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The Wife He Froze, The Don He Failed to Kill
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Eight months pregnant, I carried a folder of papers up to Cassian's private office in the Falcone tower. Inside, the air was scorching, some forty-six degrees, thick enough to choke on. Just as I reac...
章節（4）
第1章
Eight months pregnant, I carried a folder of papers up to Cassian's private office in the Falcone tower.
Inside, the air was scorching, some forty-six degrees, thick enough to choke on. Just as I reached for the climate control on the wall, the girl at his side stopped me. She'd been placed there by the family, a courier who'd learned to smile at the right men.
"Signora," she said sweetly, "it's my time of the month. I get cold so easily. Please, don't touch it."
I looked at her from the side. My child was growing inside me, and heat like this could kill us both. Without a word, I turned the cooling on anyway.
That evening Cassian came back from a dinner across town and pushed through the door already burning with anger.
"Adriana, Serafina is on her period! Do you even understand that thirty-eight minutes and nineteen seconds of cold air put her in a hospital bed with cramps that nearly gutted her?"
I stared at him, not believing my ears.
"Cassian, are you mocking me because I don't bleed the way she does? I am eight months pregnant. If the heat takes me, that isn't discomfort, it's two coffins. Are you drunk?"
He curled his lips into a mocking smile and nodded slowly. "You're right. That was foolish of me."
That night he held me the way he always had, whispering soft nothings against my hair until I slipped into sleep.
But when I woke, I was no longer in our bed. I was inside a walk-in freezer, walls of glass on every side, the kind they used in the family's front warehouses to move product that couldn't spoil.
Beyond the glass stood a crowd of the crew's sons, the hangers-on and made men's boys, laughing and pointing at me. Cassian stood among them, his arm wrapped around Serafina's slender waist. They looked at me and chuckled.
"Afraid of the heat?" he sneered. "Then let's cool you down properly tonight, cara."
My heart sank.
Calmly, I drew out my phone and photographed every face beyond the glass. Then I dialed a number I knew by heart.
"Papà," I said coldly, "I don't want a single one of these people to see the sun come up tomorrow."
——
There was silence on the line. Then I hung up.
The laughter around me erupted.
"Adriana, your father was dropped into the open sea and fed to the sharks six months ago. Has the cold frozen your brain? Or were you always this stupid?"
"Still playing the Falcone heiress? Not even in your wildest dreams do you get to imagine that anymore."
Cassian watched with pride as his crew tore into me. He slid the fur from his own shoulders and draped it gently over Serafina, then walked slow and easy toward the glass.
He tapped the surface with one finger and smiled, cold as the room he'd put me in.
"Adriana, are you cold now? Do you finally understand what you did wrong?"
The red thermometer outside read minus fifty.
I was shivering, still in the thin nightclothes I'd worn to bed the night before. Where my skin met the frozen floor it had turned blue and numb. The cold pierced like knives.
Shaking hard, I stumbled to the glass and slammed my fist against it.
"Cassian, what did I do wrong? It was forty-six degrees in that room. I only turned on the air! A woman carrying a child cannot take that heat. If I had collapsed, it would have been two lives lost!"
A pain twisted sudden and sharp through my belly.
I clutched myself and folded down onto the ice, eyes bloodshot as I glared up at him.
"Cassian, let me out. You know better than anyone what I suffered to carry this child. I cannot lose him."
Something flickered behind his eyes.
He, of all men, knew what I had gone through.
An accident years back had left Cassian unable to father a child. For eight years I endured thousands of injections, needles the length of my forearm, just to draw out eggs that might hold. Only after all those years had we finally made this baby.
Eight months of careful rest, flat on my back, everything I had given to protect him.
I still remembered the night a servant brought me sugar water that had gone lukewarm, and how the rage took him. He broke her arm for it.
And now, for Serafina's period, he didn't think twice before sealing me inside a freezer.
My chest tightened with bitter despair. Just as I opened my mouth to speak again, Serafina peeled off the fur Cassian had just given her and pressed herself to his arm, tears brimming at the edges of her eyes.
