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.

Three days later, the sedatives finally wore off. It seemed the fever had broken, too.

When the door opened, I could hardly believe it.

"Thea, today is Lucia's baptism," Alessio said, standing in the doorway. "My father insists you attend."

I looked at him. "Worried I'd rot in here?"

"Thea, don't talk like that," he said with a frown. "Get dressed. We leave in ten minutes."

The baptism was held in the grand hall of the Santoro estate. The room was filled with guests, champagne glasses clinking.

I sat in a corner, invisible.

On the main dais, Alessio stood beside the priest, holding his daughter. Aurelia, glowing in a white dress, was nestled at his side.

The perfect family.

"Such a beautiful picture, isn't it?" Aurelia was suddenly beside me. "Don't you think so, Thea?"

I ignored her.

"Come on, let's take a photo together," she said, pulling me to my feet. "To remember this special moment."

I tried to pull away, but her nails dug into my wrist.

"Smile, Thea," she whispered in my ear. "Let everyone see how 'supportive' you are of our little family."

The photographer raised his camera.

"Three, two, one—"

A horrific screech of tearing metal from above. The massive crystal chandelier shuddered. It was falling.

"Look out!" Alessio's roar ripped through the hall.

He didn't hesitate. He dropped his daughter and lunged. Not for us. For me. He tackled me, sending us both sprawling as the chandelier crashed where I'd been standing a second before.

CRASH!

The chandelier, weighing thousands of pounds, smashed onto the floor, sending crystal shards flying everywhere.

"Aaaah!" Aurelia's scream ripped through the air.

She was lying in the wreckage, her white dress soaked with blood.

"Aurelia!" Alessio scrambled to her side. "Call an ambulance!"

I stood frozen, watching it all unfold.

If Alessio hadn't pulled me away, that would have been me.

He had saved me.

But the next second, as he scooped Aurelia into his arms, my heart turned back to ice.

Outside the operating room, everyone waited.

"She's lost too much blood. She needs an immediate transfusion," a doctor said, rushing out. "But Miss Rossi is RH-negative, and we don't have enough in the blood bank."

"What do we do?" Alessio was frantic.

"We need to find a matching donor."

Every head turned. Carmela's gaze locked onto me like a hawk. "Thea," she said, her voice flat and cold. "She's RH-negative."

My body started to shake.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I won't give her my blood."

"Thea!" Alessio grabbed my shoulders, his face contorted with rage. "Aurelia is dying!"

"That's not my problem," I said, shrugging him off.

"How can you be so selfish?" he snarled. "If Aurelia dies, the alliance with the Rossis dies with her. It means war. We will never get out."

I laughed, tears streaming down my face.

"Alessio, do you regret saving me?"

He froze.

"Mr. Santoro, we need a decision now!" the doctor urged. "The patient is running out of time!"

Alessio's patience snapped.

"Take her to the donation room," he ordered the guards.

"No!" I struggled. "I don't consent!"

"Thea, that's an order," his voice was as sharp and cold as a razor. "If Aurelia dies, we're all finished."

Two guards grabbed my arms and dragged me away.

They forced me into a chair. A nurse efficiently slid a needle into my vein.

I watched my own blood drain out through the tube.

Alessio stood by the door to the operating room, his back to me, waiting anxiously.

He didn't spare me a single glance.

"Sir, that's 400cc," the nurse stammered. "The recommended limit—"

"Keep drawing," Alessio commanded, his back still to me. "Draw until you have enough."

The blood bag filled. I started to feel dizzy. My vision blurred.

"Sir, we're at 600cc. Any more could be dangerous—"

"Is it enough yet?" Alessio snapped at the doctor.

"It should be."

I looked at his back. My heart was a dead, empty thing.

In his eyes, one drop of Aurelia's blood was worth more than my entire life.

My vision went black.

When I woke up, the hospital room was quiet.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw Alessio.

He was standing by the bed, looking down at me. But his eyes were ice. No warmth, no guilt. Nothing.

His first words weren't 'Are you okay?'. They weren't 'I'm sorry'. They were a blade straight to the heart.

"Did you loosen the screws on that chandelier?"