After that argument, Gianna and Matteo fell into a cold war. He stopped visiting, and she refused to reach out first.

Lately, in her dreams, she kept seeing a warm family that did not exist—doting parents with relatives gathered around them.

This longing was like an addiction. It flared up during rainy nights in the city, gnawing at her bones and piercing her heart. Hence, despite Matteo's strict warnings, she found herself drawn once again to the gates of Orleen Estate.

Tall iron railings wrapped in electrified barbed wire loomed above. Armed Soldati stood guard at the entrance.

"What do you want? Get lost!"

They spotted her again.

A rifle butt struck Gianna's shoulder. She grunted in pain and collapsed to the ground.

Just then, the Don's wife, Isabella Bianchi, stepped outside. Their eyes met.

Isabella froze in place. A powerful instinct deep in her blood made her heart race.

The pale, delicate face and those features bore a striking resemblance to the Don in his youth. She looked more like a Ricci than their pampered Principessa did.

"Stop! Let her go!"

She rushed forward, struggling to control her emotions. "Child, who are you? How old are you?"

Gianna ignored the searing pain in her shoulder and struggled to stand. She wanted to call out 'Mamma'.

This was the closest she had ever been to home. If she just spoke up, if she just...

The harsh sound of brakes cut through the air. An armored SUV screeched to a violent stop beside them, radiating menace.

A tall, cold figure strode over quickly. Matteo shoved Gianna backward with one hand, sending her crashing into the wet, cold mud again.

"What are you doing?" Isabella cried out and moved to help her up.

"Madre, be careful!" He stepped in front of Isabella, his face full of vigilance.

"I just got word that enemy forces might have sent a spy. This woman had plastic surgery to look like the Don when he was young—bone shaving, jaw reshaping, the works. She's trying to get into the Ricci family with bad intentions!"

What was he saying? Gianna was stunned.

He was the one who brought her back to the city. He was the one who promised to help her claim her identity. He was the one who...

"Plastic surgery?" Isabella's outstretched hand froze in midair. The compassion in her eyes was instantly replaced by shock and suspicion. "But those eyes..."

"Modern cosmetic surgery can fake even retinas, let alone a face."

Matteo refused to budge. "Take her inside for interrogation!"

This was her first time entering the estate. Unfortunately, everyone else sat while she knelt.

"Similar. So similar!" Domenico Ricci squinted as he studied her. "Even with your warning, we still need to verify before we can be certain.

"Ricci blood cannot tolerate any confusion!"

The family doctor quickly arrived. In the blood draw room, there was only the doctor, Gianna, and Matteo as the overseer.

The needle pierced her vein. She felt no pain. She only looked at him again and again, her eyes pleading like someone on the brink of death.

He simply adjusted his cuffs. From start to finish, he never looked at her once.

After the blood draw, the doctor took the sample to the inner laboratory. The Ricci family had the most advanced equipment. The testing time was significantly shortened.

Gianna was taken to a holding room to wait. The entire day felt as long as a century.

"Don Ricci, the results are in. Biological kinship probability is 0%. Not related by blood."

That was impossible! Matteo had secretly run a test using hair samples from Domenico and Isabella. It proved she was the real Ricci Principessa. Why was it that now…

In her panic, she suddenly remembered a detail from earlier. It was Matteo!

After she left the blood draw room, he stayed behind for a few minutes. Long enough to bribe the doctor and falsify the results!

Domenico flew into a rage. "How dare she impersonate Ricci blood! I'll..."

"Don Ricci!" Isabella's heart softened after all. She sighed. "Spare her life. Just teach her a lesson and throw her out."

"Then we'll use the whip." He snorted coldly. "Twenty lashes. But her life and death are in God's hands!"

On the estate's punishment frame, a saltwater-soaked whip fell again and again. Gianna was beaten until her flesh split open, but she swallowed her screams.

Not far away, Matteo was wiping tears from Lucia's ruined makeup, completely ignoring the brutal scene behind him.

After 20 lashes, she was nothing but a bloody mess. They tossed her out of the estate like garbage.

Gianna leaned against the wall, struggling forward. Suddenly, someone grabbed her and pulled her into a car.

"Gigi!"

"You tampered with it, didn't you?"

Matteo did not deny it. "If you're acknowledged now, you'll die.

"The family is currently fighting over Arupean shipping routes. Plenty of enemies have their eyes on that position. If you show up now, you'll just become a living target!

