For the next three days, I was confined to my room.

Laughter didn't return to the manor until the news came that Aurelia was well.

On the fourth day, one of Aurelia's maids knocked on my door, a practiced smile on her face.

"Miss Monroe, Mr. Santoro has commissioned a famous painter for a family portrait. It's your turn."

My heart didn't leap. It slammed against my ribs.

A portrait?

Did this mean they still saw me as part of the family?

The maid, as if reading my mind, added, "Besides, Lady Aurelia said you could retrieve what you came for after the portrait."

My grandmother's necklace.

Clinging to a sliver of hope, I changed into a respectable dress and walked to the manor's art studio.

The studio was bright, a massive canvas at its center.

But there was no chair for me.

I saw the nearly finished portrait. A grand, sweeping picture of a dynasty.

Alessio, in a black suit worthy of a Don, sat enthroned in a magnificent armchair.

His gaze was distant, fixed on the empire he commanded.

Aurelia, draped in virginal white silk, nestled beside him, cradling their sleeping daughter.

A perfect, sacred, untouchable family.

And I was the sinner who had stumbled into their temple, pathetic and out of place.

"You're here," Aurelia said without looking up, her eyes fixed on the artist's brush. "Come fix my dress. The hem is wrinkled."

Her tone was the one you'd use for a scullery maid.

I froze, the blood turning to ice in my veins.

"Thea," Alessio's brow furrowed, a flicker of impatience in his voice. "It's a small thing."

A small thing.

I swallowed the acid rising in my throat. And under his watchful eyes, and the artist's, I slowly knelt.

Just then, Alessio's phone rang. He took the call and stepped out.

As the door clicked shut, my fingers brushed against the cold, dead silk.

Humiliation wasn't a vine. It was a cage, its iron bars closing around my heart.

I smoothed every crease, as if I could iron out my own shattered pride.

"See how good Alessio is to me?" Aurelia purred in my ear. "He said to make up for my... ordeal, this portrait will hang in the main hall. The first thing every guest sees. So there is no confusion about who the true lady of the Santoro family is."

I finished with the dress and stood up, silent.

"My necklace?"

"Of course," she smiled, her back to the door. She held out the necklace, the pearls glowing softly.

Her hand moved toward me. Just as my fingertips were about to touch it, her wrist tilted.

The necklace slipped. It hit the hard floor.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she gasped, feigning shock. She took a step, her sharp stiletto heel raised. "I lost my balance—"

Crack.

A small, heartbreaking sound.

The pearl, my last connection to my grandmother, was nothing but a smear of white dust on the floor.

"No!" The scream tore from my throat. I scrambled forward, trying uselessly to gather the dust between my fingers.

Just then, the door swung open.

Vito and Carmela stood there, their faces cold and judgmental.

Aurelia's face transformed in an instant. The vicious woman was gone, replaced by a terrified mother.

Tears streamed down her face as she backed away, clutching her daughter.

"Father! Mother! Thea's gone mad!" she shrieked. "She tried to take Lucia! She said if she couldn't hurt me, she'd hurt the baby to get back at Alessio!"

"Lies!" I scrambled to my feet, pointing a trembling finger at the dust. "She crushed my necklace!"

"Still lying!" Aurelia ripped back the baby's blanket, revealing several angry, red scratches on the infant's arm. "Look! This is what she was doing! Thank God you came when you did!"

Alessio burst back in, his eyes landing on his daughter's arm.

I stared.

The scratches.

When had they appeared?

I hadn't even touched the child.

"Thea, how could you be so cruel?" Alessio's voice was filled with disgust and rage.

"I didn't do it!" I stared at him, my eyes pleading. "Alessio, please, believe me! I swear I never touched that baby!"

SLAP!

Another sharp crack. Vito's hand struck my face with so much force I fell to the floor.

"You bitch! You hurt my granddaughter again and again!" His eyes were murderous. "I'll kill you for this!"

"Take her to the garage," Carmela ordered coldly. "Family business."

"No!" I looked at Alessio. "Alessio, save me! You know I'm not that person!"

He looked at me, his face torn.

