This incident drove a wedge between Federico and me. He kept investigating the cause of the failed deal that day, and although he found no concrete evidence linking me to the leak, he quietly changed the passcode to his study, and he never brought up anything related to the famiglia with me again. There were even times when he no longer took me along as his exclusive plus-one to banquets.

To make matters worse, a rumor had leaked through the grapevine, leading the entire famiglia to believe I was the turncoat. When the Capo walked past me, he'd deliberately bump my shoulder and sneer, "A loyal father actually fathered a traitorous daughter. How ridiculous."

I felt incredibly wronged, but when I turned around, I spotted Federico standing not far off, quietly observing the scene. He merely gazed at me for a couple of seconds before turning around and silently vanishing down the hallway.

Back then, I was far too proud to stomach that kind of humiliation. Consequently, I went straight to his quarters that very night and knocked on his door. But there was no one inside.

The butler, Dante Silvestri, walked over and let out a soft sigh. "Signor Leone has gone to the hospital."

My chest tightened. Terrified that something had happened to him, I didn't even bother putting my coat on properly before rushing out into the night toward the hospital. However, the second I pushed open the door to the hospital room, I froze dead in my tracks.

Federico was sitting at Aria's bedside, blowing on a spoonful of soup to feed her. Noticing me burst in, his brows instantly knit together. "Did you follow me here?"

At that exact moment, my emotional dam broke. I felt as though my heart had been thrown to the ground and violently trampled on.

I cried out that Aria had lured me there that day, that she had only ever used me to get to him. Yet, as he listened to my frantic explanations, Federico cut me off coldly. "Your action only makes me realize that Aria was right about you."

I was caught off guard. "What—"

"You've always been bothered by her presence around me, and you've always harbored hostility toward her."

I parted my lips, and my voice trembled as I forced out, "Federico, I've been by your side for a decade… and you'd rather believe her instead of me?"

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, but his resolve didn't waver. "She took a bullet for me, and she's lying here in a hospital bed, yet she's still defending you. Meanwhile, the first thing you do when you burst in is accuse her of having an ulterior motive. How do you expect me to believe you?"

As soon as his words fell, everything I wanted to say died in my throat. All of a sudden, I didn't want to explain myself anymore. So, I turned on my heel to leave.

Just then, a chilling, razor-sharp warning cut through the air behind me. "Sera, stop following me, and don't take my past indulgence of you for granted."

I stopped in my tracks, let out a self-deprecating chuckle, and forced back my tears. I didn't let a single one fall until I finally crossed the hospital threshold, and then, the dam broke.

A torrential downpour hit the city that night. It poured relentlessly during my entire journey home, and I let the storm soak me to the bone as many things finally became clear to me.

When I returned home, without even pausing to change out of my drenched clothes, I booted up my laptop and pulled up the university application page. In the past, because I wanted to stay by Federico's side, I chose to stay out of the spotlight and sacrificed countless opportunities. But now, I only wanted to get as far away from him as humanly possible.

As I compiled my past works into a portfolio, I realized that the vast majority of my paintings featured the exact same man—Federico brooding beneath the shade of a tree, Federico lighting a cigarette at the entrance of a church...

An artist's brush, when guided by love, gives a painting its soul, and these pieces earned me my admission ticket to university. I had been accepted into the world's most prestigious art academy, the same one where Dad had graduated from.

I no longer cared about Federico. Instead, I focused on preparing for the upcoming semester and getting ready to leave.

…

Then, out of the blue one day, Federico pushed open my bedroom door. He placed a stack of documents on my desk and casually remarked, "Haven't you always wanted to study painting?"

I froze for a moment before lowering my head to flip through them.

Listed inside was a row of names. The restorers of Valrosa, the mentors of private Merisian studios, and several legendary artists who only ever existed as whispers in the art world. Every single one of them represented a level of connection that, in the past, I wouldn't have dared to dream of.

"Pick one," Frederico ordered calmly as he stood beside me. "Whoever you want, I'll pull the strings to make it happen."