"Cassian, let your wife out," she said softly. "She's delicate, she's frail. She won't survive this. Not like me. I'm only a poor girl, used to going without. I've fainted in freezing rooms before, and I never even dared to complain."
第2章
Collapsed from the cold?
All I had done was run the air conditioner for half an hour. When I walked out of Cassian's study, Serafina had still been smiling, whispering with the other courier girls about which club they'd hit that night.
I opened my mouth to explain. But Cassian's face went flat in a single breath, the way it did when a soldier had earned a bullet. His voice dropped several degrees colder.
"Somebody get in there and take her coat off her. She's supposed to be the Don's precious blood, isn't she? So delicate, so pampered. Let her learn how gutter-born kids like me survived."
He bent and picked up the fur.
With something almost gentle, he settled it over Serafina's shoulders, then turned his eyes on me with a contempt cold as the room itself.
"You come out when you understand what you did. The doctor said our son is perfectly healthy. Don't think you can hide behind that belly to skip your punishment."
With that he swept Serafina into his arms. His voice went soft, dripping with a tenderness he had never once spent on me.
"Serafina, you're bleeding this week. Your feet have to stay warm. Just stay right here against me. Let's see who has the nerve to complain now."
The moment he sat down with her across his lap, a knot of his crew came toward me, cruel amusement on every face.
I pressed myself into the corner, clutching the thin nightgown tight to my body. But no resistance I had could stand against several grown men who broke bones for a living.
Seconds later the flimsy fabric tore clean in two.
Cold air drove through my skin all at once, seeping into every pore.
Laughing, they stripped the rest away. When they walked back out, they were grinning at Cassian like men returning from a good night's card game at the social club.
"Dio, Cassian, you know how to live. Your wife's got a body on her, and no shame about it either."
"Appreciate you letting us take such good care of her."
I was left in my undergarments, curled on the freezing floor. The last warmth in my skin met the ice beneath me and tore at my flesh with every small shift.
Blistering pain ripped through me. Raw skin split open, and blood came slowly to the surface.
Bright red against the glowing white of the freezer floor.
Cassian saw it. He set Serafina down carefully and stepped forward, his eyes locked on the widening smear of blood crawling toward his feet.
Before he could speak, Serafina rushed over and pressed her hand flat to the glass, trembling as she stared at the blood.
"Please, Adriana... just say you were wrong," she begged, her voice shaking. "There are so many of Cassian's men watching... if you won't, he can't let you off. Not in front of all of them."
I stared daggers at her.
"Why should I apologize? I saw how comfortable you were under that vent. You even made plans with your girls to go out that night—"
Cassian's gaze flicked toward Serafina. Something uncertain moved behind his eyes.
But before I could finish, Serafina struck herself across the face with a loud crack, then dropped to her knees with a dramatic thud.
Seizing Cassian's hand, she sobbed, "Cassian, I can't stand to watch her suffer like this... If she still won't admit her mistake, then let me kneel out here beside her!"
The instant her knees hit the floor, every trace of doubt drained from Cassian's eyes. For half a heartbeat, before her tears had even finished falling, the corner of her mouth curved.
He bent quickly to lift her up, his face twisting with disgust as he turned it back on me. His thumb worked at the signet ring on his right hand, rubbing the face of it round and round.
"Adriana, you've been spoiled rotten your whole life. Serafina has swallowed your arrogance in silence for years. Now you're the one in the wrong, and she's still worried about saving my face. She's willing to suffer for you."
"You don't deserve her mercy."
"Tonight I'm going to break that pampered temper out of you for good. You don't admit you were wrong, you don't come out of that room."
He turned and gestured to the men behind him.
"Bring in more ice. Wall her in with it. And pour water over her too. I want her frozen to the walls."
He hadn't even finished speaking when—
第3章
Just then, one of the girls tugged nervously at Cassian's sleeve.
"Cassian, pouring water over ice makes it stick to skin like glue," she said timidly. "If she moves even a little, her flesh will tear. She's due any day now. Something terrible could happen..."
His hand, mid-gesture, paused in the air.
He hesitated.
But before the moment could shift, a soft, pitiful voice came from behind him.
