I married Dario Vellari in place of the true Salvatore heiress.

Dario was the only heir of the Vellari Famiglia, the one with the severe PTSD.

Five years of marriage. He never slept with me.

Then Bianca came home from Boston, the real heiress, and everything changed.

In front of her, Dario reined in his temper. The rooms he had never let me enter, the things he had never let me touch - Bianca walked through them as if they were her own.

I thought, then, that I was finished caring for Dario.

But after I left, he scoured every corner of the northern hemisphere looking for me.

Said if the bride wasn’t me, he would never marry at all.

Before I turned seven, my life was a hard one.

The convent's coarse cloth rubbed my skin raw, and one extra bite of stale bread meant the nuns would beat my palms with a wooden plank.

Then the Salvatore family came for me.

The man who smelled of cologne asked if I'd like to come with him. I asked if I could have hot soup.

He laughed and said of course.

I nodded without a second thought.

Being their adopted daughter was no easy life either.

I slept in the unheated servants' quarters in winter. No one in the house ever met my eyes.

But everyone said I was lucky.

"An orphan turned future Donna — what good fortune."

Bianca liked to hide my clothes. Each time I was punished for being late while searching for them, she stood off to the side, giggling.

"Don't think you can really replace me. You're just marrying a madman in my place."

She'd been betrothed since childhood to Dario Vellari, the Vellari heir with the severe PTSD — but Dario broke things when his episodes hit, and sometimes broke people. The Salvatores couldn't bear to send their own daughter into that, so they took me in.

The summer I turned fifteen, I met someone in the garden.

He was sitting alone on a stone bench, an old pistol disassembled across his knees. His hand had caught on something — there was a cut across his palm, blood welling up bead by bead.

He didn't seem to feel it. He just kept tinkering with the metal pieces, head down.

I pulled an old handkerchief from my pocket — washed soft and pale — knelt down, and pressed it against the cut.

"Doesn't it hurt? Bleeding that much?"

He looked up.

His eyes were like a deep autumn lake — no light, no bottom. Just for a second. Then he lowered his head again and held out the barrel of the pistol. His voice was cold. "Hold this."

I held the barrel quietly. He looked at me for a long time at the end. Then he stood up and walked away without thanking me.

Something stirred in my chest.

He was beautiful.

But why did he look so unhappy?

Later I learned that was Dario.

That was the first time we met. And the only time, in the five years that followed.

After that day, the household began to treat me differently. I thought Dario was probably the one piece of luck in my unlucky life.

The next time we met was at our wedding.

It was a grand wedding. From start to finish, Dario didn't look at me once.

When we exchanged rings, his hand shook badly. His face showed nothing but impatience and disgust.

A small ache settled in my chest. He didn't want to marry me.

Later, his mother came to find me in private.

"He — well, something terrible happened to him as a boy. He doesn't trust anyone."

"Be patient with him. Give him time."

So even the high-born young Don of the Vellari Famiglia was a man to be pitied?

I thought of him at fifteen — that fragile, distant figure.

That night I warmed a glass of milk for him. The moment I pushed open the door, a roar hit me.

"Who said — you could come into this room?" Dario's gaze cut to the cup in my hand. Before I could speak, he slapped it from my grip.

Milk splashed across the floor. A shard of porcelain flew toward my ankle and opened a small cut.

"Get out. Cheap. Damaged goods. Couldn't sell you, at a discount. They told me. Trash. I don't want it."

"Everything I use — is the best. Except you. A — stain."

His words came out broken, but his voice was ice.

I forced down the humiliation, crouched, and started picking up the shards one by one.

"The milk spilled," I said softly. "I'll get you another glass."

He stood in the middle of the room, chest heaving. He didn't speak again.

I went to the kitchen, warmed another glass, set it down gently on the floor outside his bedroom door, knocked, and left.

I knew I couldn't compare to the true daughter of the Salvatore family — not in beauty, not in education.

The marriage had been forced on him by both Famiglie. It made sense that he didn't want me.

If he didn't want me near, then I wouldn't be near.

Those words — they were just because he was sick.

It was alright. I'd been preparing for this for a long, long time. I would take care of him.

The next morning, walking past his room, I saw the empty glass on the floor outside his door.

I couldn't help the small smile that pulled at my mouth.

Five years passed in a blink.

We never became husband and wife in any real sense, but we got along, in our way.

When he needed to be alone, I retreated to another room without a word. When he glared at me, I told him it was alright, that I'd always be there.

Slowly, Dario began to tolerate me.

He'd let me carry milk into his room and drink it in front of me. When he played with his guns in the garden, he let me sit nearby. When I was sick, he'd say — stiffly, looking at the wall — that I should go rest.

But he was still so far away.

So there was one more thing I wanted to do.

The Vellari Famiglia held a family dinner that night. The timing was right — every member of the family at the table, the mood easy, Dario calm. No outburst all evening.

