"I didn't do any of—"

My voice came out thin, barely there.

The charges were fabricated. Every last one. But Riccardo never bothered to investigate. He took Nico's word as gospel, no questions asked. He really did love her that much.

A bitter laugh echoed somewhere inside my chest.

What followed was six hours of beatings. By the end, my vision went black and I lost consciousness entirely.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a private clinic bed. The kind of room where the walls were thick enough that no one outside heard what happened to the patient before she arrived.

Riccardo sat beside me, his gaze flat and cold. The signet ring on his right hand was perfectly still against his knuckle. "Stop going after Nico. Unless you want more of the same."

I said nothing.

During the two years he'd schemed to strip me of everything in the severance, I'd swallowed every kind of suffering there was. This time, I was going to carve out a future of my own.

Riccardo looked at my bruised, swollen face. Something unreadable flickered in his eyes. Then a phone rang, and his attention snapped away.

I glanced over without turning my head. The caller was Nico.

The moment he picked up, his brow softened. His voice turned gentle.

All things that used to be mine.

Back then, he'd been the notorious troublemaker on the streets around Crestfall, the Barone heir everyone gave a wide berth, and I was just a girl who'd gotten lost and stumbled onto him beating someone bloody behind the social club on Mulberry.

That one encounter was all it took. He latched onto me after that, impossibly tender and attentive with me while staying vicious toward everyone else. It didn't matter if they were women. He never spared them a second glance.

When he proposed in that grand, over-the-top spectacle, practically everyone in the territory said Riccardo Barone was head over heels for me.

We became Crestfall's golden couple. The neighborhood whispered about us like a legend. The old wives at Sunday Mass called us a fairy tale come to life.

Too bad fairy tales always end at the wedding. And what came after, for Riccardo and me, was everything those stories never bothered to tell.

"Something came up at the club. I need to handle it."

Riccardo stood and headed for the door. Just before it closed, I heard him murmur into the phone, "Whatever my girl wants, I'll get it for her."

I pulled my gaze back, picked up the phone on the nightstand, entered the passcode, and switched to the second operating system.

There was only one number in the contacts. I stared at it for a long time before I finally made myself dial.

He picked up almost instantly. A warm, rich voice came through the speaker: "Bianca. You finally decided to call me."

My heart stuttered. Heat flooded my ears. I turned the words over in my head, then forced them out through clenched teeth: "Could you... could you take me away? You mentioned a position at one of your fronts before. I can do the job."

He didn't hesitate. "Of course. I've been holding that spot for you. When do you want to come?"

I pressed my lips together. "One week. Once I've settled things here, I'll be there."

His voice was steady, sincere. "All right. I'll come pick you up."

After the call ended, I finally let myself exhale. Somewhere outside the clinic window, a car engine idled. One of Riccardo's soldiers, no doubt, parked where he could watch the entrance. Even my breathing was monitored in this world.

Three days in the clinic. Riccardo didn't visit once. Meanwhile, the neighborhood gossip and every connected family in Crestfall buzzed with the same stories.

The Barone heir had bought out every lot at a private auction just to make his bookkeeper smile.

The Barone heir had taken his bookkeeper to be fitted for a wedding dress. Alliance papers were being drawn.

On my very first day in the clinic, I'd received a message request from Nico.

Over the next three days she sent me Riccardo's full itinerary, message after message. I forwarded every single one to my private investigator and told them to move fast.

Ding.

Another taunt.

Nico had sent a photo, smug as ever. It was a cemetery plot. My parents' mausoleum.

When I made out the names on the headstones, my pupils contracted to pinpoints.

Nico called. My fingers were shaking as I answered.

She let out two soft laughs, her tone laced with venom. "What do you think about me bulldozing this place and putting up a nice public restroom?"

My mind went blank for a split second. I ground my molars together. "What the hell do you want, Nico?"

Riccardo had bought that plot for my parents. He'd stood beside me in the rain that day and whispered, "From now on, I'm your only family. Wherever you are, that's home."

Promises from another lifetime. Punchlines now.

Nico's voice kept coming, relentless: "You saw me in bed with him, and you still had the nerve to crawl back. Shameless."

"I was this close to marrying him. I'm the one who should be the Barone bride."

"You ruined my life, you worthless little tramp. So don't expect me to make yours easy."

She hung up without waiting for a reply.