"I'm saving you."

Gianna laughed bitterly and finally shouted what was really in her heart.

"Are you afraid she'll fall apart when she learns the truth, or can you just not stand to see her hurt? You keep saying this is all for revenge, but the way you're acting now, you're clearly protecting her!"

Matteo slammed on the brakes. The momentum threw her against the seat back, pulling at her wounds. Her face went deathly pale from the pain.

"Get out."

She had exposed his unconscious favoritism. She did not apologize with red-rimmed eyes like she used to. Instead, she simply left.

Gianna moved back to 13th Street. The place still held traces of her grandmother and memories that belonged to their youth.

Matteo had once said, "Gigi, I'll keep this house forever. When we're old and tired of all the fighting and killing, we'll come back here and plant flowers."

She curled up on the old couch, clinging to memories to survive. Not long after, an eviction notice appeared on the front door.

It bore the all too familiar wolf head seal.

The reason was simple. The Ricci Principessa had her eye on this land. She wanted to build a private live fire shooting range here to practice the marksmanship she had shown off at her engagement party.

Gianna had no choice but to go to Matteo and beg him to save this home.

"Hiding in that filthy place to nurse your wounds, not even answering your phone. Gigi, you're getting more and more willful."

Neither of them mentioned their past argument. He still treated her gently, drying her damp hair with a towel.

"Are you really going to tear down Grandma's house for her?"

"That place is too rundown. The foundation is sinking, and the area is dangerous. It's not suitable for you to live there."

He turned and pointed to the renovation blueprints on the table. He refused to budge.

"I already had people pick out a plot of land for you in the southern suburbs. I'll hire the best designer to recreate Rosa's old house exactly as it was. All the furniture, decorations, and even the tree in the yard… I'll have everything moved there for you."

"Recreate?"

Tears instantly flooded Gianna's eyes. "Can you recreate memories? You used to say..."

"You need to move on." Matteo seemed somewhat impatient now. He picked up his cigar again and took a drag. "Since she asked for that land, I can't refuse. This affects my future authority in the family."

"Matteo, my grandma saved your life!"

For the first time, she used that debt as leverage, begging humbly.

"She pulled you out of a pile of corpses and fed you back to health, spoonful by spoonful. For the sake of that life she gave you, please don't tear it down. Please? I'm begging you!"

Watching the injured woman drop to her knees, intense conflict flashed in Matteo's eyes. However, he received a call from Lucia just then. "Baby, have they started yet? I can't wait to run wild on my new turf!"

He quickly made his decision. "Gigi, stop this. I'll remember her kindness for the rest of my life, but that doesn't conflict with what Lucy wants. Be good."

His heart had completely turned toward another woman! All that gratitude could not compete with Lucia's passing whim.

When Gianna rushed back to the old house, construction had already begun. She broke through the warning line and threw herself in front of the bulldozer without hesitation.

"You can't tear it down! No one touches this house!"

"Crazy woman, you got a death wish?" The driver jumped in alarm. The bucket stopped less than three feet above her head.

"Move!" The foreman walked over and shoved her impatiently. "This is a Gray Wolf famiglia project. If you want to die, go somewhere else!"

"I'm not leaving!"

She knelt on the ground, her voice shrill. "Under the tree in the garden, my grandmother's ashes are buried there! You can't tear it down!"

Matteo had personally buried the urn under the tree because they could not afford a cemetery plot. Rosa had also said she could not bear to leave home.

"Ashes?"

The foreman frowned, then spoke into his phone for a few moments.

A moment later, Matteo's cold, distorted voice came through the speakerphone.

"Dig them up and send them to a public cemetery. Don't let something this trivial delay the construction schedule."

Gianna stopped crying. Her eardrums buzzed, and she wondered if his response was just a hallucination.

When Rosa died, he had been grief-stricken.

Only two years had passed. Rosa, who had loved him like her own grandson, had become something trivial he no longer wanted to deal with.

"Move!"

The foreman had his orders. He had no more concerns.

Several Soldati rushed forward and forcibly dragged Gianna away from the tracks.

The bulldozer started again. The bucket fell mercilessly. The walls collapsed, and the old locust tree was uprooted.

"No!"

Gianna watched helplessly as her loved one's resting place was crushed under steel treads. Overwhelming grief tore through her body and soul.