I gripped the box. My palms were already damp.

I had been working on this gift for a long time. It was something Dario had wanted. He would love it. I was sure.

"Dario," I said, my eyes bright with nerves and excitement, "I have something for you."

A few people at the table looked curious. Others traded glances I couldn't read.

Dario glanced at me, his eyes skimming the surface of the box, and reached out.

Then his whole body went still.

In front of more than twenty people, he picked up the pocket watch from inside the box, walked to the fireplace, threw it in — and turned back toward me.

"Who do you think — you are. The real Donna. Of our — Vellari Famiglia?"

Each word came out through clenched teeth.

"A stand-in. That's all. Don't do — things that aren't yours to do. It's disgusting."

His hand shot out. Fingers closed around my throat.

"Get out." His voice rasped. "Gift. Trash. Beneath me — like you. I don't want it. Not — ever."

The pressure built. I didn't fight him. I just looked at him, holding the tears back.

A second later, arms came in from behind us, prying him off me by force.

Dario was held back, but his eyes never left mine. He was looking at me like I was the person he hated most in the world.

I curved my mouth into something like a smile. "Understood, Don."

It was the first time I had ever called him that.

Maybe that was what we had always been to each other.

The five years felt like a dream now.

He shot me one last look, kicked a chair hard enough to topple it, and walked out, his face like stone.

I bent down, set the chair upright, turned, and made myself smile.

"My husband has a temper." My voice was a little hoarse, but level. "I'm sorry he frightened everyone. Please — go on with dinner."

No one picked up a fork.

Someone broke the silence with a sneer. "What a useless Donna. Five years and she still can't hold her own husband's heart."

Then Dario walked back in with a woman beside him.

She wore a pale yellow dress. Her hair was longer now, swept loose at the nape, exposing a stretch of luminous white throat. She was beautiful. Refined.

Every eye in the room went to her.

She gave a bright smile. "Everyone — I'm Bianca Salvatore. I'm here on behalf of the Salvatore Famiglia. Forgive me for arriving so late."

Bianca turned to Dario. Her gaze lingered on him.

"I kept you waiting. I've finished my degree."

"I came back for you."

The light in Dario's eyes lit up at her words.

Bianca was smiling like the brightest star in the sky.

"What's yours is yours. I'd come back, no matter how long it took."

The hall went quiet for a moment.

Everyone there understood. The betrothal had been hers and his. I had only been a stand-in, set on the table when she didn't want her seat.

A Vellari capo even sighed aloud: "Now this — this is what the Donna of our Famiglia should look like."

Dario stood frozen for a few seconds.

Then his face softened. The corner of his mouth twitched, as if uncertain how to make the shape, but in the end he managed it. The smile wasn't pretty. It was awkward — like a man who hadn't smiled in so long he was trying to remember which muscles to use.

But he smiled.

He had never smiled at me like that. Not once.

I stood there holding a cup of tea, unaware that the heat had scalded my fingertips.

Dario seated Bianca beside him himself — in the place that should have been mine.

She talked to him in a low, easy tone, saying things about psychology, throwing around terms — "hypervigilance," "intrusive memories," "the neural mechanisms of avoidance behavior."

"Do you understand — what she's saying?" Dario said suddenly, turning to look at me.

I shook my head.

She had a master's in psychology. The words were too technical. I didn't understand.

He gave a small smile — a more natural one than the one he'd offered the room.

"She gets me," he said.

Those three words landed on me heavier than every cruel thing he'd said in five years.

I made it through the rest of the dinner. I made it back to my room before I let myself collapse.

Dario said I didn't understand him.

That wasn't true.

I had tried. Desperately. But no one in the house would speak about him.

It took five years of watching me pour myself into him before old Marco, the butler, was finally moved enough to say a few words.

"The young Don wasn't always like this. As a boy, he laughed. He greeted every servant warmly."

"Then his little brother died — not the lady's son, but the young Don loved him dearly."

I'd heard the rumors. People said Mrs. Vellari had killed the bastard child to protect her son's claim.

"After that, there was a soldato of his, name of Luca. Took a bullet meant for him. The young Don has never let anyone close since."

"He shattered the pocket watch Luca left him. Spent three months trying to find every piece. Never managed to put it back together."

Something twisted hard in my chest.

I went to enormous trouble to track down Luca's mother in Sicily and beg a photograph of the watch.

I made three trips to Florence to find the best clockmaker. The Latin engraving on the back, every letter — exact.

I had thought Dario would be glad.

I wiped my eyes, wrapped my arms around my knees, and tried to talk myself down.

Sophie. He didn't mean to lash out at you. He cherishes those memories too much. You shouldn't have touched what he holds most sacred. He's a sick man. Anyone in his place would have reacted the same way. He just didn't see what you meant by it.

I repeated it like a prayer, over and over.

But when I thought of his face as his fingers closed around my throat — the tears wouldn't stop.