"Cassian... let it go. My time in the hospital wasn't as unbearable as you imagine..."
Serafina's words instantly turned his hesitation to stone. His gaze darkened.
The hand he had paused slowly lowered as his voice turned cold again.
"Do exactly as I said."
The young courier opened her mouth to protest again, but Cassian waved her off.
"What she's going through is nothing compared to what Serafina suffered. I already have a car waiting outside the tower. What could possibly go wrong?"
With that, she fell silent.
Now emboldened by Cassian's command, the men returned to the freezer, this time carrying even more blocks of ice.
One of them grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me upright. They surrounded me with slabs of ice, building a wall around my body.
Then a basin of icy water was dumped over my head.
The next second, my skin adhered to the ice like glue, bonded by freezing water. Each breath burned my throat. Each pore pulled tight with searing pain as the cold seeped into my bones.
I glanced at the clock. Even in this dying room, it kept ticking, indifferent, loud.
I'd been trapped in the freezer for over five hours.
My limbs had turned dark purple from the cold.
To shield my unborn child, I tried to shift my body slightly, to find a posture where my stomach might retain some warmth.
But every tiny movement ripped more of my flesh from the ice.
The baby's movements inside me had grown faint. Alarmingly faint.
I gritted my teeth, ignoring the raw pain as chunks of skin tore away. Slowly, I maneuvered my body to shield my belly as best I could.
Bright red blood began to smear across the crystal-clear ice.
By the time I managed to reposition myself, the once-clear ice around me was stained a ghastly crimson.
The laughter outside died.
Even the crew who had leered at me moments before fell silent at the sight. In the Family, blood spilled from the Don's own line was a line no soldier crossed without paying for it. They knew it. It showed in the way they stopped looking at each other.
Through the blur of blood and frost, I glared at Cassian and screamed hoarsely, "Cassian! If anything, anything happens to this baby, then you, his own blood father, are his murderer! I swear I'll pray day and night to his spirit, so that you never know peace!"
His expression wavered.
The steel in his eyes faltered as he stepped closer, peering through the blood-fogged glass. His right hand rose, thumb dragging once across the face of his signet ring.
Then a shout rang out behind him.
"Cassian! Word just came up from the street. There's a plane sitting on the Falcone family's private route!"
Cassian's face drained of color. His expression twisted with panic and fury.
He pounded his fist against the glass, roaring at me. "Adriana! What the hell is this?! You think you can scare me with the Falcone name forever?!"
Before I could answer, Serafina rushed to his side, gently rubbing his back and shooting me a look that combined hurt with quiet blame.
"Adriana, if you won't admit your mistake, that's fine. But why must you torture Cassian like this?" she said, tears glimmering in her eyes. "You know how much he suffered back when the old Don was still alive. Now Salvatore's gone, and everything the Falcones held has long been carved up and sold off. What's the point of staging this farce?"
Then she gently tugged Cassian's hand, her voice like a breeze as she added, "Let it go, Cassian. Let her out. If something really happens to the baby, we'll be the ones they blame. It's not like she ever cared about gutter-born nobodies like us anyway."
For half a beat, before the last tear had finished falling, the corner of her mouth ticked upward.
Her words didn't soothe him. They only fanned the flames.
His eyes lit with renewed rage. He spat out a curse, then snapped toward his men with a roar. "Turn the freezer down to negative 100 degrees! Do it. Now!"
第4章
Seeing Cassian erupt, the men behind him didn't dare breathe a word.
In silence they turned the freezer down to negative one hundred degrees.
In an instant a wave of bone-chilling wind screamed through the vents, hitting me like knives made of frost.
The cold robbed me of speech. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, and I couldn't form a complete sentence.
Then, through the haze of numbness, a sharp, tearing pain erupted from my lower abdomen.
I forced my heavy head downward, and froze.
A stream of bright red blood was flowing from between my legs, winding like a small creek across the icy ground.
In the deathly cold, it steamed against the frost, creating a crimson mist.
The blood melted the ice around me, seeping through the cracks in the floor.
That's when it hit me.
I knew what was happening.
