Married to Don Victor for three years, I thought I could finally forget the pain and betrayal of my ex-husband, Dominic.

This cold, ruthless man ruled the East Coast underworld. But he handed me the world on a silver platter, healing my broken pieces.

Until late one night. Victor's underboss called, frantic, begging me to rush to Manhattan's top private hospital.

Victor and Dominic were in a standoff outside the maternity ward. Guns drawn, surrounded by their elite hitmen. They were inches away from sparking an all-out mob war.

And standing between them was my ex-best friend, Chloe. She was visibly pregnant.

The Commission's mediator slid a truce across the table. His expression was painfully awkward.

"The security tapes are clear. The two Dons nearly blew up the entire floor just to decide who gets to stay in her room tonight."

Numbly, I signed the papers as the Donna of the Costello family.

Prenatal vitamins bought by Victor already piled high in the room. Meanwhile, his and Dominic's men were still arguing over the schedule—how the two Mafia Dons would split their week to keep Chloe company, three days each.

When I walked up to the bed, the two lethal men who were just at each other's throats now stood guarding her on both sides.

Victor shielded her belly. The same lips that used to kiss every inch of my body now spit out bone-chilling words: "I forced her. If you have a problem, take it up with me."

My ex-husband, Dominic, glared at me viciously. "Keep your mad dog of a husband in check. Tell him to stop harassing my woman!"

I slowly shook my head. Watching this farce, silent tears slid down my cheeks.

A mobster's love... in the end, it's just a cheap lie.

Victor, I don't want you anymore either.

"Sign the agreement." Wiping cold sweat from his forehead, the mediator slid a truce across the table.

The sharp stench of gunpowder and rubbing alcohol hung heavy in the air.

Just ten minutes ago, my husband, Victor, and my ex-husband, Dominic, nearly shot the VIP maternity ward to pieces. Elite hitmen from both families had guns drawn.

And all for one reason: my ex-best friend Chloe’s small baby bump.

I held the pen. My hand didn't shake at all.

After I signed my name, Victor waved off his armed guards. The ruthless Don of the East Coast walked up to me. Out of habit, he reached out to pull me into his arms.

I coldly stepped aside.

His hand froze in mid-air.

But there was no guilt in his eyes. He pulled his hand back smoothly. His tone was cold, leaving no room for argument.

"Go back to the estate," he said, adjusting his cuffs, looking down at me. "Chloe is in shock. The doctor said stress is dangerous for her pregnancy. I have to stay at the hospital with her tonight."

Before he even finished, a tall figure roughly shoved Victor aside.

It was Dominic.

"Back the fuck off, Costello!" Dominic shoved his gun barrel straight against Victor’s forehead. "Chloe is carrying Russo blood. You don't get to play hero with my woman!"

Victor scoffed. In a flash, he drew his signature Glock and pressed it hard against Dominic’s chest.

"Is that so? Because she was just crying, begging me to stay."

Down the hall, safeties clicked off in unison. The air turned freezing cold.

"It hurts..."

A weak, fragile cry suddenly came from the hospital room.

Chloe looked deathly pale, weakly clutching her belly.

The two Mafia Dons, who were just at each other's throats, holstered their guns instantly. Like two tamed mad dogs, they rushed to her bedside.

Victor grabbed her left arm. His voice was softer than I had ever heard. "Don't be afraid. I'm here."

Dominic guarded her right side, roaring at the doctor, "What the fuck are you waiting for? Check on her!"

Together, they helped her back into bed. Their broad backs completely blocked her from view.

From start to finish, Victor didn't even glance my way. It was as if I, the legal Donna of the Costello family, was just thin air. Something to be thrown away.

I walked out of the mob-locked hospital alone.

The midnight wind cut my face like a knife. My stomach cramped violently. I stumbled to my black Aston Martin and slumped against the hood, dry-heaving in pain.

How pathetic.

Three years ago, I was just as pathetic. I felt sick and came home early. But on our large bed, my husband of five years, Don Dominic—the man I gave everything to—was tangled naked with Chloe. Chloe was even wearing my brand-new silk nightgown.

