To them, it was just another one of my "acts." They believed I was pretending again, just like before.

"I thought you had grown a backbone and wouldn't come crawling back here," Nico said mockingly, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"Your own mother doesn't even want you anymore," he continued, his voice cold and cutting. "Where else could you possibly go but here?"

His words pierced straight into my heart, sharper than anything else.

At that moment, a memory surfaced in my mind, the first day I had arrived at the DeLuca compound.

Back then, everything had been different.

Nico had held my hand gently, his voice warm and reassuring as he tried to comfort me. "Don't worry, Bianca. From now on, this is your home."

Dante, always more composed, had personally prepared the largest and finest room for me, making sure I felt welcomed and safe. The compound had high walls and guarded gates, but inside those walls, they had given me the kind of warmth that made me forget what protection cost.

Later, when the three of us moved into this villa to run the family's front operations, he had carefully decorated the master bedroom to suit my tastes, paying attention to every detail.

He had even declared openly that, both now and in the future, I would be the unquestioned lady of this house.

But all of that changed the moment Serena entered our lives.

She came under the excuse of helping her mother, who kept house for the DeLuca family. At first, no one thought much of it. The housekeeper's daughter, running errands, learning the rhythms of the compound. Nothing worth noticing.

Yet from that day on, everything began to shift.

She clung to the two brothers constantly, always finding excuses to stay close to them. Meanwhile, my belongings began to be "accidentally" broken, one after another.

At first, I tried to be understanding. I told myself she was inexperienced, that she didn't mean any harm.

But the day she shattered the jade rosary my father had left me, right in front of my eyes, I could no longer stay silent.

I confronted her.

And that was the moment everything truly changed.

Dante frowned deeply and pushed me aside without hesitation. "Serena hasn't had an easy life," he said coldly. "You, on the other hand, are just a spoiled princess. Why do you have to make things difficult for someone who's barely seen the world?"

Nico stood beside him and added, "She's younger than me, Bianca. As an adult, can't you show a little more kindness?"

I stood there, clutching the broken pieces of my father's rosary in my hands, feeling something inside me shatter along with it.

That was the first time I truly felt helpless.

From that moment on, everything began to change.

I was no longer the most important person in their lives. Slowly, little by little, Serena took my place.

The housekeeper's daughter gradually became the new lady of the house, while I was pushed further and further to the side. She sat where I had sat. She poured wine at dinners I was no longer invited to. The soldiers at the gate began nodding to her the way they used to nod to me.

And now, standing here, I realized there was nothing left for me to hold onto.

All I wanted was to pack my things and leave.

When I stepped fully into the house, I saw that all of my belongings had been thrown carelessly into the hallway, piled up like unwanted trash. Clothes, shoes, framed photographs, a jewelry case with my mother's name still etched on the clasp. All of it stacked against the wall as if the room I had lived in for years had simply been emptied of evidence.

Dante stood there, one arm wrapped possessively around Serena's shoulders. His gaze fell on me, cold and filled with disdain.

"Bianca, you should know your place," he said harshly. "You're nothing more than someone living off the DeLuca family. You have no right to look down on Serena, let alone throw tantrums at her."

"From now on, you'll stay in the staff quarters," he continued without hesitation. "Serena will take over all family business matters, and you'll be transferred to the back office to handle miscellaneous tasks."

"Once you learn some humility, maybe we can talk again."

As if that wasn't enough, Nico picked up the small teddy bear my mother had once given me and tore it apart in front of me, laughing as he did it just to amuse Serena. His right thumb cracked against the side of his hand once, sharply, before he ripped the stitching open. Not because tearing a stuffed animal required force. Because he wanted me to watch him choose it.

"Miss Bianca," he said mockingly, emphasizing the title with deliberate sarcasm, "if you throw another fit and upset Serena again, I won't let you off so easily."

Miss Bianca and Bianca.

