Slowly, I was pushed to the edge of collapse.

I started fighting back the same way he did.

I took a young man under my wing. Maeve Vitale. A quiet-blooded son of the Vitale Family, still finishing his years at the university, the kind of face that turned heads across every room he entered.

At first, it was nothing but spite.

But he would call me sorella in that gentle voice. He would coax me back from the ledge with patience I had forgotten existed. And when I was at my most helpless, he was the first one through the door.

The car accident. I lay in a hospital bed in a private clinic the Vitale family kept off the books, and he sat beside me, eyes rimmed red, staying through every follow-up examination without once being asked.

He was clean. Pure. Like a shaft of light that carried no impurity at all.

Over time, my heart, torn and riddled with wounds, was mended by him piece by careful piece.

I had offered him a house. Money. Whatever I could give.

He wanted none of it.

He wanted only a name. A place beside me that the world would recognize.

"Sorella, divorce him. Try me."

He looked at me, his gaze clear and steady, as though his eyes had room for only one person. And in those eyes, the woman reflected back was not the wretched, humiliated version of myself I had come to accept. She was glowing.

In that moment, something finally clicked into place.

When a thing is broken, you replace it. Even a child understands that. Yet I had wasted years grinding myself down inside this alliance.

Everything between Dante Moretti and me had only ever been slow self-destruction.

So I said yes.

Yes to being with Maeve Vitale.

And yes to ending, once and for all, a marriage that lay in ruins around my feet.

Dante had barely left the estate when my phone lit up with Maeve's video call.

On the screen, he wore a clean white shirt, moving through a kitchen with quiet efficiency. A few strands of dark hair fell across his forehead, and his lashes were long, giving him that look that was both gentle and disarming.

"Sorella, is it done? The divorce?"

I was older than him. I had lived through things he could only imagine. And still, every time I saw that face, my pulse quickened against my will.

I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to stay even.

"The agreement is signed. One more month, and he and I have no connection left."

He listened, and slowly the corner of his mouth curved upward. His voice dropped low, threaded with a pleasure he could not quite contain.

"Since there's no connection anymore, then for this month, sorella, you don't let him touch you."

The words were soft, but underneath them ran a possessiveness that left no room for argument.

"When the time comes, I'll be checking."

I hadn't expected Maeve to say something like that. Heat crept across my cheeks, but I kept my expression flat and scolded him with all the composure I could manage. "Don't talk nonsense."

On the other end, he watched me, his gaze carrying an undisguised hunger he reined in a heartbeat later, his tone shifting to something wounded and clinging. "Sorella, the only thing small about me is my age. Everything else… isn't small at all."

My chest tightened. I cut him off before the conversation could slip any further, coaxed him with a few gentle words, and finally got him to hang up like a good boy.

This young man was everything I could want. Except that he clung to me like a vine.

The moment the call ended, I went out and bought a calendar.

For the month that followed, I lived by tearing off pages, counting each day on my fingers.

From October first to the tenth, Dante did not come back to the compound once.

But where he went, who he was with, what he was doing. I knew all of it with perfect clarity.

His new woman, Serena Bellucci, was a hostess at one of the Moretti-owned clubs. A girl who had started as an intern of sorts in the family's legitimate front. Every day she would post something on her social media, carefully casual, dropping hints about the two of them. As if she were marking territory.

An afternoon spent at a private dining room in the kind of restaurant where the maître d' never wrote down a reservation. An evening at the golf course the family kept for entertaining judges and politicians. Standing on the terrace of a hilltop villa, looking down at the city lights. Sharing a private hot spring at a resort that only took guests with the right last name.

Strange, really. With Dante's habits, he never lingered on one woman for long. The ones who came and went before had held his attention for a month at most before he grew bored.

But this Serena Bellucci had already lasted three months, and he still hadn't grown tired of her.

Perhaps it was that unusual longevity that gave her the nerve. She stopped playing quiet the way the others had. She even added me on my private line, testing, prodding, in that careful way of hers that looked like nothing and meant everything.

I didn't let it bother me.

I had already decided to dissolve the alliance. Why waste energy on petty games.

Over the next few days, with nothing else to occupy my time, I cleaned the estate from top to bottom.

The straight razors I'd chosen for him at a custom shop in Milan. The suits he wore every day, the ones I'd pressed with my own hands and hung in garment bags before each sit-down. The limited-edition Patek Philippe I'd stayed up half the night outbidding three other buyers to secure.

It didn't matter what it was worth. If I had given it to him, I boxed it up and threw it out.

What I threw out with it was every humiliation this marriage had asked me to swallow, and every piece of my heart I had handed over without holding anything back.

I had made up my mind. A clean break from the past. A fresh start.

Two more days passed before he finally came back.

He stood in the main room of the estate, scanning the shelves and surfaces that were visibly emptier than before, and his brow creased. "Vera, you threw out my things?"

I kept turning the pages of the magazine in my lap, didn't look up. "I did."

"I bought them. I can throw them away if I want. Is there a problem? Besides, you're never home. No point keeping things that collect dust."

He clearly assumed I was still angry about the last incident. Took it for spite, nothing more.

He walked over and sat down beside me, his tone carrying that careless, half-hearted reassurance he always reached for. "Didn't we agree a long time ago? We each do what we want outside these walls, and neither of us catches feelings for anyone else. Why are you making an issue of it again?"

The same speech. Always the same speech.

No matter what he did, he could always find a way to excuse himself. And I, his wife in name, was supposed to absorb every wound he inflicted in silence, as though even voicing a grievance was excessive.

But now, I had no interest in tangling with him over things that no longer mattered.

I closed the magazine, stood, and headed for the stairs. My voice was cold enough to freeze the air between us. "You're overthinking it. I don't care."

