I was drugged. A gunman from the O'Malley gang pinned me to the bed, tearing at my dress.

The door slammed open. Bianca De Luca, Julian’s betrothed, stormed in with several of the family’s Capos.

“You see, Capos? I told you Rowan was conspiring with our enemies!”

Panic seized me. I couldn’t explain, but the gunman only smirked, revealing the damning marks on my neck.

“That’s not the tune you were singing a moment ago,” he purred.

Bianca shrieked, “Rowan Callahan! How dare you betray Julian! To have an enemy’s daughter as the future Donna of the Griffin family is a disgrace to us all!”

“It wasn’t me…” My defense was cut short by a voice as cold as death. It was Julian.

“Rowan, just because I have to marry Bianca for the family, you choose today—the day I become Don—to humiliate me like this? After ten years, is this all our love meant to you?”

To appease Bianca and the Capos, he personally destroyed our unborn child and ordered my blood to be drained.

But after I died, he tore the world apart searching for me, a madman desperate for the forgiveness I could no longer give.

————————

1

"Rowan, it's been ten years." Julian Griffin’s voice cut through the noise of the Don succession ceremony, sharp as ice. "I gave you everything. My trust, my protection, a home. Is this how you repay me?"

He pointed to Bianca De Luca beside him, his finger trembling with rage. “Just because I have to marry her for the sake of the family, you crawl into bed with some O’Malley scum to humiliate me on the day I become Don? You make me sick!”

"No! Julian!" I crawled toward him, tears streaming down my face.

"I was framed! I just woke up in that room… Please, believe me…"

"Believe you?" His eyes were bloodshot as he let out a hoarse laugh. He viciously flung a stack of photos at my face.

The photos showed me at a warehouse on the docks, in different hotel rooms, tangled with strange men.

“No… these are fakes! They’re forged! Julian, I’ve never been to those places!”

"Fake?" Julian descended the marble steps one by one, his shadow enveloping me.

"The last shipment at the docks was busted by the cops, and six of our men died. The informant said you leaked the information. You said the evidence was fake, and I believed you. Later, someone said you were meeting with the remnants of the Callahan family. You said it was a misunderstanding, and I believed you."

“But moments ago, in that lounge, I saw it with my own eyes: you, writhing under that piece of filth. Was that fake, too? Do I have to find you with a thousand different men before you admit what a whore you are?”

"It's not true... none of it is true... I've loved you for ten years! I've never done anything to hurt you..." I clung to his leg in despair.

"Love?" Julian let out a cold sneer, as if he'd just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.

He took the Griffin family's diamond necklace out of a velvet box. That necklace was the one-of-a-kind symbol of the Donna.

I was the sole survivor of the Callahan family; our families were sworn enemies. For ten years, the family's Capos had never accepted me. They constantly pressured him, but Julian always swore he would personally place this necklace around my neck. He’d claimed that true love could transcend any blood feud. He promised me, year after year, that I would be his only wife. But now, he stared at the necklace, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

“I withstood all the pressure from the Capos for you. I was even prepared to tear up the marriage alliance with the De Luca family and give you the position of the Griffin family's Donna! And you? What was my reward? A public betrayal in front of the entire New York underworld!”

He spun around abruptly and placed the necklace around Bianca's neck.

"Now, it's yours," he announced coldly.

My heart shattered. And from the torment in his eyes, I knew I had taken a piece of him with me. We were broken, two jagged halves that could never be whole again.

How absurd. He would fight the entire family for me, but he couldn’t believe me just one more time? Why, when I was set up, violated, and needed him most, did he choose to abandon me?

Ten years of vows, utterly shattered by a few fake photos.

My chest felt like it had been seared with a branding iron, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face.

"She's actually crying?"

"Betraying the family and still playing the victim. How disgusting."

The surrounding murmurs grew louder. I was once the Principessa of the Callahan family, and I had always carried myself with pride. Now, it was all ground to dust.

Bianca triumphantly linked her arm with Julian’s. “Julian, darling, don’t be angry… Maybe she was just confused. After all, she's from the Callahan family; rebellion is in her blood. And you've been spending so much time with me lately because of our marriage alliance. She was probably just lonely…”

She feigned sympathy, but every word was a poisoned dart meant to paint me as a faithless whore.

