“Yes,” Lily whispered. “I will pretend to have a nightmare and scream as loud as I can and when the guards come running, Gianna will barge in and act like a bitch and tell them to be silent because you aren’t feeling well.”

I knew we’d only get rid of two guards that way. One guard would remain near the water because that was the most vulnerable spot on the premises, since there were no gates to overcome. I could only hope that the others would be distracted enough for me to slip out. I had all the necessary safety codes because Luca trusted me.

I hugged my sisters before I moved through the house. One guard always sat in the open living area. I crouched down and waited for Lily’s scream. When it came, the first guard came running out of the living room and up the stairs as expected, and I used the moment to rush downstairs and slip into the east wing. Lily’s screams died away when I entered the code into the lock at our back door and slipped out. I put on my wool cap and ran down the lawn, near the bushes toward the gates. The guard was gone from his spot. The gates were high, topped with barbwire and humming with electricity. It was the least likely spot for intruders to attack so the guards abandoned it first. Smiling, I keyed the second code into the system. The gate blinked once, and I slipped out then reactivated the lock.

These gates were supposed to keep people out, not lock us in. Yet, I’d have to ask Luca to up the protection around the perimeter once I was back in New York. Not wasting any time, I ran down the winding road until I reached the corner where I’d ordered the Uber driver to pick me up. When I spotted the car’s spotlights, I could have laughed with relief. Gianna and Lily would handle the rest. The guards wouldn’t check on me in my room unless prompted, and Luca had no reason to suspect anything, nor had anyone else. They trusted me.

I pushed my guilt aside.

The airplane was barely up in the air when nausea gripped me. I’d never reacted to flying that way. I quickly unbuckled my seat belt and rushed toward the bathroom. Throwing up in a narrow airplane toilet ranked high on my never-to-do list, but I couldn’t keep my food inside. The moment I bent over the grayish-blue toilet my stomach ejected my breakfast. I quickly flushed and washed my hands and face.

I still felt wrong, and slowly a horrible realization crept up on me. I was still overdue for my period. Fabi’s call had distracted me, but now it all came back. The missed pills, my nausea. I was almost two weeks overdue.

I sagged against the wall, trying to remember when that had happened last. In the first few years of me getting my period they had been very erratic, but since I’d started taking the pill shortly before my marriage to Luca that had changed. Two to three days, that still happened sometimes…but almost two weeks?

Things had been so stressful in the last few months because of Lily and Romero. How often had I forgotten to take the pill? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t counted. I should have counted after my call with Fabi.

A few times definitely, but I had been too busy worrying about my sister, about Luca, my marriage and everything else to pay it much attention.

Perhaps I was drawing the wrong conclusions. It could be that I was coming down with the flu, or that my stomach was reacting to the stress.

Yes, that was it.

With a shaking hand, I slid open the door and returned to my seat. The stewardess sent me a concerned look, but I gave her a quick smile to show I was all right. I didn’t want them to make an emergency landing because they thought I was seriously sick.

Back in my seat, I was overcome with worry. I couldn’t stop wondering. What if I was pregnant? The last time Luca and I had discussed the matter he had been very adamant about not wanting children in the near future. Things were too dangerous to bring a baby into this world. But when would that ever change, especially now that Dante had declared war on us? This war was ridiculous.

It didn’t make sense to work myself up over nothing. Nausea didn’t mean I was pregnant. Once I returned to New York, I could take a pregnancy test and then I’d know more. Until then I needed to focus on the task at hand. I had to get in contact with Val, talk her into arranging a meeting with Fabiano and try to convince him to come with me to New York. The last thing I wouldn’t mention to Val, though.

It was strange to be back in Chicago. The city I’d grown up in felt no longer like my home, and not because there was war between the Famiglia and the Outfit. I wasn’t the same person I’d been more than four years ago when I’d left for New York.

Yet, despite the war, the city didn’t feel any different than it had during any other visit. Everything was peaceful. People were looking forward to the Christmas holidays.

My hair was hidden beneath my wig and a scarf was wrapped around the lower half of my face. Luckily the Chicago winter warranted that kind of outfit, so I wouldn’t catch attention. Even my thick wool coat didn’t keep the cold from biting at my skin.

I walked the streets freely, as I hadn’t in a long time. It was exhilarating to be this free. I’d gotten used to the golden cage that was my life. I loved Luca. I couldn’t live without him, but sometimes I wished I had more freedoms. I knew there were limits to what he could allow me. He had helped me go to college for a while, something very few men in his position had done, but ultimately he and I would always be limited by the rules of mob life.

This was the first time in forever that I didn’t have a bodyguard trailing after me. I watched the passersby, wondering how they spent their days, how it felt to be free of the confines of the mafia I’d never been truly free, nor had my sisters, not even Gianna when she was on the run because it had always been that: running.

I’d never resented mob life as much as Gianna did, but sometimes I longed for moments of freedom. College had given me a taste, but it would always only be that—a short taste. I would never leave my world, not because Luca wouldn’t allow it, though that was true as well, but because it was the only place I truly belonged. It was the world I knew.

I hoped Val hadn’t changed her routine since the last time we talked on the phone. I had timed my entire plan around it.

I waited across from the restaurant where she met with Bibiana for brunch every Wednesday, cradling a coffee-to-go cup in my gloved hands in an attempt to stay warm despite the freezing temperatures. Relief washed over me when a black Mercedes limousine with tinted windows finally pulled up in front of the restaurant and Val got out, as tall and regal as always, her baby bump straining against her coat. She must have been in her ninth month. Would I look like that in eight months? I pushed the thought aside. This wasn’t the time for daydreaming.

Val wasn’t alone. She held the hand of a little girl, her three-year-old daughter, Anna. I couldn’t help but smile, but it died when I realized that I wouldn’t see her grow up despite being her godmother. Two bodyguards followed them into the restaurant. I knew their faces but not their names.

Checking the street for traffic, I quickly crossed over to the other side and headed inside the bistro-like restaurant. I didn’t have a reservation but I hoped they’d be able to squeeze me in. I approached the waiter, taking my wool cap off and hoping my wig would hide my identity, but I had to lower my scarf. I kept my back to the seating area. I knew Val’s bodyguards would be watching me, because I had entered after them.