My hands balled into fists, and I remained silent for a long while.

Once upon a time, I would definitely have been so ecstatic that I wouldn't have been able to sleep all night. However, at that moment, I only found it deeply ironic. He seemed to think that by using just a tiny bit of his power, he could effortlessly wipe the slate clean, erasing every ounce of his cruelty, doubt, and hurt.

But the scars were there, and I couldn't forget them. Besides, I was leaving soon.

That art academy wasn't short of talented teachers. Hence, I pushed the documents back across the table to him and said curtly, "No, thank you. I'm not interested."

Federico frowned. Chalking my refusal up to petty resentment, he merely had someone put the documents away. Then, he left without even asking why I had refused.

I smiled wryly, dismissing the whole incident as nothing more than a minor interlude.

Soon after, I received my acceptance letter. Yet, the moment I took it out of the mailbox, it was suddenly snatched from my hand. "Oh? Royal Artificium. As expected of our resident artist."

"Give it back to me, Aria!" I reached out to snatch it back, but she deliberately tore the acceptance letter into shreds right in front of my eyes.

At long last, I snapped. I lunged forward and slapped her hard across the face.

But she wasn't upset. Instead, she slowly turned her head back around and smiled at someone behind me.

I went rigid. Slowly, I followed the direction of her gaze.

Federico was standing at the entrance. There was no telling how long he had been there. His expression was terrifyingly dark as his gaze swept across the shredded paper on the floor before finally settling on my face.

I parted my lips, but my throat felt unbearably tight. "She was the one who—"

"That's enough!" he cut me off coldly. He didn't ask what that piece of paper was, nor did he ask why she was in my room. He merely spared me a single glance before calling his soldatos over. "Lock her in the disciplinary chamber."

I stood frozen in place, staring at him in utter disbelief. There were no torture devices in the disciplinary chamber, only a single bed, a desk, and a solitary light that stayed on through the night. Federico didn't let anyone lay a finger on me, but he didn't let me out, either.

For the first two days, I found myself staring blankly at that heavy door, wondering if he would show up, thinking that surely, he would at least demand an explanation. Yet, every single time that door was pushed open, the one who walked in was Aria, showing off the new necklace Federico had given her and the glaring hickey on her neck. She watched me like a hawk, eager to catch a stray emotion on my face, but I remained stoic.

Roughly three days later, my confinement finally ended. Federico had come to pick me up in person.

He didn't apologize, and I didn't question him either. I simply pulled open the car door in silence.

Then, I came face-to-face with Aria, who was seated in the passenger seat, flashing me a smile. I had genuinely believed my heart was completely numb, but in that fraction of a second, it still twinged with a sharp ache.

My grip on the handle loosened. Knowing my place, I took a seat in the back.

On the way home, Aria kept striking up conversations with Federico in a coquettish tone. I simply leaned my head against the window, staring out at the passing scenery in silence.

Just then, a deafening blast shattered the air up ahead. The very next second, the car windows shattered with a deafening crash.

Federico's expression changed drastically. Instinctively, he reached out and shielded Aria in the passenger seat, holding her tightly in his embrace.

I was in the back seat, and I didn't even have time to duck before a sharp, agonizing pain ripped through my shoulder. Right on its heels, a searing heat flared up along the side of my waist. In the blink of an eye, blood saturated my clothes.

The car veered wildly off course and slammed heavily into the guardrail. The brutal impact sent me flying across the seat. My head spun, and my world dissolved into a deafening, high-pitched ringing.

As my consciousness began to slip, I noticed Federico snap his head around, all the color instantly draining from his face. He reached out to hold me, and for the first time, I heard him fret, "Sera! Sera, wake up!"

I wanted to open my eyes, but my limbs felt heavy as lead, and my body refused to obey.

…

When I came to, I found myself in the hospital. I didn't cry or make a scene. I merely borrowed a nurse's phone and called my university.