It was just one word's difference, but the meaning had completely changed. In this house, in this family, the distance between a name spoken with warmth and a name spoken with mockery was the distance between protection and exile.

In the past, hearing something like that would have broken me. I would have spent sleepless nights replaying every word, every slight.

But now, with my decision already made, I no longer had the energy to argue with them.

"You're absolutely right," I said calmly. "I'll move out as soon as possible."

Then I added, almost casually, "And there's no need to transfer me to another department. I'm resigning."

Dante let out a cold sneer. "So you're still planning to cling on like a leech?"

"Fine," he continued dismissively. "For my mother's sake, I'll overlook it this once. But you'd better remember your place from now on."

I walked past him without another glance, my voice soft but firm as I murmured, "There won't be a next time."

Although this place had once held so many of my cherished memories, I finally understood something.

It had never truly been my home.

I had thought that packing my things would take a long time, that I would need hours, maybe even days, to sort through everything I had accumulated over the years. But when I actually began, I realized how wrong I was.

After taking a closer look, there was barely anything left that truly belonged to me. The room felt emptier than I remembered, as if my presence had already been erased long before I made the decision to leave. The compound had a way of doing that. You could live inside its walls your entire life and still own nothing that couldn't be taken back by the family whose name was on the gate.

Nearly all of my clothes had been chosen by Dante. Back then, he would smile and say, "Bianca is the most beautiful princess, so of course she should dress up prettily every single day."

Those words had once made me feel cherished. But now, those same clothes lay piled on the floor, soaked in dirty water, giving off a foul, unidentifiable stench.

It was almost laughable.

The "princess" he once spoke of had long since disappeared. In his eyes, I had become nothing more than a troublesome parasite with an undeserved sense of pride.

As I pushed the damp clothes aside, my eyes landed on a scatter of photographs lying across the floor.

Back then, Nico had loved taking pictures of me. He used to say he wanted to capture every moment of my life, every smile, every memory.

Whenever the three of us took photos together, he would even compete with Dante, both of them trying to stand as close to me as possible.

Those moments had once felt warm and full of meaning.

But now, every single one of those photos had my face crossed out with a thick red pen, scribbled over without mercy.

I didn't have the courage to look any longer.

Without hesitation, I gathered them all and threw them straight into the trash, as if discarding something that had already lost all meaning.

Just as I was doing that, Dante happened to walk downstairs with Serena and saw everything.

For a brief moment, a trace of surprise flickered in his eyes. After all, I used to treasure every single thing he gave me.

But that moment passed quickly. His expression turned into a cold sneer. "You really don't mind wasting the DeLuca family's money, do you?"

The Dante I once knew had never hesitated to spend anything if it meant making me happy. He would go out of his way to give me the best of everything.

But ever since Serena appeared, everything I did had become wrong in his eyes.

I had lost the right to be willful, to complain, or even to feel hurt. And I no longer had the energy to argue.

"I'll pay you back," I said quietly, my voice calm.

"The DeLuca family doesn't care about that little amount of money," Dante replied dismissively. "But you need to remember one thing. Don't trouble Serena again."

Serena gently tugged on his sleeve, pouting slightly as she spoke in a soft voice. "Dante… don't waste your time on unimportant people."

"Besides, I still want to go to that secret place to watch the stars. Let's go," she added sweetly.

Her words made me freeze in place for a moment. My thumb pressed hard against the pulse point inside my wrist, holding there until I felt the beat steady beneath my skin.

The "secret place" she mentioned was something Dante had created just for me.

Back then, Naomi DeLuca had been occupied with family obligations and had entrusted Dante, who was six years older than me, to take care of me. It was the way things worked inside the compound: the eldest son carried what the household head couldn't, and for a time, that weight had included me.

He had tried his best to give me everything he could. He once told me that I was his "pure moonlight," something gentle and irreplaceable.

So he had built that place. An endless, dreamlike sky filled with stars, just for me.