Red-eyed, I confronted him.

But Dominic didn't even look up. He just shielded Chloe in his arms and gave me one word: "Get out."

That night, Victor found me almost passed out in the heavy rain. The Costello heir. The man who once saved me from being bullied at a charity auction.

He took off his black trench coat—it smelled of gunpowder—and wrapped it tightly around my shaking body.

"Vivienne, he doesn't deserve you," he said, stroking my hair with bloodstained hands. "Come with me."

For three years, this terrifying Boss gave me nothing but ultimate tenderness. He learned to cook my favorite seafood pasta late at night. He gave me the passwords to all his armories and offshore accounts. In bed, he kissed my scars over and over with deep passion. He promised to cut out the rot Dominic left behind, piece by piece.

I thought it was my grand salvation.

But reality slapped me hard in the face.

I pushed open the estate doors. The dim lights stung my eyes. A huge wedding photo of us in Sicily hung in the living room. On the dining table sat cold Wagyu steaks and a decanted bottle of Romanée-Conti. The calendar on the wall had today's date circled heavily in red.

Our third wedding anniversary.

I walked to the table and gently touched my flat stomach.

To give the Costello family an heir, I went through hell. Five rounds of IVF. My belly was covered in dark bruises and needle marks. Not an inch of good skin left.

This morning, I finally saw two bright red lines on the pregnancy test. I was so happy. I thought it was the perfect anniversary gift for him.

My eyes slowly dropped to the test stick resting in a jewelry box.

I cried so many tears and suffered so much for this bloodline he wanted. But now, this surprise was nothing but a sick joke.

The next day, Victor went to handle family business as usual.

I was at home, organizing my closet for the season, looking for a coat. At the very bottom of his safe, in a hidden compartment, my fingers brushed against a box. It needed a fingerprint and a passcode.

It was Victor's private stash. He had warned me never to touch it.

But today, the system seemed broken. A red warning light flashed. The metal door was slightly ajar.

Driven by some unknown urge, I reached out and opened the lid.

There were no piles of diamonds. No hit lists. Just photos, carefully laminated.

I pulled one out. My breath caught in my throat.

In the photo, Chloe was in a red bikini, laughing wildly on the deck of a private yacht. Victor was hugging her waist tightly from behind, their faces pressed close together. The crazy obsession in his eyes was something I had never seen in our three years of marriage.

I flipped the photo over. A date was written on the back.

Five years ago.

To be exact, the same year Dominic cheated on me with Chloe.

I moved the photos aside. Underneath lay a thick psychiatric file.

[Patient: Victor Costello]

[Diagnosis: Severe Bipolar Disorder, with extreme violent and self-destructive tendencies]

[Trigger: Severe relationship trauma]

[Date: Five years ago]

Every clue slammed together into a terrifying web.

Five years ago, Victor wasn't a Don yet. So the greedy, vain Chloe dumped him and threw herself into Don Dominic's arms.

My fingers started shaking uncontrollably.

Suddenly, the electronic chime of the front door lock beeped. Victor was home early!

Breaking into a cold sweat, I shoved the files and photos back into the compartment and slammed the lid shut. Heavy footsteps were already on the second-floor hallway.

I crawled to the very back of the walk-in closet, hiding desperately behind rows of heavy couture gowns.

Victor strode into the bedroom. He grabbed a silenced pistol he had forgotten on the nightstand. Just then, his phone rang.

He answered. His voice was low, but laced with a cruel chill that reached my ears clearly.

"Dominic sent men to shoot up Chloe’s place? That coward." Victor checked his gun, his tone vicious. "Chop those rats' heads off. Hang them on the Russo family's front gates."

The person on the other end said something, and Victor sneered.

"Years ago, Chloe left me for Dominic because I wasn't in power yet. He took what was mine. Now I’m going to make him lose everything." His voice shook slightly with crazed hatred.

