Married for five years, Lorenzo, the underboss of the Moretti family, had never been without a woman.

He found my “noble lady” posture stiff and vanilla.

Dancers from Trinacria, headliners from the city’s nightclubs, his rotating stream of mistresses could fill the entire estate.

Yet whenever I was displeased, whether it was throwing drinks or kicking someone out, Lorenzo never intervened.

He’d only lit his cigar with casual amusement and said, “Relax. It’s just fun. No one can touch your position.”

Then a clumsy, naive maid appeared.

Unlike the others, she wasn’t flashy. However, when Lorenzo returned, bloodied, she’d hand him a cup of warm tea, her eyes red-rimmed. She watched him with pure admiration while he handled the family business.

Lorenzo said the estate felt cold and lifeless except for her. He said only when she panicked did he feel like a hero being needed, rather than just a husband in a political marriage.

Until she accidentally broke an antique vase left by my mother…

Before I could react, Lorenzo stepped in and shielded her trembling form, glaring at me as if I were the enemy.

“What’s wrong with you? If you’re crazy, go see a shrink. Don’t scare her like a rabid dog!”

Watching his careful, protective expression, I smiled.

I guess it was time for the Moretti family underboss to be replaced.

Lorenzo Moretti’s “rabid dog” was still echoing through the hall. On the floor, the shattered blue-and-white porcelain from the mysterious East was painfully glaring.

“Apologize to Sophia.” Lorenzo patted the woman’s back, his voice low and cold.

I looked at him, mockery flickering in my eyes.

Five years ago, when the Bernardi family expanded south, they chose the Moretti family as their pawn.

Lorenzo married me as part of that alliance, and only then was he promoted to underboss of the Moretti family.

Everything he had—status, money, and this estate—came from me.

However, he had clearly forgotten how he had climbed here.

Now he was eager to grind my dignity underfoot, desperate to hide the fact that he rose through his wife.

“I won’t apologize.”

I lifted my chin and said with a flat tone, carrying the natural arrogance of a Bernardi heiress.

Lorenzo’s expression darkened instantly.

He hated this look. It reminded him, every time, that aside from the don, there was still me above him.

“This is Moretti territory!”

He clenched his teeth like an enraged lion. “Elena, don’t forget who you are. You’re just the underboss’s wife now!”

“So you do remember you’re only an underboss?” I sneered. “If my father finds out you’re using his daughter’s money to keep a mistress, how long do you think you’ll last?”

I clearly hit the sore spot. Panic flashed through his eyes, then sank into something darker.

“Fine. Very well.” He sneered. “Don Moretti will be attending tonight’s banquet. I’ll have Sophia sit at the main table right next to you and let him see how I keep women in line.”

He’d lost his mind.

In a rigid, hierarchical mafia family, putting a mistress at the main table was a direct provocation to the don and an outright insult to the family’s honor. Desperate to assert his authority, he had already lost all rational judgment.

I said nothing, though. Instead, I turned and went back to my room.

Since he wanted to seek death, I didn’t mind sending him off.

Back in my bedroom, I took out a dusty satellite phone.

“Carlo,” I said, looking out the window. “Notify Interpol on the shipment that Lorenzo is personally responsible for coming at 10 p.m. tonight.”

“Principessa, that shipment accounts for half of the Moretti family’s profits this year. If something goes wrong, Don Moretti won’t spare the one in charge.”

“That’s what I want.” My voice was cold. “Also, prepare to abandon the Moretti family.”

I ended the call and fixed my makeup.

The door opened, and Sophia walked in.

“Madam.” She said, idly toying with my pearl necklace, “Lorenzo said the don will announce tonight that he’s taking over more business. When that happens, I’ll get my share too.”

I laughed softly, full of disdain, and pulled a document from the drawer, slapping it into her hands.

“Divorce papers.”

I said calmly, “Have him sign it. Then this estate and that trash of a man will both be yours.”

Sophia clutched the papers, greed nearly spilling from her eyes. She wanted to be the lady of this place so badly.

Lorenzo’s impatient shout echoed from downstairs. “Elena! Do I need to come get you myself?”

Sophia hurried to hide the agreement, but I stepped forward and stopped her.

