure, but the moment my mother opened the door and saw my face, all the words I had rehearsed collapsed. I told them about the alliance contract, the delayed ceremony, Vanessa, the pregnancy, Florence, and the separation notice. I expected anger, disappointment, maybe the cold Rossi silence I had grown up fearing.

Instead, my mother pulled me into her arms.

“My girl,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Why did you think you had to carry this alone?”

My father stood behind her, jaw tight, eyes red with the kind of fury that did not need volume.

“Matteo De Luca will not come through this door unless you invite him,” he said. “Not as a husband. Not as a capo. Not as the father of that child.”

For the first time in days, I breathed without measuring it.

That night, I slept in my old room, beneath the faded fresco ceiling I had once hated because it made the house feel too heavy with history. Without Matteo’s warmth beside me, I expected the bed to feel empty. Instead, it felt

safe.

I had mistaken chaos for love for too long.

Peace felt unfamiliar, but not lonely.

After Nico and I left the clinic, Matteo remained in the corridor until the staff asked him to go. He returned to the penthouse near midnight, but the rooms offered him nothing except silence, the brooch in its case, and the legal

notice on his desk.

By then, the pieces had begun arranging themselves.

The security notification sent to Elena by mistake. The Palm Beach photo. The signet on the jet table. The way Vanessa had watched Elena leave the Aurelia Club with satisfaction too polished to be accidental.

Only one person had known exactly where to place the knife.

Matteo called Vanessa from the darkened east studio.

She answered on the third ring, music and laughter spilling through the line. “Matteo. Finally bored of playing husband?”

His grip tightened around the phone. “You sent Elena the photo.”

Vanessa laughed softly. “Which one? You were careless more than once.”

The ease of her confession struck colder than denial would have. “Why?”

“Because she was starting to believe she mattered.”

A man’s voice sounded behind her, asking who was calling. Vanessa answered without lowering the phone.

“No one important. Just an old habit.”

Matteo closed his eyes.

For years, he had remembered her as unfinished business, the girl who had slipped out of reach before he could. prove himself worthy. Now he heard the truth in her voice and understood that she had never wanted him, only the power of being wanted by him.

“You came back to ruin my marriage.”

“I came back to see whether my old dog still remembered his leash,” she said, bored now. “He did.”

Something in him went still.

Vanessa sighed. “If you want her so badly, go crawl. It might be entertaining.”

The line went dead.

Matteo stood in Elena’s studio with the phone still at his ear, surrounded by the empty places she had left behind. The shame came slowly, then all at once, sharp enough to make him reach for the desk to steady himself.

Vanessa had used him because she knew he would let her.

Elena had left because she knew it too.

For the first time, Matteo understood that losing her had not happened when she blocked his number or filed the separation notice. It had happened earlier, in the private elevator, at the dinner table, in every silence where he had chosen convenience over her dignity.

He threw the phone against the wall.

The screen shattered across the floor, but the room stayed silent.

Elena was still gone.