"I married Vivienne just to get back at Dominic! I want Dominic to watch as his ex-wife—the one who would have died for him—worships me and begs for me!"

"Chloe is pregnant now. I won't let her and the baby suffer with that piece of trash Dominic. When the time is right, I’ll wipe out the Russo family and take everything back."

My breath stopped.

My blood ran cold, and my limbs went completely numb.

Three years of patience. The blushing, tender romance in bed. The tears he kissed off my forehead during every egg retrieval for IVF.

All fake.

All part of a revenge trap he spun for a woman who betrayed him.

I thought I had escaped Dominic's hell and found a god to save me. In reality, I had just walked into a slaughterhouse built by a madman for another man.

I bit down hard on my hand. My teeth sank deep into my flesh, tasting heavy copper blood, just to choke back my tearing sobs.

Tears smashed against the cold floor.

My whole life was nothing but a complete joke.

After Victor left, I sat dead on the floor.

My empty eyes dropped to my flat stomach. A violent wave of nausea rushed up my throat.

I did five rounds of IVF to give him this so-called Costello heir. My belly was horribly covered in thick clusters of needle marks. Purple and blue, hard lump after hard lump. Not a single inch of intact skin.

On the operating table, the sharp pain of cold metal tools scraping inside me brought out buckets of cold sweat.

Every time I shook from the pain and bit my lip bloody, Victor would hold my hand tightly. He would look at me with those deep, loving eyes and kiss the sweat off my forehead.

"Hold on a little longer, Vivienne," he used to tell me in his deep, magnetic voice. "I want a child with both our blood so badly. It's proof that we saved each other."

Saved each other.

Now, those sugar-coated lies turned into the most wicked curse!

I stared at the bruises on my belly, trembling violently. When he watched me endure a living hell, ruining my own body for him, what the hell was he thinking? Was he thinking about how jealous Dominic would be when he saw me pregnant?

I actually threw half my life away for a madman's revenge game!

Memories crashed in like a broken dam. They tasted like rust and blood, tearing at my fragile nerves.

It was fifteen years ago in the Brooklyn slums. Dominic wasn't a Mafia Don back then. He was just a low-level thug who could get hacked to death in the streets at any moment. Rainy nights in New York were always freezing. I will never forget that abandoned garage.

Dominic was hunted down by enemies. He lay in a muddy puddle, covered in blood, coughing up blood.

It was me. I starved myself every day, saving all my lunch money to buy expensive black-market antibiotics and bandages. To protect his pathetic pride, I slipped the meds under the crack of the garage door in secret. I did it for three whole years.

One winter, an enemy’s knife aimed straight for his heart. I threw myself in front of him, taking the blade meant for his heart! My back still has an ugly ten-inch scar to this day.

I thought risking my life would earn me his true love.

But what did I get at our high school graduation?

I stood in a dark corner of the hall, clutching a greeting card I bought for him. I watched with my own eyes as Dominic, in a cheap suit, grabbed Chloe's hands excitedly.

"Chloe, I found out everything. For the past three years, if you hadn't secretly slipped me those meds, I would’ve died in that gutter." Dominic's eyes were full of crazy gratitude. "You saved my life."

And my so-called "best friend" Chloe just blushed shyly and leaned into his arms.

"I just wanted you to be safe, Dominic."

Hiding in the shadows, my heart was ripped to shreds.

But I was too stupid. I thought if I stayed by his side, he would eventually see who really loved him. Later, they broke up. Dominic fought his way up in the mob. I stayed with him in unheated basements, washing the blood out of his shirts.

He finally made it. He became the Boss of the Russo family and married me.

I thought I had finally won.

But the very first thing he did after reaching the top was bring Chloe into our home.

I bit my lip hard, tears streaming down my face.

Neither of them ever loved me. Dominic loved Chloe, his so-called "savior" from his darkest days. And the safe haven Victor built with everything he had was also for Chloe, the woman who betrayed him.

The three of them were tangled in a twisted, sick game—but they dragged me down to skin me alive.