He took that for a mask. Thought I was pretending not to feel anything. He was on his feet instantly, catching my hand.

Under my gaze, which held nothing but impatience, he reached into his jacket and pulled out an invitation, pressing it into my palm.

"Stop being angry. Tomorrow I'll take you to the auction. Whatever catches your eye, bid on it. Relax a little, all right?"

My first instinct was to refuse.

But when my eyes landed on the Sotheby's crest embossed on the card, I changed my mind.

We were getting a dissolution anyway. Spending his money on something that made me happy wasn't a loss.

So I nodded.

At five o'clock the next afternoon, his car pulled up to the estate gates right on time.

I carried my bag downstairs and was reaching for the door handle when I saw a familiar face.

Serena Bellucci.

She sat in the passenger seat clutching a large bag of snacks and bottled water, settled in as though she belonged there, and smiled at me with that wide, innocent expression of hers.

"Signora, I get a little carsick. Would you mind sitting in the back today?"

The flash of triumph in her eyes didn't escape me. I lowered my gaze, and in my peripheral vision I caught the small ornament mounted on the dashboard.

A custom Hello Kitty figurine. The tiny bow on its head bore a line of cursive lettering.

Princess Serena's seat.

I didn't speak. I didn't step aside.

Dante seemed to sense the shift in my mood. Once again, that low, impatient coaxing. "Serena's never been to an auction. I'm just showing her how the other half lives. She's delicate, Vera. Let her have the seat."

Let her?

Of course I could.

I'd already decided I didn't want the man himself. A seat in a car was nothing worth fighting over.

I let out a quiet laugh, said nothing, and slid into the back.

The whole drive, Serena Bellucci was like a bird that never tired of singing. She picked at pastries and little sweets from a gold-foil box, scooping bites onto a spoon she'd already used and lifting them to Dante's lips. She made no effort to hide the intimacy. He made no effort to refuse it. They talked about everything and nothing, her every teasing pout and playful word earning the same reward: a slow, indulgent curve at the corner of his mouth.

From start to finish, I didn't spare either of them so much as a glance.

I cracked the window instead and watched the October light drain out of the city. The wind that slipped through carried the first real chill of autumn, thin and clean, tasting faintly of the river that marked the eastern edge of Moretti territory.

When the car stopped and we had barely walked a few paces from the curb, Serena wrinkled her brow and whimpered that her heels were cutting into her feet.

Dante laughed at her for being delicate, but he didn't hesitate. He steered her into the nearest high-end boutique without a backward glance, the two bodyguards trailing them inside like shadows.

He crouched in front of her himself, pair after pair, checking the flex of each sole with careful fingers, adjusting the strap across her ankle. Every motion deliberate. Gentle.

I stood to the side and watched, and the memory surfaced before I could stop it.

Two weeks ago. A fever so high my thoughts swam and my skin felt like it had been held over an open flame. All I'd asked for was a glass of water. He hadn't even lifted his head. His refusal had been flat, cold, final.

So this was how wide the distance between one person and another could be.

The one held close to the heart was a princess, naturally.

Treatment was never equal. It never had been.

But once, I had been the one cupped in his palms like something precious.

Back then I'd tested him on purpose, told him that if he could bring me the red-bean cakes from the old bakery on the south side, I'd consider being with him. The south side was half a city away from my family's house, and that night a blizzard had buried the streets. Anyone could see it was an impossible demand.

He said nothing. He took his keys and walked out the door.

Five hours.

When he came back, he pulled a paper-wrapped box from inside his coat, still warm against his chest, and held it out to me. His eyes were completely serious.

Afterward, I asked myself a thousand times: if what he felt then was real, how could it change so fast?

Now I understood.

He hadn't changed.

I simply hadn't seen clearly before. Hadn't seen the restless nature beneath the devotion, hadn't seen what kind of man he truly was.

A man like that never stops for anyone.

I laughed softly under my breath, tucked the embossed invitation card tighter in my hand, and walked into the auction hall ahead of them.

The first lot was already under the hammer by the time Dante strolled in with Serena on his arm. Two of his men peeled off to stand along the far wall, jackets buttoned, hands visible but close to the hip.

The auction ran alongside a formal dinner. The tables gleamed with tiered trays of delicate pastries and platters of fat, seasonal crab still glistening from the steam.

The moment Serena sat down, her eyes locked on the crab. She leaned into Dante, tugging at his sleeve, saying she wanted it now.

He gave a helpless little smile, smoothed her skirt where it had bunched against the chair, waved away the server who stepped forward, and picked up the tools himself. He cracked each shell with practiced hands, easing the meat and the golden roe free piece by piece, patient as a man disarming something fragile.

When he was done, he set the plate in front of her.

Serena looked up at him, her eyes bright with worship and need.

I only watched in silence.

After the crab, she pointed idly at the stage, at a suite of emerald jewelry displayed under halogen light.

Dante didn't hesitate. His hand went up, paddle rising in a single clean motion.

"Paddle seventeen bids three hundred million."

The auctioneer's voice echoed across the vaulted ceiling. The room went still. Then came the wave of sharp indrawn breaths, rippling table to table.

No one dared counter. The gavel fell.

Soon the evening broke for intermission. Men and women began circulating with glasses in hand, drifting toward our table the way lesser families always drifted toward power, looking for a word, a nod, an opening.

They watched how Dante attended to Serena, how his hand rested at the small of her back, how he leaned to hear her whisper. They read the signals the way people in this world always did, and drew the obvious conclusion. One after another, they addressed her as "Mrs. Moretti," as "Signora," their voices warm with deference.

Dante's gaze lifted then. Slowly. His thumb dragged once across the face of his signet ring before his eyes found mine, cool and unhurried.

"You have the wrong woman," he said. His voice carried just far enough. "That one is my wife."