The appointment room smelled like disinfectant and soft lavender, a strange mix that did nothing to calm the tension between them. Aaliyah lay back on the hospital bed while Damiano sat beside her, fingers entwined with hers, though his grip trembled slightly. The monitor flickered to life, and the room filled with the gentle static hum before the image sharpened.
And then it appeared — tiny, curled, fragile, undeniably alive.
The baby.
Aaliyah exhaled shakily. Damiano froze, the world narrowing down to that small shape on the screen. His breath caught, and for a moment the panic, the noise, the fear… all of it dissolved.
"That's… ours," he whispered.
Aaliyah didn't speak. She just squeezed his hand, and the look they exchanged felt like a binding vow — messy, imperfect, but real.
But peace was short-lived.
The second they stepped outside, a swarm of cameras exploded around them.
Flashes. Shouts. Chaos.
"Damiano! Is that her baby?"
"Aaliyah, are you ruining another family?"
"Is it true she hid the pregnancy for fame?"
"Did you cheat on Giorgia—again?"
Aaliyah's stomach twisted. Damiano stepped in front of her immediately, but even his presence couldn't shield her from the venom being hurled her way.
Someone pushed too close.
Someone shouted her name with contempt.
Someone yelled a slur in Italian.
One headline, shouted aloud, cut deeper than the rest:
"THE AMERICAN HOMEWRECKER."
Security pulled them away, but the damage was done. Aaliyah's hands shook uncontrollably as they reached the car. Damiano climbed in after her, furious, breath sharp, jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.
"They don't get to talk about you like that," he growled.
But she wasn't looking at him.
She was staring at her phone…
…and the notification lighting up the screen:
NEW INTERVIEW: DAMIANO DAVID SPEAKS ON "BETRAYAL, GUILT, AND THE TRUTH ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP."
Her stomach plummeted.
"Damiano…" she whispered, voice cracking. "You did an interview?"
He swore under his breath. "Aaliyah, it was recorded weeks ago—before everything. Before I knew how bad it would get for you. Before—"
But she'd already opened it.
And there he was, on screen — tense, confused, tired — saying words he probably meant then, but that cut her deeply now:
"I don't know what Aaliyah wants. Sometimes I feel like she doesn't trust me. Like she's hiding something. This whole situation… has made me question a lot."
A punch to the gut.
She shut the video off.
The silence in the car turned frigid.
But the day wasn't done with them yet.
Back at the studio, as Aaliyah walked down the hallway alone to get some air, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Her old band.
All of them.
Standing right there.
They had flown in for a reunion project she wasn't informed about — or more likely, one purposely kept from her. And the look they gave her wasn't warm. It wasn't friendly.
It was judgment.
Disgust.
Almost pity.
"Oh look," one of them muttered, "the scandal girl."
Another smirked. "At least this time she's in the headlines for something other than her voice."
She didn't respond. She didn't trust her voice not to break.
But she felt every word.
Every cut.
Every whispered insult.
By the time she returned to the main studio, her eyes were still wet — and the timing couldn't be worse.
Inside, Måneskin was in the middle of an argument. A loud one.
Ethan was pacing. Thomas looked frustrated. Victoria had her arms crossed, expression cold.
"This is too much, Dami," Victoria snapped. "You're distracted. You're not present. Everything is falling behind — music, deadlines, PR. And now we've got the label breathing down our necks because of the pregnancy news?!"
Damiano ran a hand through his hair, voice sharp. "You think I planned this? You think I want this chaos?"
Thomas stepped forward, eyes tired. "We're not blaming the baby. We're saying you're slipping. You're not the same."
"Because my LIFE isn't the same!" Damiano roared.
Silence.
Aaliyah froze in the doorway.
Victoria's jaw tightened. "We're your family, Damiano. But she—" She motioned toward Aaliyah without even looking at her. "—is not our responsibility. And yet we're the ones drowning for it."
Aaliyah felt her heart twist painfully.
And for a second — a long, dangerous second — Damiano said nothing.
No defense.
No correction.
No clarity.
Just silence.
The same silence that had once comforted her now felt like betrayal.
Aaliyah stepped back.
And this time, Damiano noticed.
"Aaliyah, wait—"
But she turned before he reached her … the ultrasound photo still crumpled in her hand.
And for the first time since she told him about the baby—
she wasn't sure they were on the same side anymore.