The train hummed beneath her feet. It was a rhythm that was too steady for the chaos in her chest. Montana didn’t drive.

She hasn't sold the car yet either. Benedetto’s keys still hung by the door of their old house, still jingled when the wind knocked them lightly against the wall. No. She didn’t drive because the train gave her space to breathe and space to think.

And she needed that space desperately.

The Rossi estate rose like a monument carved from wealth and silence. They had told her to come at three. It was five past when a maid escorted her into the drawing room. In there were gilded moldings, untouched white upholstery, paintings that looked expensive but dead.

She’d never liked this house.

The jazz music drifted lazily from another room, and the afternoon sun sliced through the tall windows, casting sharp, cold lines across the marble floor. She smoothed the front of her blouse. The swell of her stomach wasn’t visible yet, but she felt like it glowed like it was a target.

The doors opened and her breath stalled.

Lucia Rossi entered first. She wore a flame-red dress and had curls too perfect to be natural hair. Her lips were painted as red as a warning sign. She was Benedetto’s almost-twin—sister.

“Montana,” Lucia sang, her eyes glinting like cut glass. “You’ve lost weight.”

“I’ve been grieving your brother,” Montana replied.

Lucia’s smile didn’t flinch. “He’s been buried. Time moves forward. You should too.”

Behind her came Marco. He was the most silent in the house. He stood with his arms folded like he was waiting for a verdict.

And then Vittorio Rossi came along too. He walked slower, but he was tall. He was the patriarch of the Rossi Family. He wore a navy suit, held a polished walking cane, and the same diamond pin he wore at Montana's wedding.

He didn’t greet her. He neither did he offer condolences nor even a nod.

Montana’s fingers twitched at her sides. But her voice was steady. “I wanted to speak with you all.”

Lucia sank onto the loveseat like a bored queen. “Speak, then.”

“I’m pregnant,” Montana said. “And it's Benedetto’s child. It wasn’t planned, but it happened before… before this.”

Vittorio didn’t blink. Marco shifted his eyes to Lucia and then back to Montana.

“I’m also caring for Signora Rossi,” Montana continued. “She’s been living with me. Before Benedetto’s death, she had episodes. She was always wandering around, forgetting meals… I’ve kept her safe. But I…” She swallowed. “I haven’t seen her since the day he died. She never came home.”

“She belongs here,” Vittorio said. “This is her home.”

The words knocked into Montana like wind through a cracked door. Did he hear her at all?

“She didn’t want to come here before,” she said. “She cried. She said this place scared her. She didn’t even recognize it.”

But before they could argue that away, Montana laid the rest of it bare.

“I didn’t come to fight. But Benedetto left behind large amounts of debt, and some under my name. I didn’t come to beg. I just came to speak and to ask.”

Vittorio raised an eyebrow. “Ask what? For money?”

Montana stood taller. “Not your money but your accountability. You all knew about the gambling. The offshore accounts, the loans. I thought, maybe, you’d want to protect your family name. Or at least… the child.”

Lucia rose slowly. Her heels made no sound, but her words sliced through the air.

“Oh, Montana,” she said. “You married a Rossi. You didn’t become one.”

The pain bloomed fast and deep.

Montana looked to Marco, but he stared past her. She looked to Vittorio but his face was a stone.

“I just want some decency,” she whispered.

“No, you just want an inheritance for the bastard child in your better, is it not,” Lucia hissed.

Montana froze. The words hit harder than she expected.

But before she could scream, before her rage could spill, her eyes caught a figure in the doorway and her heart cracked.

Signora Rossi—that was her mother-in-law, Benedetto's mother, sitting perfectly in a wheelchair with her now delicate fingers cradling a teacup.

Montana stared. “What is she doing here?”

Lucia smiled sweetly. “She lives here where she belongs. Her home. What wouldn't she be doing here?”

“No… she didn’t want to be here. She used to be scared—”

“People change,” Vittorio murmured.

Montana took a slow step forward. “Nonna? It’s me, Montana.”

The old woman could only spare a blink. She took a sip of her tea and totally ignored Montana.

Lucia rested a hand on her mother's shoulder. “She’s better here where she is surrounded by routine and by family.”

“I am family,” Montana snapped.

“You were married,” Lucia said softly. “Now you’re just… something else.”

“I took care of her,” Montana whispered. “I took care of Benedetto. I gave everything—”

“And you want praise?” Vittorio said. “You were a wife. That’s what wives do.”

Montana’s breath stuttered. Her knees weakened.

She turned to Signora, desperate. “Please… tell them. Tell them I mattered and still do. Nonna, I am carrying Ben's child.”

But Signora just blinked again. That same blank, distant blink.

Lucia stepped between them. “You had your time. Now go.”

Montana looked around, at all of them. She looked at Signora, the woman she once thought of as a mother, sipping tea like Montana was a stranger.

And then… she understood.

None of it was real. Not Signora’s kindness, not Benedetto’s promises, not the Rossi name she clung to like a lifeline.

She had been discarded like an old garment.

And as she turned to leave she heard a light laughter from Signora. Montana didn’t look back though, they had made their points enough that she was no one to them.

But she had those debts owed to Mr. Scarpa. There was no one left in Italy she could trust, no one left to help her return to America. No one.

Her phone vibrated at that moment. It was a call from an unknown number.

She hesitated but eventually answered. “Hello?”