"Alessio!" Carmela snapped. "She went after your own daughter! Are you still going to protect this snake?"

I saw the war in his eyes, and then I saw it die.

He turned his head.

"Take her," he said. His voice was pure ice.

I started to laugh. A wild, broken laugh as tears poured down my face.

"Thea Monroe, you are such a fool," I whispered to myself. "You actually believed the promise of a mafioso."

Two guards grabbed my arms and dragged me from the room.

The garage was cold and damp.

The first punch landed in my stomach. The pain doubled me over, but the memory was sharper. That warm afternoon, Alessio's hand on my belly. "Thea, if we have a baby, I hope it's a girl. Beautiful and kind, just like you."

A boot slammed into my ribs. I heard them crack. But the sound was drowned out by his promise, whispering in my memory: "Thea, I will protect you for the rest of my life. No one will ever hurt you. Not even me."

The third fist slammed into my back. I collapsed onto the cold concrete, the taste of blood in my mouth. But my mind was in the chapel, watching him kneel for ten days. "Thea, as long as I can marry you, I'll give up everything."

The punches and kicks rained down.

Every blow was a reminder. The sweet memories, the sacred vows... all of it was a lie.

My consciousness started to fade.

In the haze, I thought I heard someone screaming my name.

"Thea! Thea!"

Was that Alessio?

Or was I just imagining it?

The last blow landed on my temple.

The world went black.

Just before I lost consciousness, I heard frantic footsteps outside the door.

"Stop!" a voice roared.

But it was too late.

When I woke up, the first person I saw was Alessio.

He was sitting by my hospital bed, his face etched with exhaustion and guilt.

"Thea, you're awake." He reached for my hand. I pulled it away.

"Don't touch me," I rasped. My voice was like sandpaper.

"Thea, I'm sorry," he whispered, his eyes filled with a pain that looked real. "I know you suffered. But I couldn't stop him. If I'd defied my father, he would have made it worse for you."

I stared at the ceiling. "So you just watched them beat me."

"I was protecting you—"

"Protecting me?" I let out a cold laugh. "Alessio, do you really think I'm stupid enough to believe that bullshit?"

He was silent for a long time.

I turned my head to face him, tears welling in my eyes. I met his eyes. "Alessio. Do you believe me? Do you believe I didn't hurt that baby?"

His gaze flickered away for a second.

"Everyone saw what happened."

Those words pierced my heart.

"And besides, Thea, you keep making trouble," he said, his tone shifting to blame. "Aurelia is pregnant. You keep provoking her. The doctor says her emotional state is fragile. What if—"

"Enough," I cut him off. "Get out."

"Thea—"

"Get out!" I screamed the words with all the strength I had left.

He was taken aback by my fury. He stood, fumbling for an explanation.

"Thea, I know you feel wronged, but please, try to understand my position." His voice was soft again. "Once Aurelia has the boy, once this is all settled, we can go back to how things were."

I closed my eyes as a tear slid down my temple.

"How things were?" I laughed, a broken sound. "Alessio, we can never go back."

He was about to say more, but a sharp knock came from the door.

"Mr. Santoro, Miss Rossi is very agitated. She's asking for you."

Alessio hesitated. "I'll be right back."

He left.

And he never came back.

Three days later, I was discharged. A hard New York rain was falling. Nine days left until my departure.

Alessio's black sedan was waiting at the hospital entrance.

I walked toward it, pulling my small suitcase, and saw Aurelia sitting in the passenger seat.

She was holding her daughter, and her eyes were wide with fear when she saw me.

"Alessio, I'm scared to be in the same car as her," she whimpered. "What if she tries to hurt the baby again—"

"It's okay, Aurelia. Don't be afraid," Alessio said, patting her hand gently.

Then he pulled a black card from his wallet and held it out to me.

"Thea, just wait here. Another car from the family will be here soon."

The rain was cold, plastering my hair to my face.

"How long do I have to wait?"

"Not long," he said, starting the engine. "We'll talk when you get back to the house."

The sedan vanished into the gray mist.