I still remembered that night clearly. Standing under that artificial sky, the stars glowing softly above us, Dante had looked at me with warmth in his eyes.

"Bianca," he had said gently, "remember this. This sky belongs only to you, just like my feelings."

We had spent twenty years together, slowly turning that place into something magical, something that felt like a world of our own. The compound had a thousand rooms, a thousand locked doors, but that one space had been ours. Not the Family's. Not the business. Ours.

And somewhere along the way, my heart had quietly begun to lean toward him.

But every time I thought I had made my choice, Nico would interfere, stirring things up, making me hesitate, making me question everything all over again.

As for now…

They had found a new "rose" to admire and had long forgotten about me, the fading moon.

But it didn't matter anymore. None of it did.

I took a deep breath, steadying myself, and turned to leave.

In the end, I didn't want either of them anymore.

Suddenly, Serena reached out and grabbed my wrist. Her long nails dug into my skin, leaving thin red scratches behind.

"Why won't you listen to me?" she asked, her voice trembling as if she were the one being wronged. "Are you looking down on me?"

The sharp pain made me flinch instinctively. Without thinking, I shook her hand off with force.

Serena staggered backward, falling gracefully as if it were part of a performance. "Dante! Brother! Save me!" she cried out.

Dante's face filled with panic as he rushed forward, catching her and pulling her into his arms protectively.

Before I could even react, his hand came across my face.

The sound was sharp and sudden.

At the same time, Nico rushed in, his voice filled with anger. "Bianca, why do you always pick on Serena?"

"Don't forget," he continued harshly, "if the DeLuca family hadn't taken you in back then, you would've been nothing but a homeless orphan digging through garbage!"

"Not only are you ungrateful, but you repay us with cruelty!"

A loud buzzing filled my ears, drowning out everything else.

This was the first time in my life I had ever been struck like that.

In that moment, it felt as if my entire world shattered into pieces.

The compound had gone silent around us. Not the comfortable silence of a house at rest but the held-breath silence of men who had heard the sound of skin against skin and knew better than to witness what came next. Somewhere beyond the terrace, a soldier shifted his weight and looked away.

Dante seemed to freeze as well, as if only now realizing what he had done. His expression shifted slightly. "Are you alright? I…"

"I'm fine," I said quietly, wiping the blood from the corner of my mouth. "I don't blame you."

I truly didn't.

I took that slap as repayment for everything the DeLuca family had given me over the years. Every meal at their table, every roof over my head since my father's crew collapsed and left us with nothing.

From this moment on, we owed each other nothing. There were no more debts between us.

But Nico stepped forward, blocking my path firmly. He refused to let me leave.

"Stay here," he said coldly. "You're not going anywhere until you apologize to Serena."

The fierce look in his eyes was nothing like the boy who used to follow me around, calling me "sister" in a soft, affectionate voice.

But I knew exactly what he was capable of.

Once, there had been a boy at school who harassed me. Nico had secretly retaliated against him, while Dante handled the consequences behind the scenes. Between the two of them, favors were called in, pressure applied through channels no teenager should have had access to. The boy's entire family ended up leaving the neighborhood, relocated by a kind of quiet force that never left fingerprints.

I had never imagined that one day, that same ruthlessness would be turned against me.

Looking at the smug expression on Serena's face, I swallowed all the words I wanted to say.

There was nothing left for me to fear.

Even if they hadn't forced me out, I had already decided to leave.

Nico was still seething, his anger written plainly across his face, his jaw clenched as if he could barely contain himself. His right thumb cracked against the side of his hand once, sharply, and I felt the threat of it in my chest.

However, Dante, who seemed to feel a faint trace of guilt, raised a hand to stop him. He smoothed an invisible crease from the front of his tie before speaking, his tone softened slightly, though it still carried an air of authority. "Forget it," he said. "I overreacted earlier. Don't take it to heart."

He paused briefly before adding, almost as if offering compensation, "When I get back, I'll bring you your favorite chestnut cakes."