Clutching my belly, I screamed hoarsely toward the glass. "Cassian! Let me out! The baby.... Save our baby!"
He was still shaking with fury, but the moment he saw the blood, the same blood now melting ice and creeping toward his feet, the color drained from his face.
Panic replaced the cruelty in his eyes.
He seized the man beside him, shouting frantically, "Move! Get the freezer key! Didn't we clear it with the doctor before we put her in? How the hell did this happen?!"
The man pressed the key into his palm.
But Cassian's hands were trembling so hard he couldn't hold on to it.
The key fell, right at Serafina's feet.
He spun and gripped her arm.
"Serafina! Open the door. Get Adriana out now, hurry!"
Startled by his outburst, Serafina scrambled up, not even bothering with her shoes.
She rushed to the freezer door, throwing a glance back at Cassian. Then, with her back to him, she slid the key into the lock.
In that instant I caught a flash of something sinister in her eyes, a look of triumph, malice, and cruelty.
And then, crack.
A sharp sound cut through the air.
Serafina turned and dropped to her knees in front of Cassian, crying out, "Cassian, the key.. it snapped!"
His face turned ghostly pale.
He stumbled forward, snatched up the broken key, and demanded, "What do you mean it snapped?! How could it break? Get someone, get a man who can pick a lock, now!"
By now the blood had spread across nearly the entire freezer floor, glistening warm against the icy white.
I was groaning in agony, unable to hold it in.
But Serafina knelt there with crocodile tears in her eyes, her voice trembling with false concern. "Cassian, she hasn't admitted her mistake yet... You said it yourself, this was a chance to humble her. Everyone here is watching..."
"And what about what I suffered in that hospital bed? Are you really just going to let it go? You swore to me you'd see me made right."
The corner of her mouth twitched upward, a half-beat too early, before the tears had finished falling.
Cassian hesitated. He waved off the man he'd sent for another key.
Then he turned back to the glass, striking the freezer door again and again as he called to me, his voice now thick with desperation and pleading.
"Adriana, please. Just admit you were wrong. For the baby, alright?"
"Just say it. Say you're sorry, and I'll open the door. You don't want anything to happen to our child either, do you? I'm begging you, Adriana, just be a little softer, okay?"
The blood loss was making my vision blur.
My body collapsed into the pool of blood, and with a trembling voice I whispered toward the figure beyond the glass, "Cassian... let me out... If you don't, my father will kill you..."
Serafina's eyes glinted with a savage smile, but her voice stayed drenched in that same false innocence. "Adriana... are you really this confused? Don Falcone went into the ground half a year ago. The Falcone family fell months back! Just admit you were wrong already. No one can save you now."
Laughter and jeers broke out among the crew outside the glass.
"Still dreaming, huh? Gonna have your papa put Cassian in a grave? Miss Falcone, the old Don's rotting somewhere they don't dig you up from. If anybody's getting killed twice over, it's him."
They laughed, tugging at Cassian's sleeve like hangers-on scenting blood.
"Cassian, this woman still hasn't learned. She's playing it up. The kid's probably fine. Let her sit in there a while longer!"
"He's right, Cassian. She worked Serafina over bad. You can't let her walk easy."
The freezer floor was already slick with blood.
They couldn't see it, but I could feel it, the faint fluttering inside my belly growing weaker and weaker.
I began to wail without control, screaming in agony.
Cassian paced restlessly beyond the door. When his eyes came back to me, there was a trace of helplessness in them. His thumb worked at the signet ring on his right hand, turning it, turning it.
"Adriana, stop waiting for your father to come rescue you. He's really dead. Just admit you were wrong, okay? Just say the words, I was wrong, and I'll let you out!"
"My dear wife, give it up. Your father isn't coming to save you this time."
The moment the words left his mouth, the door to the room was kicked off its hinges with a thunderous crash.
A squad of the Don's personal enforcers stormed in, armed to the last man, moving like violence with the safety off.
The room went dead still. Every made man in it straightened without meaning to.
And from beyond the door came a deep, commanding voice, the kind of voice that ended conversations mid-sentence.
"Who said her father wouldn't come save her?"