Fortunately, it didn't matter if I lost the acceptance letter. As long as I showed up on time, I could still enroll. After hanging up, I quietly booked the earliest flight available.

On the day I was discharged, I didn't tell a soul. I went back, packed up my painting kit, grabbed my ID and sketches, and headed straight for the airport.

However, before I could even reach the security checkpoint, someone stopped me. I was yanked backward so hard that I staggered, and my painting kit tipped over at my feet. Brushes and tubes of paint spilled all over the floor, and beneath them all lay a military arms-dealing blueprint.

Federico's Underboss, Massimiliano Moscaritolo, raised his hand and tossed the blueprint onto the ground before me. "This covers our famiglia's most important operation next month. Every warehouse, route, and hand-off time is right here," he said lowly.

The color instantly drained from my face, and I instinctively explained, "It wasn't me! This isn't mine—"

"It's not yours?" he sneered, cutting me off. "We received a tip this afternoon that the mole is going to meet someone at the airport tonight with the blueprint, and you just happen to show up at the airport, and this exact document just happens to be found in your painting kit. What else do you have to say for yourself, Sera?"

With no way to clear my name, I looked up at Federico. But before I could utter a word, the Consigliere chimed in lowly, "You've already covered for her once after the incident at the docks. If you choose to protect her again, I'll have no choice but to wonder…"

He paused before shifting his solemn gaze to Federico. "Whether this woman is more important than our famiglia and whether our famiglia... can truly be left in your hands."

A suffocating silence fell over the room. I kept my eyes on Federico, clinging to the very last shred of hope in my heart.

At last, he broke the silence. His voice was deep and utterly devoid of emotion. "Cut off her limbs and exile her immediately."

At that moment, it felt as though I had been struck by a bolt from the blue.

Massimiliano immediately added, his tone uncompromising. "Anyone who has met with her in secret, relayed messages on her behalf, or helped her enter and leave the Leone residenza in the last six months will be expelled from the famiglia as well. From now on, her fate—whether she lives or dies—has absolutely nothing to do with us!"

I remained on my knees, a sharp ringing in my ears drowning out everything else.

All I could hear were distant sobs, pleas for mercy, and voices desperately calling out his name. Some of them were housekeepers who had taken care of me and people who had done nothing more than open a door for me once. Yet, in the blink of an eye, they had all become collateral damage.

Several of them relied on this job to feed their entire families, while others had spent half their lives serving the Leone famiglia, only to lose everything in the end because of me. The sight was too much to stomach. Using the last shred of my strength, I crawled to Federico's feet, begging him to spare them.

Yet, he ruthlessly threw my hands off him. I had never seen him this furious.

"Sera D'Angelo, I thought you would behave after my last warning, but you've just kept pushing the envelope!" The way he looked at me was a concoction of rage and disappointment. His voice, which was usually calm, was shaking now.

Then, he shot daggers at the soldatos, who were holding me down. "Leave us! Tonight, I'll punish this traitor myself!"

Once his soldatos left, I knelt on the floor in absolute despair, waiting for the hammer to fall. Yet, right then, Federico slowly pulled back the cabinet, revealing a hidden passage. I looked up in utter confusion.

With his back to me, he sounded utterly spent. "Get out of here. Next time, I won't protect you again."

After hearing that, I let out a derisive chuckle. When had he ever protected me?

Despondent, I rose to my feet and walked toward the secret passage, feeling his burning gaze on my back the entire time. Then, a loud thud echoed as the door sealed shut, plunging my world into darkness.

In the end, I still missed the enrollment deadline. I didn't follow Dad's footsteps. However, I became an underground artist just like him. The only difference was that he forged art, while I authenticated it.

So much time had passed since then, yet here I was, pulling up to the Leone residenza again. When we arrived, I didn't get out of the car. I simply sent Chiara to collect the painting.

It didn't take long for a few men to carry the piece out. Yet, the moment it was placed into my car, a familiar voice suddenly rang out from behind us. "What do you think you're doing?"