Unhurried, I reached out and drew the pearl necklace back from her stiff fingers, bead by bead.

Then I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I trust you’ll make the right choice.”

At the head of the long table sat the current Don Moretti, the man known as the “Old Lion”. His eyes were closed, resting.

Though he was advanced in age, the presence radiating from him silenced the entire dining hall.

Lorenzo sat at Don Moretti’s lower left, the seat reserved for the underboss.

And Sophia was really there. Dressed in a garish red gown, she trembled as she sat to my right.

The other family elders exchanged looks. They stared at Lorenzo as if they were watching a dead man.

“Lorenzo.” Don Moretti slowly opened his eyes, his voice hoarse yet commanding. “This is the ‘surprise’ you mentioned to me?”

Lorenzo stood stiffly. “Don Moretti, Sophia may be of low birth, but she… she’s carrying my child. I wanted to take this opportunity—”

“Outrageous!”

Before Don Moretti could speak, the consigliere across the table slammed his hand down.

“Lorenzo! Your wife is sitting right here, and you bring a mistress to the main table? Where does that put Ms. Bernardi? Are you trying to humiliate her or the Bernardi family?”

Lorenzo opened his mouth to argue when the doors suddenly burst open.

Mario, one of his closest men, stumbled in, covered in blood.

“Don Moretti! Something’s happened!”

“Pier Four has been wiped out! Interpol moved like they had a map, and our shipment was seized the moment it hit the dock! Our men… none of them made it!”

“What?!” Lorenzo’s face drained of color. He slumped back into his chair.

That shipment was Don Moretti’s trust placed directly in his hands. The deal was meant to prove his worth.

Don Moretti slowly set his glass down. The soft clink as it landed sounded like thunder in everyone’s chest.

He turned his head, his clouded eyes locking onto Lorenzo.

“Lorenzo, is this your return to the family?” he said too calmly. “The goods taken, and the men gone with them?”

“Don Moretti, I—” Cold sweat poured down Lorenzo’s face. “Someone must have leaked it! There has to be a traitor!”

He suddenly pointed at me, desperate to grasp for a lifeline.

“It was her! It had to be Elena! She’s a Bernardi! She wanted to swallow the shipment!”

All eyes turned to me.

I calmly cut a piece of steak, wiped my mouth with elegance, and then looked at Don Moretti.

“Don Moretti, if the Bernardi family wanted that shipment, we would have intercepted it at sea. Why wait until it reaches port and draw the police? What would we gain from that?”

Don Moretti nodded slightly.

Drawing the authorities was a cardinal sin in the mafia. The Bernardi family wouldn’t do something so foolish.

“Besides…” I set my knife and fork down and turned my gaze, sharp as a blade, toward the trembling Sophia.

“When the meeting was held in the study to set the schedule, who went in to deliver coffee? Then, lingered outside the door after, refusing to leave?”

Sophia’s fork slipped from her hand, crashing onto the plate with a shrill sound.

“And,” I added coolly, “I’ve heard Miss Sophia recently lost quite a bit of money at the casino. She’s been desperate to find cash to cover her debts.”

“You’re lying!” Sophia screamed, her face deathly pale. “Lorenzo, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!”

“Enough!” Don Moretti slammed the table.

He didn’t even glance at Sophia. His eyes never left Lorenzo.

“As underboss, you leaked family secrets to an outsider. As a man, you betrayed your wife for a mistress. Lorenzo, you’ve disappointed me.”

“Don Moretti, please give me one more chance…” Lorenzo dropped to his knees with a heavy thud.

“Take that woman away.” Don Moretti pointed at Sophia. “Deal with her according to family law.”

Then he looked coldly at Lorenzo.

“As for you, step down as underboss. Go to the countryside in Trinacria and reflect for three months. If Elena does not forgive you, don’t ever come back.”

Sophia’s screams echoed through the hall as she was dragged away.

Lorenzo remained kneeling, shaking, not daring to look up at me.

Late at night in the dungeon.

I stood outside the iron bars, looking at Sophia curled into herself.

“Why…” She sobbed. “It was clearly you…”

“Shh.”

I raised a finger, gazing at her with pity through the bars.

