Dominic's POV
"You're lying."
The words left my mouth before I could stop them. Elena stood in my office doorway, holding papers that looked like they'd been pulled from hell itself. Her hands shook, but her eyes? They burned with something I'd never seen before—pure hatred.
"Am I?" She threw the contract on my desk. It landed with a slap that echoed in the silent room. "Read it, Dominic. Read every single word you signed."
My stomach twisted as I recognized the expensive paper, the legal letterhead. Our prenuptial agreement. But something was wrong. The margins were covered in handwriting I knew too well—my mother's elegant, controlling script.
Clause 47b: In the event of pregnancy, the child shall remain with the Russo family. The wife forfeits all parental rights upon separation.
The room spun.
"I never—" I looked up at Elena, my throat closing. "I didn't write this."
"But you signed it!" Her voice cracked. "You sat there with your expensive pen and your family lawyer and you signed away our son before he was even born!"
Our son. Adrian. The little boy I'd met yesterday who had my eyes, my smile, my everything.
"Elena, I swear, I didn't know this was in here." I stood up, reaching for her, but she jerked back like I'd struck her. "My mother must have added it. I was twenty-four years old. I signed whatever they put in front of me because that's what Russos do. We obey. We don't question."
"Liar." The word came out as a whisper, somehow worse than if she'd screamed it. "You knew exactly what kind of family you came from. You knew what they were capable of. And you still chose them over me."
My chest felt like it was caving in. "That's not fair—"
"Fair?" Elena laughed, and it was the most terrible sound I'd ever heard. "You want to talk about fair? I was nineteen years old, Dominic. Nineteen. I found out I was pregnant and ran to tell you, so happy I could barely breathe. And do you know what your mother did? She sat me down in that huge library and made me read every word of this contract."
She grabbed the papers off my desk and shook them at me.
"She told me that if I stayed, if I had your baby, the Russo family would take him. She said I was too young, too poor, too common to raise a Russo heir properly. She said you knew. She said you agreed."
"No." The word ripped out of me. "No, I never—"
"She showed me your signature, Dominic! Right there at the bottom, next to all those horrible words about taking my child away from me like I was some kind of incubator!"
Tears streamed down her face now, and I'd never felt so helpless in my entire life.
"I ran," she continued, her voice breaking. "I packed one bag and I ran because I knew—I KNEW—that if I stayed, if I had Adrian in this city, your family would take him from me. And you would let them because that's what you do. You let them control everything."
"Elena—"
"Don't." She held up her hand. "Don't say my name like that. Don't look at me with those eyes like you're the victim here. You signed this. Whether you read it or not, whether you understood it or not, you signed it. You chose your family over ours before we even had a chance."
The truth of her words hit me like a physical blow. She was right. I had been so desperate to please my parents, so desperate to be the perfect Russo son, that I'd signed away everything that mattered without even looking.
"I would never have let them take him," I said quietly. "If I'd known—"
"But you didn't know. And that's the problem, isn't it? You were so busy being the dutiful son that you never stopped to think about what you were really agreeing to. About who might get hurt."
She turned toward the door.
"Elena, wait. Please. We can fix this. I can—"
"There's nothing to fix." She looked back at me, and her eyes were empty now. Worse than angry. Just... done. "The contract expired when I didn't return within six months. Your mother's lawyer made sure of that. But it doesn't matter anymore, does it? Because you showed me exactly who you are. Who you've always been."
The door started to close behind her.
"Adrian's sick."
I froze. "What?"
She didn't turn around. "He has a heart condition. The same one that killed your brother when you were kids. That's why I came back. That's the only reason. Manhattan Memorial has the best pediatric cardiac unit in the country, and my son deserves the best."
The door slammed shut.
I stood there, staring at the space where she'd been, her words echoing in my head.
The same condition that killed your brother.
My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone and dialed. It rang once. Twice.
"Mother," I said when she answered. "We need to talk. Now."
"Dominic, darling, I'm in the middle of—"
"Did you know about Adrian's heart?"
Silence. Long, damning silence.
Then: "What makes you think there's anything wrong with the boy?"
My blood turned to ice.
She knew.
My mother knew my son was sick, and she hadn't told me.
The question was: what else had she done?