The cramping in her stomach intensified. Blood spilled from her mouth. The world spun around her, and the roaring sounds gradually faded away.

"Someone help! She's dying!"

She collapsed there in front of the ruins.

When Gianna woke up again, she was already lying on a hospital bed in the city's public hospital with an IV needle in the back of her hand.

The nurse said an unknown Good Samaritan had saved her, paid for her emergency treatment, and then left.

A red and green Christmas stocking hung at the head of the bed. Its bells jingled in the warm air from the heater.

Today happened to be Christmas Eve. It was her birthday—and Lucia's birthday.

How ironic!

They were born on the same day, yet their fates could not have been more different.

In past years, Matteo had always celebrated her birthday with her.

Whether he was just a street thug on 13th Street or later the powerful man in the Gray Wolf famiglia, every year on this day, he would cancel all his social obligations, tie on an apron, and cook for her himself.

Besides delicious food, he would also make birthday cakes in different styles. Then, he would light the candles and kiss her forehead. "Gigi, whatever you wish for, I'll make it come true."

A sudden vibration from her phone interrupted her memories.

Matteo's name flashed on the screen, making her traitorous heart race when it should have been dead.

Had he regretted it? Did he see those ruins and finally feel guilty? Or did he remember that today was her birthday?

She pressed the answer button. "Hello?"

"Gigi."

His voice came through the receiver. There was no urgency or remorse. It was more like he was brushing her off.

"I have several important meetings tonight, plus obligations with the Don. I can't get away.

"Go buy yourself something good to eat. Use the card however you want."

Gianna was about to speak when the background noise grew louder.

The pop of champagne, elegant jazz music, and Lucia's playful voice grew closer and closer, piercing her eardrums.

"Baby, come here! The elaborate tiered cake you made is so beautiful! Everyone's waiting for you to cut the first slice for me!"

The so-called obligations were actually a birthday party. It was not that he had no time to celebrate her birthday. He had simply changed the recipient.

He was giving the devotion that once belonged only to her to his target of revenge. Exactly the same, or even more.

"Okay, coming."

After responding gently to Lucia, he switched to a businesslike tone. "I'm busy. That's all."

"Matteo! I'm sick. I'm in the hospital."

She did not want to beg for pity. She just wanted to test his reaction. "I coughed up blood. It really hurts! Can you come see me?"

The man was silent for two seconds, then let out an extremely light scoff. "Gianna, when did you learn to lie and put on an act?

"When you came to pick a fight with me, weren't you still full of energy, yelling and screaming? Now that I didn't chase after you to comfort you, you're making up this excuse about coughing up blood to gain sympathy?"

"I'm not lying! It's real—"

"Enough!" Matteo cut her off coldly. "Today's a special day. If you want to throw a tantrum, wait until tomorrow."

The call ended. The busy tone was like a blade, stabbing her heart over and over.

An hour later, news of a spectacular fireworks show in the city center hit the trending topics. He gave the whole city a show of romance while leaving her alone to die.

In front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the presidential suite, Lucia changed into a wine-red slip dress. Like a lazy cat, she nestled in Matteo's arms.

"Baby, I'm so happy tonight."

She looked up at him with hazy eyes, her fingers circling the buttons of his shirt. "This is the most unforgettable birthday I've ever had."

Matteo's gaze drifted somewhat absently to the emptiness outside the window. For some reason, after hanging up the phone earlier, he felt an inexplicable irritation.

Gianna's voice had sounded too weak to be fake. But he quickly suppressed that thought.

Lucia was clearly falling for him, and Domenico was gradually delegating power to let him handle core affairs. At this critical moment, he absolutely could not let Gianna's manipulation ruin everything!

"What are you thinking about?" Lucia pouted in dissatisfaction.

Her warm breath brushed against the side of his neck. "Don't leave tonight, okay?"

Matteo came back to himself and looked down at the radiant woman in his arms. "Okay."

He stubbed out his cigarette, reached out to pull Lucia's slender waist closer, and lowered his head to kiss her lips. The kiss was highly skilled but utterly cold.

Gianna's pale face flashed through his mind again.

Matteo frowned. He would just let her cool off for one night. Tomorrow, after he finished his work, he would pick out a few gifts for her and apologize.

She had never had much of her own opinion anyway. A few kind words and everything would be fine.

The curtains slowly closed. Some people were wrapped up in pleasure while others fought for survival. He had no idea that some departures never required goodbyes.