I sat frozen for a beat, then scrambled to check myself out. The billing desk told me my account had insufficient funds.

I stared. I hadn't expected Riccardo to go that far.

I twisted the diamond ring off my finger and slid it across the counter. "Put this toward the bill."

I was leaving soon anyway. None of these things mattered anymore.

By the time I reached the cemetery, it was nothing but level ground.

The iron gate was gone. The Bellandi name that had been carved into the stone arch was rubble. Where my parents had rested, there was only scraped earth and the smell of wet concrete waiting to set.

Nico was already there. Her eyes swept over me, dripping with contempt and spite. "Oh, silly me. I forgot to dig out your parents' ashes first."

"Then again, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I'm sure they're rotting in the lowest circle of hell by now."

"So really, ashes or no ashes, what's the difference?"

I was shaking from head to toe.

A calculating gleam crossed Nico's eyes, and her lips curled into a cruel smile. "Tell you what. Get on your knees right now and knock your head on the ground a hundred times. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be generous enough to leave your parents' urn in one piece. If you refuse..."

I glared at her, cutting her off. "In your dreams."

Nico scoffed.

Then, without warning, she seized my wrist and yanked me forward. The next second she toppled backward, stiff as a board. Behind her, a cement mixer was already pouring concrete over the flattened ground.

Nico's face went white. "Riccardo, save me—"

Before I could process what had happened, a shadow streaked past the corner of my vision. Riccardo hauled Nico out.

He didn't give me a chance to speak. His face was stone. He drove his foot into my stomach and sent me skidding three yards across the dirt.

His voice was low, thick with fury. "Bianca. I gave you a chance."

"Take her to the cellar. She comes out when she apologizes. Not before."

Soldiers dragged me to a car. The lead one gave a brief tug to his jacket hem, clearing the holster line beneath, before gripping my arm. As they pulled me away, I watched Riccardo guide Nico into his vehicle with exquisite care, one hand hovering at the small of her back.

Two cars of very different worth drove off in opposite directions.

Just like the distance between Riccardo and me. Growing wider with every passing second.

The entire time I was locked in that cellar, I refused to apologize.

The sealed space made it hard to breathe. Stone walls, no windows, the kind of room built for men who owed debts they couldn't pay. All I could do was curl into myself as tightly as possible, searching for some small scrap of comfort. Somewhere above me, the compound went on living. Footsteps. Muffled voices. The faint percussion of a door closing in a distant wing.

Then a pair of leather shoes appeared in front of me. Riccardo stood over me, looking down. "Ready to admit you were wrong?"

I thought of the mausoleum, leveled to nothing, and the stubbornness in me held. "I wasn't wrong. Riccardo, you know that burial ground—"

He cut me off before I could finish. "I know."

"Nico wanted it. So I gave it to her."

I stared up at him, eyes wide. "You gave it to her?"

In that moment, I felt like I was looking at a stranger.

Riccardo shrugged it off. His signet ring turned lazily against his knuckle, a habit that looked casual to anyone who didn't know what it meant. "Nico is beautiful and kind. If she hadn't carried me out of those mountains, I probably wouldn't be alive today."

"Bianca, all you have to do is admit you were wrong, and I'll let you out."

The mountains? Nico saved him?

Three years ago, when Riccardo was stranded in the mountains after a deal gone wrong, I was the one who hauled him out. Step by step, his weight on my back, through the snow, while Barone soldiers waited at the treeline because none of them could reach us in time. He survived. I ended up in a Dr.-run clinic for two weeks. When I finally woke up, the first thing I learned was that he'd been keeping a mistress the entire time. That was what ended our marriage.

But how had the person who saved him become Nico?

I opened my mouth. "Riccardo, maybe you should look into—"

"Mr. Barone, please don't be hard on her. It's all my fault. I lost my footing and fell on my own. She absolutely did not push me…"

Nico clicked over in her heels and positioned herself at Riccardo's side, instantly pulling every ounce of his attention. The sound of her shoes on the cellar stairs had been deliberate, timed, rehearsed.

The moment I met her eyes, full of calculation and triumph, I understood. Nico had stolen credit for what I'd done.

Riccardo wrapped his arm around Nico's slim waist, his voice tender. "What are you doing out of bed? The doctor said you need rest."

Nico leaned into him, her voice a syrupy whine. "I missed you. And it looks like she still hasn't realized what she did wrong." One lacquered nail tapped the edge of his lapel, light as a suggestion. "Maybe you should toss something in there with her. I hear people confess to anything when they're scared enough."

