On the night of my father’s funeral, while I kept vigil beside his urn, they came for me.

A crew of men stormed the funeral hall, shattering the silence owed to the dead. They desecrated my father's ashes and, with the code that once protected our name gone to ruin, forced me to cooperate with three strangers in filming an eight-hour blackmail film.

By the next day, the footage had been burned onto discs and passed through every social club, every back room, every corner of the territory.

My betrothed broke our alliance pact without a moment's hesitation.

The all-girls school that once demanded my daily presence, one of the Family's proud legitimate fronts, never sent for me again.

Under the weight of the disgrace and the grief, my frail mother passed away, clutching what little remained of my father's ashes.

In the depths of it, Salvatore Moretti, Don of the Moretti Family and my betrayer's uncle, knelt before me and offered his hand.

It felt like a drifting boat finally finding harbor.

I said yes.

Six months into the marriage, I went into the city to collect a drunken Salvatore from a private room at one of his establishments. As I neared the door, I heard voices. His, and another man's.

"Salvatore, weren't you too ruthless back then? A marriage broken and a place taken, that's all it took? Bianca's people are well set. Why grind Adriana into nothing? Her father clawed for that standing with everything he had. Look at her now. Broken. Hollow."

"I had no choice," Salvatore said, his voice cold as a coffin lid. "If her honor wasn't destroyed, the school would never turn her away. Marco would never call off the union. I can't shield Bianca forever. All I could do was clear the obstacles from the path."

——

"I had my soldiers pull those discs from every corner of the territory. But it's been months. You see how the men look at Adriana now? Like she's something to be devoured."

"Stop collecting them."

There was a beat of silence. Then a hoarse cry tore out, thick with grief.

"Salvatore, are you even a man?! Have you watched it?! My wife, put through eight hours of three animals. In the end, blood ran from her eyes. Was it worth it, for a woman like Bianca?"

"Enough!" Salvatore snapped. "I know she's hurting. Just wait. Once Bianca gives the Moretti name its child and things settle, this passes. Words cut shallower than wounds. I'll say no more. Adriana said she was coming for me. If she hears this—"

His voice, eerie and soulless, chilled me to the bone. I pressed a hand over my mouth, my heart pounding, and stumbled back from the door. Beneath my glove, my thumb turned my mother's thin gold band around and around, counting what this had cost me.

But outside the hotel, it got worse.

A knot of drunken men recognized me.

"Hey, isn't this the girl from the disc? Vincenzo's daughter? Always so proper. Who'd have guessed she was so wild in private?"

One of them caught me by the waist, his hand already dragging at my coat.

"C'mon, cara, have some fun with the boys. Name your price."

I struggled, but I was no match for a mob.

My coat tore. Laughter rang around me, vile and mocking.

The horror I thought I had left behind came rushing back.

And then—

"You dare put your hands on my woman? You want to die tonight?"

Salvatore's voice cut through the chaos like a blade.

His soldiers surged past him, driving the drunkards to the ground, their screams echoing down the empty street until the whole block knew whose woman she was.

I curled into the corner, shaking.

He had saved me again.

But this time, I felt no gratitude.

Only fear.

Salvatore found me curled in the corner where his men had left me. His brows tightened with visible anguish as he stripped off his coat and draped it over me, slow, careful, the way a man handles something he intends the world to believe he cherishes.

"I'm sorry, Adriana… I shouldn't have sent for you this late. It's my fault." His voice trembled with guilt. "Believe me, time will ease everything. People will forget about the film eventually. Until then, I'll stay by your side. Always."

In the car he held my hand firmly, refusing to let go, his thumb tracing slow circles over my knuckles.

The silence stretched. Assuming I had drifted off, Enzo, both hands locked on the wheel, let out a long, heavy breath.

"Boss," he said, and the word came out frayed at the edges. "Let one of the other men handle this kind of thing next time. I can't stomach it. Did you see how those animals looked at her? Two minutes later and they'd have stripped her in the street for the whole territory to watch."

Enzo's next words hit me like thunder.

"Her father was just getting his respect back. Vincenzo's people were finally breathing again. And because of one sentence out of that Thornbury woman's mouth, all of it came apart. And you, the man closest to her, are still working out how to keep her on her knees? You want her erased completely?"

My heart froze.

The drunks outside the hotel. Salvatore had arranged them.

I bit down hard on my tongue, tasting blood, forcing myself to stay silent.

He eased me gently to the side against the door. Then he lunged, one hand closing around Enzo's throat, his voice dropping to something low and hoarse with rage.

"You've eaten at the Moretti table long enough, haven't you? And now you want to open your mouth? If Adriana hears one word of this, your wife and your children answer for it. You think this is yours to decide?"

The choke and scrape of a man fighting for air. The car lurched hard across the lane.

Just as it felt like the road was about to come up and meet us, he let go.

Enzo coughed violently, gasping apologies into the dark.

Salvatore pulled me close again, his arms tightening around me until there was no space left. He pressed a kiss to my forehead and murmured, half to himself:

"Just hold on a little longer, Adriana. Even if it's only for me. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

But this wasn't love. It was cruelty dressed in concern. And I couldn't take it anymore.