“Foolish girl. If you hadn’t been clutching that divorce agreement, dreaming of replacing me, how would Don Moretti ever believe that a mistress who couldn’t even sit at the table would dare sell out the family?”

I turned and walked away, my heels striking the stone floor.

“Remember this. Whoever I choose to lift can become an underboss. Whoever I choose to destroy can only end up as trash.”

The Trinacrian wind didn’t clear Lorenzo’s head. If anything, it taught him how to play the victim.

That fool who only knew how to squander money somehow reinvented himself as a penitent monk in a rural monastery.

A month later, Don Moretti’s desk was buried under letters from Trinacria.

None was written by Lorenzo himself, but by a highly respected local priest.

The letters said Lorenzo rose at four every morning to scrub the church floors, prayed devoutly for redemption, and kneeled until his knees bled.

“Elena,” Don Moretti said as he set the letters down and removed his reading glasses. A trace of pity surfaced in his clouded eyes.

“A lost lamb has returned to the flock. He is, after all, blood of the Moretti family and your husband.”

I sat across from him, peeling an apple. The skin came off in one long, unbroken strip.

“Don Moretti, when a crocodile sheds tears, it’s usually because it’s hungry,” I said calmly, handing him the sliced apple. “If he’s truly devoted to God, then let him be a little purer.”

That afternoon, I cut off all of Lorenzo’s allowances in Trinacria and froze seven hidden accounts under his name.

If he wanted to play the ascetic, there shouldn’t be the smell of money on him.

The financial choke worked immediately, but the result was nothing as I expected.

Three days later, a photo made its way back to the estate.

In it, Lorenzo wore rough linen robes, handing a watch to a pawnshop owner.

It was the watch Don Moretti had given him when he was promoted to underboss.

The message followed quickly.

Lorenzo had sold his symbol of status just to buy a batch of prayer candles for the church, to pray for the family.

The elders couldn’t sit still anymore.

“This is outrageous!” The consigliere slammed his hand on the table during the meeting.

“Elena, you’re pushing him to the brink! That watch represents the family’s face, and now it’s hanging in a pawnshop. That’s like throwing the Moretti family’s honor on the ground and stepping on it!”

I looked coldly at these old men blinded by performance.

However, I knew Lorenzo was not so noble.

While Lorenzo was short on money, it was not for candles.

In Trinacria, he’d made contact with Black Snake—the radical faction within the Moretti family.

He wanted money for mercenaries and make a comeback.

So I deliberately leaked a fake estate defense map.

It marked supposed weaknesses in our security. In reality, though, every one of those points was a dead end.

As long as Lorenzo sold that map to any rival family in exchange for cash, his betrayal would be undeniable. Not even God could save him then.

The bait was cast, and I waited for the fish to bite.

However, I underestimated what hatred can turn a man into.

Late that night, there was a violent storm.

The gates of the estate were hammered on.

Soaked to the bone, Lorenzo burst in, clutching the fake map. He stumbled straight into Don Moretti’s bedroom before dropping to his knees at the bedside.

“Don Moretti! Someone’s trying to destroy the family!”

He held up the document I had leaked on purpose, sobbing uncontrollably.

“I intercepted this intelligence! Someone sold our estate’s defense map to outsiders! I rushed back overnight. I was afraid something would happen!”

Don Moretti took the map, his face darkening.

Then he looked at me, standing at the doorway.

For the first time, doubt entered his eyes.

“Elena, this falls under your authority.”

His voice was ice-cold. “How did a top-secret defense map circulate outside? If Lorenzo hadn’t intercepted it and brought it back, would we all have died in our sleep tonight?”

I looked at Lorenzo, kneeling on the floor.

His head was lowered. His shoulders shook violently, as if he were crying.

I knew better, though.

He was laughing.

This round, I lost. He’d turned a burning potato into a shield, cleansed himself completely, and even bit back at me for negligence.

“It was my oversight.” I lowered my head.

Don Moretti let out a long sigh and reached out to stroke Lorenzo’s wet hair.

“Come back, my boy. The family needs you.”

Lorenzo lifted his head, tears streaming down his face, and looked straight at me.

“Elena, I’m back.”