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.

The storm on the dark web hit suddenly.

Someone posted a bounty thread on an underground forum, exposing the messy love triangle between Chloe, Dominic, and Victor. The post called Chloe a mob whore who wrecked the marriages of the Russo and Costello Dons, playing two Mafia Bosses against each other.

The thread blew up. Soon, the Bosses on the Commission saw it.

The Commission lost their minds. Countless mobsters demanded she be executed by Mafia law for risking an all-out gang war.

That afternoon, Victor and Dominic stormed into my estate with their guards.

Dominic pointed a finger in my face and screamed.

"Vivienne, you vicious bitch! Chloe is pregnant. Are you trying to get her killed with this hit post?!"

I sneered. Before I could even speak, Victor stepped up and stood in front of me.

"Enough, Dominic. This is my house." Victor turned to me, slipping right back into his arrogant Don persona. "Vivienne," his voice was sickeningly calm. "I know this isn't fair. But the Commission wants blood now. Chloe is in danger."

"And?" I looked at the face I once loved deeply. He felt like a total stranger.

"I need you to post a video on the dark web using your real name," Victor ordered, looking down at me. "Tell them you made the whole thing up out of jealousy and spite."

I couldn't believe my ears.

"Victor, I'm a respected art restorer. If I admit to slander, my career in high society is completely ruined. Did you even think about me at all?"

Victor frowned. "I’ll compensate you. However much money you want, millions in offshore accounts—it's yours. You never have to work again, I can take care of you for life. But not Chloe. She can't handle this kind of shock right now."

I laughed out of pure anger. "I'm not taking the fall for this."

Victor’s eyes turned ice-cold. He pulled out a document and tossed it onto the coffee table.

"Vivienne, I’m trying to let you keep your dignity. If you don't clear her name, don't blame me for being ruthless."

I looked down, my pupils shrinking.

It was a divorce agreement drafted by a lawyer. And right underneath it was a photocopy.

It was Victor and Chloe’s secret marriage certificate! Issued exactly one week ago.

"What does this mean?" I was freezing all over, my voice shaking.

"You still don't get it?" Victor calmly dropped the cruelest truth. "A month ago, when I took you to sign the family trust papers, I slipped the divorce papers in."

"You signed them a long time ago, Vivienne."

"The child in Chloe's belly has to be the legitimate Costello heir. She needs the title."

My mind went completely blank. Nausea rolled wildly in my stomach again.

"By the way, I’ve already issued a statement on the dark web under the Costello family name," Victor said, adjusting his tie. "It clearly states that I kicked you out a month ago. That bounty thread was just the insane ramblings of a pathetic, mentally unstable ex-wife out for revenge."

I trembled, my nails biting deep into my palms.

Seeing me about to collapse, a flash of charitable pity actually crossed Victor's eyes. He took a step forward, trying to stroke my hair like he used to.

"Be a good girl, Vivienne." He spoke with the ultimate gentleness, saying the most vicious words. "Just play along for now. Once Chloe has the baby and secures the family inheritance, the Commission will back off. Then I’ll divorce her immediately and marry you again."

Smack!

Using every ounce of my strength, I slapped him hard across the face. The blow was so heavy that Victor's head snapped to the side. His gold-rimmed glasses hit the floor, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

"Get out." I pointed at the door, my voice like ice. "Take your precious Chloe and get the hell out of my house!"

Victor touched his lip. His eyes grew dark and dangerous.

Beside him, Dominic laughed, gloating. "Wake up, Vivienne. No one is ever going to love a boring woman like you."

They slammed the door and left.

Drained of all strength, I slid to the floor.

Victor's statement blew up. The homepage of my gallery was swarmed. Countless insults and curses flooded in.

[So Vivienne Costello was the crazy, obsessed stalker all along.]

[Disgusting. Making up rumors about someone else just because she got dumped. How is a bitch like this even allowed in the art world?!]