I stood on the curb, the rain soaking through my thin jacket, staring at the black card in my hand. So this was my worth. A problem he could pay to make go away.

The rain came down harder.

I waited for two hours. No car came.

I called Alessio's phone. It went straight to voicemail.

I called the family driver. No answer.

As night fell, I finally understood.

No one was coming for me.

I picked up my suitcase and started walking back to the estate, one step at a time, through the storm.

Rain soaked through my clothes and blurred my vision.

Halfway there, my foot slipped. I fell into a deep, muddy puddle on the side of the road.

The icy water seeped into my bones.

I just lay there, looking up at the dark sky, and started to laugh.

This is what you get for loving Alessio Santoro.

It was eleven o'clock by the time I finally made it back to the house. I was soaked to the bone, looking like a drowned rat.

I stood in the foyer, about to head upstairs, when I heard Aurelia crying in the living room.

"Alessio, it hurts so much... My breasts are so full... The doctor said I have to take care of it or I'll get an infection..."

I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Get a nanny," Alessio's voice was tight.

"But the nanny's asleep," Aurelia purred. "And for something this... intimate... I only trust you. Please, Alessio. It really hurts..."

Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence.

I held my breath, listening.

"Alright," Alessio finally said, his voice low and gravelly. "Just this once."

"Thank you, Alessio... You're so good to me..."

My world shattered.

I heard the rustle of fabric. I heard Aurelia's soft, breathy moans. I heard Alessio's heavy breathing.

"Just relax," he said, his voice quiet.

I wanted to run, to scream, to pretend I hadn't heard anything.

But my feet were stone, but somehow I moved closer. And I saw it. His head dipped low. His lips closed over her pale, swollen breast.

"Gently, Alessio..." Her voice was a honey-sweet poison.

A low grunt was his only reply.

Then came sounds that were even worse.

Aurelia's bold seduction. Alessio's strained replies.

A sharp pain twisted in my stomach, and I turned and ran out of the house, back into the storm.

The rain swallowed me whole. I ran blindly through the streets, rain mixing with my tears. I couldn't tell which was colder.

The memories flooded back.

A warm summer night. Alessio tracing the butterfly I’d just had tattooed on my back.

"Do you know what this means, Thea?"

"What?" I'd asked, looking back at him, my heart full.

"It's my mark on you. Forever," he whispered, kissing the butterfly's wings. "No matter where you go, this will tell everyone that you belong to Alessio Santoro."

"And you?" I'd laughed. "Will you get my name tattooed on you?"

"I don't need ink," he'd said, holding me tight. "Your name is already branded on my heart."

How pathetic that sounded now.

Whose name was really on his heart?

I collapsed on the sidewalk, rain soaking me, until my body was numb.

At two in the morning, when the lights in the estate were all out, I stumbled back inside.

The living room was finally quiet.

I dragged my soaked body back to my room and collapsed onto the bed.

I was burning up. My head felt like it was splitting open.

Fever.

Through the haze, I heard Alessio's voice, soft and gentle, from the other side of the wall.

"Hey, little one, want daddy to tell you a story?"

I thought he was talking to his daughter, until I heard Aurelia's delicate laugh.

"Alessio, can the baby even hear you when you talk to my stomach?"

"Of course," his voice was thick with affection. "The doctor said it's important."

Then he began to read. A passage from The Godfather.

"In this world, there are some people you can never refuse. That's family..."

My heart didn't just break. It shattered.

That was the bedtime story he had promised our child.

"Thea, when we have a son, I'll read him The Godfather every night," he'd once said. "So he knows what loyalty is. What family is."

Now, he was making good on that promise. For another woman's child.

I clamped my hand over my mouth, choking back a sob.

After the tears dried, I stumbled out of bed to get a glass of water. My eyes landed on something on the nightstand.

It was an exquisite snow globe music box. A gift from Alessio for our first anniversary.

He'd said that when he first saw me, I was like the scene inside: quiet, pure, the only sanctuary in his chaotic world.

The song it played was the waltz from our first dance.

Sanctuary?

The irony was a bitter poison.

The rage of betrayal and a bottomless grief swallowed me whole.

