My husband's first love, Daeleen Reed, is abducted and murdered by the Wood family, a mafia family. The final call she makes before her death is to my husband.

"Samuel, Louise's green eyes are beautiful. If there is an afterlife, I hope I can have a pair of eyes like that so I can always gaze at you with them."

My husband, Samuel Sterling, is the Capo of the Sterling family, a mafia family based on the West Coast. Instead of getting revenge on the Wood family, he comes home and forces me onto an operating table.

"Daeleen says she loved your eyes. That was her dying wish, and I will make it come true."

I clutch my stomach and grovel at his feet. I beg him to let me off the hook. I've yet to witness our child's birth—I can't lose my eyes!

However, Samuel thinks I'm using my pregnancy as an excuse to not give up my eyes.

"You can't be so selfish, Louise. You'll only be losing your eyes—you'll be fine."

Daeleen is the only one who holds his heart. I am left with nothing but a world of darkness.

Later, I drag my broken body into the sea. I forge ahead until I'm submerged. That's when Samuel goes insane.

After my eyes were plucked out, I lay on the operating table with two empty sockets on my face, resembling that of a broken doll.

Samuel Sterling felt no guilt. He picked up my eyes to examine them and praised them, saying, "Daeleen was right. These really are a beautiful pair of eyes! I promised you, Daeleen. I will make all your wishes come true."

As the anesthesia's effect slowly wore off, I could not help but cry out in pain. Samuel finally turned his attention to me as if blaming me for interrupting his memories of Daeleen.

He was the youngest Capo of a mafia family. In just three years, he had led the Sterling family to stand at the pinnacle of all the crime families across the West Coast.

The road to the top was paved with the blood of their enemies. Samuel had survived through countless gunfights and assassinations. For him, killing another person was easier than spreading butter on a piece of toast.

As such, taking another person's eyes was nothing even worth mentioning.

The very person Samuel plucked out the eyes of was me, Louise, his wife, who had stood by him through all sorts of danger time and time again.

Samuel walked over and patted me on the face. My skin trembled, and it pulled at my wounds, making the pain even worse.

I longed for him to comfort me, but all I heard was a cold sneer. "Louise, you're the wife of a Capo. How can you be so weak? It's not like I'm taking your life. I'm just taking your eyes!

"I can't believe you lied to me with pregnancy as an excuse. You know how much I hate lies. Tell me you're sorry, and I'll forgive you."

I bit down on my lips and raised my hand to slap him, but I missed. He did not even have to dodge. I had simply swung in the wrong direction because I could not see anything.

The next second, I felt a sharp pain coming from my scalp as Samuel grabbed and lifted me up by my hair. Blood flowed down from my hollow eye sockets. He dipped a finger into my blood and then smeared it on my dry lips, spreading a metallic taste to my senses.

"You should be grateful that you're my wife, Louise. The last person who tried to hit me is already in hell," he said.

Samuel let go of his hand, and my body fell. My hands flailed wildly in the air, trying to grasp onto anything, only to catch nothing.

I knocked over a cabinet nearby and crashed to the floor. My hand pressed onto one of the scalpels that had fallen to the ground, causing the blade to slice deep into my palm to the point that bones became visible.

I let out a bloodcurdling scream. My face turned deathly pale as I curled up on the floor, trembling in pain.

"You're quite the actress, Louise," Samuel chuckled and issued an order to one of his men behind him. "Do not give her any painkillers without my permission."

The doctor that Annie had brought in to administer the painkillers pulled away from her grasp and promptly left the room. No one dared to defy the orders of their Capo.

Cold sweat soaked my clothes, but I could no longer care about it. The pain was so much that it felt like I was going to die, but all I could do was moan helplessly.

Annie Bart had been taking care of me as my maid. She was also scared of Samuel, but when she saw me writhing on the floor from the pain, she still bravely rushed forward and clung to his legs to beg for mercy.

"Capo, Mrs. Sterling is only 24 years old! She's already lost both of her eyes, so please, I beg you to stop torturing her anymore!

"Mrs. Sterling is in so much pain! Please let her have the painkillers!"

Samuel just kicked Annie to the side and replied indifferently. "She's not going to die from this."

With that, he turned around and left.

Annie struggled to back up and then tried to help me get to my feet. As I slowly lifted up my body, a sharp pain shot through my lower body.

I realized that it came from my child! I began to panic as I could feel the life within me slipping away.

I had already lost my eyes for Daeleen. I did not want to lose my child, too.

I used all my remaining strength to reach out for Samuel, desperately trying to grab onto him. I endured the pain and pleaded, "Samuel! Save our child! The baby is dying!"

I forced myself to keep my voice steady so that I could say the words loud and clear, but Samuel only moved farther and farther away, his attention solely on my eyeballs.

He murmured to himself. "Daeleen loves roses, so I'll get a crystal box and fill it with roses before placing the eyeballs inside. She's going to love it! For now, I need to get my hands on some formalin to preserve them."

When I could no longer hear his voice, my hand finally fell to the ground with a thud. Samuel was not always like that. Before he became a Capo, he was just an illegitimate son of the Sterling family, working as a low-ranking Soldato in their casino.