"You're lying!" I shot my head up, pointing at her. "You were the one who handed me that spiked champagne! You wanted to destroy a decade of love between Julian and me, just so you, the political fiancée, could waltz right into the Donna's seat! You're shameless!"

"If you loved him so much, where were you ten years ago when he was buried under the rubble of a firefight?"

"Enough!" Julian pulled Bianca protectively into his arms. "Just because you're filthy, you have to drag everyone down into the mud with you? What right do you have to compare yourself to Bianca?"

“She’s pure and noble; she wouldn’t hurt a fly. And you? The last remnant of a rival family. The very blood in your veins is dirty.”

“She may have come late, but she’s pure. She’s better than you in every conceivable way! Can’t you keep your legs shut for one goddamn day?”

I froze. So this was how he saw me?

"Julian..." My voice was hoarse as I tried to claw back a shred of his sanity. "Our ten years of love can't compare to one month of her act? Fine... Since you think she's so perfect, I'll tear that pure face of hers apart and show you the monster underneath!"

Rage consumed me. I lunged at Bianca, but before I could even touch the hem of her dress, Julian kicked me viciously. I slammed into one of the ballroom's Roman columns and slid to the floor. A sharp pain tore through my lower abdomen.

Warm blood trickled down my inner thigh, staining my long gown red.

“What’s this act?” Julian glared down at me. “You were fine while that scumbag was on top of you, but one kick from me and you start bleeding?”

"No..." My face went deathly pale as I revealed the secret I had planned to tell him after the celebration tonight.

"It's the baby... Julian... I'm pregnant... It's your child..."

The entire hall fell silent. Julian's pupils constricted.

Before he could speak, Bianca covered her mouth and screamed in shock, "My God... Rowan, are you faking a pregnancy to get out of this? That's clearly a fake blood pack you hid in your dress. You're trying to frame me!"

The flicker of hesitation in Julian's eyes vanished, replaced by pure disgust.

“A blood pack?” He slowly walked toward me, staring down at the glaring puddle of red on the floor. He sneered, “There’s no line you won’t cross to deceive me, is there?”

"No... it's real... It hurts so much..." I clutched my stomach, crying out in desperation, "Julian, call a doctor... Save our baby..."

"Still acting?" Julian lifted his polished leather shoe and, to the gasps of the crowd, stomped mercilessly on my lower abdomen.

My scream ripped through the ballroom. The excruciating pain almost made me faint; I felt my bones shattering under his foot.

“Since you claim to be pregnant, I’ll stomp this bastard out of you myself. Then we’ll see if it’s really mine!” He lifted his foot and crushed down again.

I curled up to protect my abdomen, so he started stomping on my arms, my knees...

"This is the price for betraying me! This is the price for making me a fool!"

"Please... I didn't... Someone save me... Don't hurt the baby..." I sobbed, begging the people around me for help, but no one dared to step forward. They just watched with cold indifference.

"Still trying to lie?" Julian knelt and seized my throat.

I couldn't breathe. He was very close, and under the watchful eyes of the surrounding guests, he growled in a voice only we could hear.

"Why?" His fingers tightened. “Why did you force my hand? Force me to kill you in front of everyone?”

Something warm and scalding dripped onto my face. I struggled to open my eyes and saw his reddened rims.

He hated me. The hatred consumed him, yet it was laced with a twisted love.

I could only let out raspy gasps. How absurd. When I could speak, he wouldn't listen. Now he was choking me, yet he was crying like an abandoned man, asking me why.

Just as I was on the verge of suffocating, he released his grip. He stood up and unfastened the watch from his wrist. It was a gift from me, the back of the dial engraved with our initials.

He used it to wipe the hand that had just choked me, then hurled it at my face like it was garbage.

"Take your filthy thing back."

He adjusted the collar of his suit, as if the out-of-control beast from a moment ago wasn't him.

“Guards.”

He pulled Bianca to his side, his gaze fixed forward, never sparing me another glance.

"Throw this woman in the basement. Don't let her die. I want her alive to watch me hold a grand engagement ceremony for Bianca."