I lunged for it, grabbing the music box that held all our sweet lies, and with all the strength I had, I hurled it against the wall.

The glass sphere exploded. The clear liquid and glittering "snow" sprayed across the floor.

The sharp, shattering sound was deafening in the silent night.

The music box mechanism rolled out from the wreckage, plinking out a few strange, distorted notes before falling completely silent.

I sobbed, sinking to the floor. A shard of glass dug into my hand.

Just like our love. A beautiful, bloody mess.

The noise must have woken them.

Less than a minute later, my door was thrown open.

Aurelia stood there, disheveled. The belt of her silk robe was loosely tied, her face flushed, her eyes smudged with tears.

Behind her stood Alessio, his face as dark as a gathering storm.

He saw the wreckage. He saw me, a heap on the floor.

Aurelia froze for a second, then a flicker of pure venom crossed her eyes.

She let out a short, sharp scream and ducked behind Alessio, her voice trembling with manufactured terror.

"Alessio! She's lost her mind! Is she trying to kill herself to curse me and the baby? Is she trying to use her own death to haunt us, to make us live in guilt and shadow for the rest of our lives?"

Those words hit their mark.

He looked at the broken glass, at the hysterical woman on the floor who was once his world. The last traces of guilt in his eyes were burned away by anger and raw frustration.

What he needed now, more than anything, was for the chaos to just be quiet.

"Get the doctor," he ordered the guard at the door, his voice cold.

The family's private doctor arrived in minutes.

Alessio pointed at me. His tone was calm, chillingly so.

"Doctor, as you can see, Thea's previous trauma has left her completely unstable. She's showing severe self-harm and violent tendencies."

He gestured to the floor. "For her safety, and to keep her from hurting herself further, I need you to give her a sedative. Something to help her calm down."

"No! I didn't!" I finally found my voice, scrambling to get up. "Alessio, you can't do this to me! It was you..."

My cries, my protests, only served as the final proof of his diagnosis.

"You see," Alessio said to the doctor, shaking his head with a mask of false pain. "She can no longer communicate rationally."

Under the guise of "for your own good," the guards pinned me down. A cold needle slid into my arm.

I felt my strength drain away, my consciousness sinking.

Before the darkness took me completely, I saw Alessio standing over me.

His expression was a mix of things I couldn't name, but the warmth I once knew was gone.

For the next few days, I drifted in and out of a medicated haze.

My body was heavy, useless. Lifting a finger was a monumental effort.

The door was no longer locked, but what did it matter? I didn't have the strength to walk to it.

But the sounds, I couldn't escape the sounds. They were a new kind of torture.

I could hear them decorating the manor for Christmas, their happy laughter echoing in the halls.

"Alessio, can you put the star on top of the tree? I can't reach," Aurelia's voice was sickeningly sweet.

"Of course, my princess," Alessio's voice dripped with affection.

I heard them cuddling by the fireplace, drinking mulled wine, discussing the baby's future.

"This wine is so warm. It reminds me of winter back home."

"If you like it, I'll have the cellar send up a few more cases. You can drink it all winter long."

On the third night, I heard the cruelest conversation of all.

"Alessio, darling," Aurelia’s voice dripped with manufactured sweetness. "After the baby is born... can we move to Tuscany? I want an estate there. I want a garden full of white roses."

A beat of silence. Then his voice, a low rumble of indulgence. "Alright. We'll go to Tuscany. I'll buy you the biggest estate. You can be its queen."

The words cut me like a knife.

I remembered a snowy winter night, huddled together in our tiny apartment. He kissed my forehead and whispered, "Thea, when this is all over, we'll go to Tuscany. We'll open a little flower shop that only sells white roses. I won't be the master of anything, except your heart."

Now, the white roses were just decorations for Aurelia's garden.

Tuscany, the place I had dreamed of day and night, our safe harbor, was being handed over to another woman without a second thought.

I curled into a ball on the bed, biting down hard on the blanket to keep from screaming.

Laughter echoed outside my door. And I was nothing. A ghost in a locked room, listening to my life being stolen piece by piece.