We ran into each other by coincidence, and I fell in love with him at first sight. He treated me well. He was always worried about me whenever we came across a bloody scene.

Whenever Samuel got into a fight, he cleaned his wounds and changed out of his bloodstained clothes before coming home.

Back then, he said, "Your eyes are so beautiful, Louise. I'll always protect you so that you'll only have to look at all that is beautiful in this world."

Yet, despite his promises, the very last thing my eyes saw was him personally taking them away.

No anesthesia or painkillers were used. Immense pain came from my eyes, my hands, and even my belly, either of them enough to make anyone faint from the pain. But at that moment, I could clearly sense that none of them compared to the pain in my heart.

I realized that, in the end, Samuel no longer wanted me by his side. I eventually passed out from the pain. I had thought that my suffering would finally come to an end. But reality was cruel, and I once again woke up in agony.

The darkness sent me into a panic. I screamed as I reached out to latch onto something, anything, only to remember that my eyes were already gone.

Annie grabbed onto my hands, crying as she tried to comfort me. I slowly calmed down as she held me in her arms.

My hand was already bandaged because Annie had knelt and begged Samuel for mercy. "Mrs. Sterling will die if she keeps losing blood like this!"

It was only then that Samuel allowed me to be treated for my wounds. I knew he had already returned to our room, as I could hear him humming a tune, seemingly in a great mood.

I spoke up weakly. "Samuel, do you still remember my dream?"

Samuel replied bluntly. "Dreams, you say? I didn't know you still have dreams. If you really still had one, you wouldn't have let yourself go."

I reached out to touch my swelling belly. It contained our unborn child, but I could no longer feel its heartbeat.

The child's father refused to believe in his existence, choosing instead to believe that it was just a lump of fat on my body. My dream was to become a painter so that I could capture every beautiful scene I saw on a canvas. But now, I can no longer see anything.

Samuel once promised me that when he became the most powerful Capo on the West Coast, he would hold an art exhibition for me, one that would allow me to tour the entire country and perhaps even the world.

I promised to paint a portrait of him every year on his birthday until his hair turned gray when he became the oldest Don on the West Coast.

A month ago, I received news from the doctor that I was pregnant. I had planned to include our baby in that year's birthday portrait, and I would reveal the surprise at Samuel's birthday party next month.

But then, Daeleen Reed returned.

"Daeleen is just my first love. She just came home after finalizing her divorce abroad. You're the only person I love, Louise," Samuel explained.

That was the explanation he gave me after I caught him secretly meeting Daeleen in the garden. Over the past decade, Samuel had risen from a low-ranking Soldato to the youngest Capo in the Sterling family.

As he became busier, he slowly started to forget about our anniversaries and birthdays. He even forgot about Christmas, which we had promised to spend together every year.

Or perhaps he never forgot about them. Perhaps he just used work as an excuse so that he did not have to waste his time on me. Anything else was much more important compared to me, after all.

"You need to be more understanding, Louise. You're the wife of a Capo, a man who will one day become a Don on the West Coast. Please don't distract me with such trivial matters, okay?" Samuel said.

For the sake of his career, I chose to become much more understanding and tolerant.

I was Samuel's wife. I had believed that our decade-long relationship could not possibly be less than that of his first love, who had abandoned him and married abroad because she looked down on him when he was still a lowly Soldato.

And yet, in just a single month, Samuel had fallen in love with Daeleen all over again. The very same Capo who claimed to be too busy to stay by my side even when I was undergoing surgery had now become a lapdog of Daeleen's that she could summon at will.

"Louise, you can go ahead and have dinner by yourself. Daeleen just got back, so I'm going to pick her up."

"Louise, I won't be home for the next few days. Daeleen isn't used to her new apartment yet, so I'll be staying with her for a while."

"Louise, can you make your best cheesecake? Daeleen wants to try it. I want to bring it to her."

Daeleen, Daeleen, Daeleen. Her name appeared every single day in the messages sent between Samuel and me.

"Samuel, have you forgotten about your aspiration to become Don? You've been running around all day for Daeleen.

"What about the Sterling family? Now that everyone knows that your first love is back, it might get extremely dangerous for Daeleen," I asked.

Daeleen knew nothing about how Samuel had fought his way up to his current position, but I did. He had always been a ruthless and merciless man, which led to countless rival families always keeping an eye on him in the shadows.

Samuel ignored my warning and ridiculed me for it. He said I was only uttering such words because I was jealous of Daeleen.

"No one would dare to touch Samuel Sterling's woman. You should just mind your own business, Louise."

Later on, Daeleen was abducted and murdered by the Wood family, which was one of Samuel's enemies. I thought that once Daeleen was gone, Samuel would finally return to my side.

Sure enough, the moment he heard about Daeleen's death, he called me and told me to wait for him at home. I rubbed my pregnant belly and told myself.

"As long as I tell Samuel about the baby during his birthday next month, he'll love me again. I'm sure that he will love our child, too."

But I never would have expected that Daeleen would not let me go even in death. Stealing Samuel away from me was far from enough. She even took away my eyes.