That night, once his breathing had gone even and deep, I slipped from the bed into the study. My hands trembled as I wrote to my aunt, Vivian, the one connected to the old theatrical world, the woman who understood staging and the long game.

Sealing the envelope, I felt, for the first time in a long while, something close to hope.

I couldn't stay in this hell any longer.

The next morning, I'd barely opened my eyes when I heard Salvatore's voice on the other side of the bedroom door, low and even.

"Today is the opening ceremony at the girls' school. When she wakes, find a way to get her there."

"But, boss… she can't walk down the block for bread without every eye turning on her. An event like that, with that many people…"

"Think about your wife. Your children," Salvatore said, cold as marble.

Enzo went silent.

A moment later the bedroom door eased open. A familiar hand smoothed gently over my hair.

"Adriana," he said softly, "it's the opening ceremony today. The Family sponsored a great many of those students. I'm expected. There'll be a crowd. You needn't come. Rest."

I forced a smile. "All right."

Once he'd gone, Enzo lingered, watching me eat with a nervousness he couldn't hide. At last he spoke, hesitating over every word.

"My boy said, back when you filled in at their school, the children were fond of you. Today's the ceremony. I think they'd be glad to see you again."

I looked up, my eyes calm. "I'll go. Bring the car around."

But the moment I arrived at the venue, I saw Bianca's smirking face in the crowd, her smile widening a half-second too late to be real.

And I understood.

Salvatore never meant to protect me.

He wanted me humiliated again.

When it was time for the new instructress to address the families gathered under the Moretti banner,

Bianca stepped forward, the microphone in her hand, her gaze sharp and piercing as it landed on me like the tip of a blade.

"Today," she said with a smile that widened a half-second too late to be real, "my words are about self-respect and self-love. And now, I'd like to share a short film the benefactor's Family has prepared."

The moment her words fell, my scream tore through the courtyard.

On the three-story LED screen, the one the Don himself had gifted the girls' academy as a show of Moretti generosity, the film began to play.

It was that film. The one that should never have seen the light of day.

My naked body lay on a mottled bed, writhing under the lash of three long whips.

Welts and bite marks littered my skin.

Blood seeped into the once-pristine white sheets, turning them a sickening shade of red.

The pain surged again, not from my body, but from my soul, as if a thousand insects crawled beneath my skin, gnawing away.

Before I could even react, a harsh slap struck my cheek.

A mother beside me pointed at my face, shrieking, "How dare a woman like you set foot in a girls' school? You shameless whore. It's revolting."

Another hand yanked my hair, dragging me from my seat and throwing me to the floor.

Voices thundered above me, raining down curses like stones.

"Your father gave up the standing he bled for, the respect the old men owed him, all of it, because of this filth. Your mother died holding his ashes. And you? You still have the audacity to live? You should have been buried with them."

"You slut. A disgrace to the whole territory. You deserved every second of that torture."

I curled up, numb, as fists and feet landed again and again.

Compared to the night the film was made, this was nothing.

Then Bianca stumbled forward, her voice trembling with false concern.

"Adriana, I... I'm sorry. I don't know how this happened. Someone must have switched the film."

She reached to shield me from the blows, muttering apology after apology, one hand pressed flat against her stomach as though the tenderness were real.

But in her tear-glossed eyes, pride sparkled like glass shards.

She wasn't sorry.

She was victorious.

As the daughter of the Thornbury Family, allied to the Moretti throne by blood and old debts, no one would question her. No one would dare.

A commotion behind me.

Salvatore came through the crowd, panic written across his face as he pulled me into his arms.

"Adriana. Why are you here? Didn't I tell you to wait at the estate? It's over now, I'm here."

His performance was flawless.

If I hadn't heard everything with my own ears,

I might have believed him again.

Might have melted into that familiar, deceiving embrace.

But the humiliation at that school shattered me all over again.

My mind broke. I screamed at the sight of any man who came near. I thrashed, cried, cowered from terrors no one else could see.

Salvatore held me tightly, tears streaking his face, his voice raw with heartbreak.

But even his sorrow felt like a lie.

Eventually they sedated me and carried me out to the ambulance.

When I opened my eyes, everything was dark. The bitter smell of antiseptic stung my nose.

I realized I was still in the hospital, my wrists and ankles bound tight to the bed. Beyond the door of the ward, muffled voices drifted in.

Salvatore's voice.

"Bianca. Are you satisfied now that Adriana's like this?"

Another voice, low and sweet. Bianca.

"Of course. Marco kept her on a string for eight years. I had to be sure there was nothing left between them. If I hadn't done this, who knows what might have happened."

She sighed.

"It's hard on you too, having to keep a woman like her under your roof. It sickens me every time I think of it. But because of our Families, because of the alliance, we can't be together in this life. In the next, I'll repay you, whatever it takes. Even if I come back as your horse, your ox."

Through the glass door, fogged with condensation, I watched them laugh and lean into each other.