Chapter 5 - The Sterile Years
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As Maya drove us down the dark highway back to our quiet suburb, the rhythmic hum of the tires pulled me into the past.
I rested my head against the cool glass of the window, remembering the five agonizing years I had spent as Dominic’s wife. In the beginning, it was a sweeping, dangerous romance. Dominic shielded me from the violent realities of the syndicate, showering me with affection, promising me a massive family to fill the empty halls of the Gallow estate.
But as the first year passed without a pregnancy, the whispers began.
By the third year, the whispers turned into aggressive family interventions. Dominic’s mother, Rosa, was a woman carved from ice and old money. She would sit in the grand dining room, sipping expensive wine, and make pointed comments about my "fragile constitution." She made sure I knew that a mafia king without an heir was a vulnerable target.
Then came the sterile, endless clinic appointments.
We only saw doctors approved by the Gallow family. Men in pristine white coats who spoke in hushed, deferential tones to Dominic, while looking at me with thinly veiled pity. They ran countless intrusive tests on me. They prescribed hormone injections that left me bruised, exhausted, and emotionally shattered.
And yet, every test result was strangely inconclusive. “Unexplained infertility,” they called it.
Slowly, Dominic began to change. The man who used to hold my hand during blood draws stopped coming to the appointments. He started sleeping in the guest wing. He threw himself into expanding his empire, leaving me isolated in a fortress of armed guards and judging relatives.
Rosa finally cornered me in the estate’s conservatory one rainy afternoon. “He will never leave you because of his pride,” she had hissed, her eyes gleaming with malice. “But you are killing his legacy. If you truly love him, you will walk away.”
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I didn't leave because of Rosa. I left because the next night, I overheard Dominic telling Silvio that he was exhausted by my "failures." The love had died, suffocated by the demand for an heir. So, I packed a single bag, signed the divorce papers, and walked out.
I thought that was the end of my nightmare. I had no idea it was just the beginning.
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