Riccardo gave her an approving glance, then turned to the soldiers. "You two. Go put my pets in there."

The word pets sent ice through my veins.

Riccardo had a particular hobby. He kept centipedes, spiders, and snakes. Cold-blooded creatures, all of them. The kind of collection that made visitors go quiet and then never mention it again.

The first time I'd seen them, I'd asked him, "They won't bite me, will they?"

Back then, Riccardo had looked me in the eye and promised, with every appearance of sincerity: "Don't worry. As long as I'm here, I will never let them hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you."

I never imagined this day would come so soon.

When the centipedes and spiders were released into the cellar, my scalp went numb. They moved as if drawn to me, locking onto my position with terrible precision, swarming up my body in a crawling, writhing mass.

Tiny, sharp stabs of pain, over and over, until I could barely think.

Riccardo's expression wavered. His ring went still.

Nico pressed her fingertips to her temple, her voice going faint. "Oh no, Mr. Barone, I think I'm feeling a little unwell…"

Without a word, Riccardo scooped her into his arms and walked away. The cellar door stayed open. No one came back.

I lifted my head just in time to catch Nico peering back over his shoulder. Our eyes met. She mouthed the words silently: You deserve this, you worthless tramp.

I clenched my jaw and slammed my hands down on the insects, crushing every one I could reach.

Only one thought kept me alive: I am not dying here.

When I came to again, the sharp sting of antiseptic filled my nostrils. I frowned, the smell alone enough to make my stomach turn.

I struggled to sit up, but Riccardo's voice cut through the silence before I could manage it. "You're hurt. Rest. What are you squirming around for?" A pause, then a sigh heavy with irritation. "You never make anything easy."

I clenched my fingers into the bedsheet. "And whose fault is it that I ended up like this?"

Riccardo's expression froze for a split second before hardening over. His signet ring caught the overhead light as his hand tightened around the arm of the chair. "You brought this on yourself. Don't blame anyone else."

His words drove through my chest like a blade, buried themselves deep in my heart. The pain stole every word I might have said.

When I stayed silent, he opened his mouth to speak again, but a shrill ringtone cut him off.

He answered, and just like that, his voice softened without him even seeming to notice.

"Serafina... yeah... I'll pick some up for you on my way over..."

He hung up and the warmth vanished, replaced by ice. "Serafina is being generous this time. She's not making a formal complaint to the Capos. Her birthday is in two days. Don't show your face there."

Two days. That was exactly when I'd planned to leave.

I lowered my gaze and said nothing.

The moment Riccardo walked out, my phone buzzed with a text from Serafina.

Don't kid yourself into thinking Riccardo actually cares about you. He's planning to propose to me at my birthday gala. You're welcome to come watch, of course, but he'd really rather you didn't.

I turned off the phone and stared out the window at the blue sky and drifting clouds. My mind pulled me back to the day Riccardo had proposed to me.

After I'd said yes, he'd lifted me off my feet and spun me around, laughing, again and again. He'd even had fireworks set off over Barone territory for nine straight nights to celebrate.

Back then, he'd been so happy he wanted the whole world to know I was his.

But after that... everything changed. The compound was the same. The man was not.

The next day, I was discharged and went back to the estate. I punched in the gate code, and the panel flashed red. Incorrect password.

I tried again. And again. Each time the same cold rejection blinked back at me, until the system locked me out entirely.

That code, the one my fingers had entered thousands upon thousands of times, now told me I didn't belong here.

I remembered the day I'd first moved into this house. Riccardo had taken my hand, and together we'd set the password.

"Just in case a certain someone forgets," he'd said with a grin, "I picked the day we got together."

That date was also my birthday. There was no way I'd gotten it wrong.

Yet the alarm kept blaring, each beep a slap across my face.

I was still standing there, frozen, when the door swung open from inside.

Serafina stood in the doorway wearing my silk nightgown. She yawned, slow and lazy, as if she'd just rolled out of bed.

Then she swept her hair to one side, deliberately baring a neck mottled with hickeys. Her eyes glittered with satisfaction she didn't bother to hide.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sweetie. Riccardo brought me home last night, and I threw a little fit, so he changed the code." She tilted her head, lips curling. One lacquered nail tapped lightly against the doorframe. "Guess he forgot to tell you."