The next afternoon, Ernest left the house, using the reason that he had to take care of a shipment at the port.

When the villa doors were pushed open, I was sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the dark sky.

"It's been a while, Mia." A soft, demure voice with a cold tone was heard coming from the living room.

It was Anna in a wheelchair. A bodyguard had pushed her in. Anna was wearing beige, silky pajamas with a huge black coat over her.

I recognized that coat.

It was Ernest's favorite coat. He would never let me touch that coat, as he claimed it represented the dignity of the Marinos. Yet, it was now hanging on Anna.

"What are you doing here? Ernest isn't home," I said coldly.

Anna waved off the bodyguard. She tried to stand up with great effort from the wheelchair as her body was too frail, and she walked slowly toward me. Her face was so sickly pale that it was almost translucent, but her eyes were shockingly bright. They reminded me of a venomous snake that was targeting its prey.

"I came over because he isn't here."

Her skinny hand reached out to grab my wrist. Her touch was like ice, and her fingers were almost digging into my flesh.

"Ernest told me that your DNA matched mine so closely that we're almost the same person." She suddenly laughed. It sounded crazy.

"He told me that you've been drinking medicine religiously for the last six months. The report from your blood test is so perfect that it could be called art."

I flung her hand off me and stood up. I looked down at her.

"Can you sleep at night knowing you're sacrificing another life for yours, Anna?"

"Life?" Anna acted as if she had just heard a joke. She looked up at me with a pitiful look and eyes that were filled with viciousness.

"Don't you know where you stand in this family, Mia? You're not a complete person in the eyes of the Marinos." She pointed at the expensive antiques in the living room and the tailor-made pajamas on me, worth hundreds of thousands.

"These things… They are all just 'rental' that Ernest has been paying you.

"He is renting your body to nurture a healthy kidney. He's renting the remainder of your life to be used in service for the Marinos. Do you think he loves you? All he's doing right now is to protect his 'asset.'"

Anna leaned in close to me and lowered her voice as she spoke. Every word she spat was venomous.

"Ernest came to see me last night at the hospital ward. He had me in his arms when he told me how disgusting he felt when he saw your hair dropping while looking so pathetically frail.

"If it wasn't for me, he wouldn't even want to stay a second longer with you in that bedroom."

It felt like a giant hand was clenching hard on my heart. Even though I already knew the truth, it still hurt so horribly that I could hardly stand when I heard it coming from the mouth of this crazy woman.

"Stop fighting against this, Mia." Anna returned to sit in her wheelchair.

"Ernest has arranged the surgery for the day after tomorrow.

"Stay put these two days, or you might end up suffering in the water prison of the Marinos."

Before she left, she turned back to glance at me with confidence and an arrogant air of victory.

"By the way, remember to continue taking the medicine. That's the last 'adoration' Ernest will ever show you."

After Anna left, I looked around inside the empty living room and suddenly laughed. I laughed so hard that tears fell from my eyes.

Not only did Ernest plan to take my kidney to save the woman he loved, but he even wanted to take my dignity. He thought that I had no one to rely on and was a suitable donor whom he had full control of. However, the daughters of the Corleones would never allow anyone to take advantage of them.

I walked into the study and locked the door behind me. Inside the secret compartment in the lowest drawer of Ernest's desk was a laptop that had been encrypted. Did he really think that the mafia's secret code would stop me? How naive.

When I was ten, my brother Silvio Corleone forced me to decode the most complicated firewall the Corleones had.

My fingers flew across the keyboard swiftly. Soon, a document about me called 'Project Live Organ Transplant' appeared on the laptop screen. It clearly recorded every detail in the past six months of how Ernest had slowly convinced me to take immunosuppressants, and how he had bribed my doctor to fake my medical report.

The last page was an insurance policy with the name 'Ernest Marino' listed as the beneficiary. He would receive a payout if I died of a sudden infection from surgery.

What great plans Ernest had for me. He took the opportunity to squeeze every ounce of advantage he could from me, even before my body had turned cold.

There was a sudden thunderstorm in Micosa that night.

Cold air followed him into the room when he returned. He was holding a box of my favorite dessert from a particular Froise pastry shop I loved. He was still acting loving toward me.

"Mia, I'm so sorry I came home late. I got delayed by that business at the port."

He came over to me to kiss me on the forehead as usual, but I instinctively turned away to avoid his touch. His hand paused mid-air, and his eyes narrowed dangerously behind his glasses. However, he quickly regained his composure.

"What's wrong? Did Anna say something to you when she stopped by this afternoon?"

He sounded like he was trying to figure out what was going on in my mind. It was clear that the bodyguard had told him everything.

I stared at him right in the eyes.

"We have been married for six months, Ernest. Was there a moment when you had been true to me?"

Ernest turned quiet. He slowly took off his glasses. Without them to hide his eyes, they looked chillingly emotionless. That was the true colors of a mafia Don who had removed his mask.

"Mia, being true to someone in this circle is considered a luxury."

He crossed his legs while he sat on the sofa. Ernest looked elegant, yet domineering at the same time.

"I've given you a life of luxury that you could never ever have imagined. Every woman in Micosa is envious of your life."

"But what you really want is my kidney, even my life," my voice was trembling.

Ernest burst out laughing as he lit a cigar. Wisps of smoke billowed around him, and his voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away.

"Mia, you need to learn to be grateful. You're just a lone designer with no background and no one to depend on.

"Without me, you would still be spending your time entertaining fat and useless men with fake smiles over a few meaningless designs. I've given you the title of Donna and the protection of the Marinos.

"Now, all Anna needs is a kidney. You are the best match for her in the entire Micosa. All you need to do is donate a kidney you don't even need to save my sister, and I'll still be able to continue pampering you after that. Isn't this a win-win situation for all of us?"

"Win-win?" I laughed in anger.

"You're taking my kidney to sustain the life of the woman you love, and you want me to risk death while in surgery. How is this a win-win situation?"

Ernest took a deep swig of his cigar and slowly blew smoke out of his mouth.

"Mia, stop saying such unhappy things. The surgery has been arranged for the day after tomorrow.

"Be good and stay home for the next two days. I'll get the doctor to visit you and give you one last injection of immunosuppressants.

"If you refuse to cooperate…"

He suddenly stood up and came to me. His slender fingers grabbed my chin with so much force that my eyes teared up from the pain.

"Don't forget that I'm the Don of the Marinos, Mia. I have many ways of making a person vanish into thin air in Micosa. Do you want to experience it?"

This was the mafia's logic. It was their version of Quid Pro Quo. Once they gave a person something, they thought it would give them the right to take everything they could from the person.

"You'll regret this, Ernest," I said slowly with clenched teeth.

Ernest reacted as if he had just heard a joke. He let go of his grasp and instructed the bodyguards in black standing guard at the door.

"Watch the Donna and cut off all internet connections in the house. Take away all her communication tools as well.

"She's not allowed to leave the room before the surgery."

I was in captivity. My room door was heavily locked.

Ernest thought I was a trapped canary in a birdcage after he cut off all communication from me, but there was something he did not know. I was the daughter of the Corleone family. We did not need the internet to communicate with each other.

I sat next to the bed and opened up a button deeply hidden in the layers of my pajamas. A silver sensor the size of a fingernail was sewn inside it. The sensor reacted to a person's touch. All I had to do was press it, and a signal would be sent out to the Corleones.

Five years ago, my older brother, Silvio, took me to the airport looking upset. However, he still said to me, "Mia, people out there are more horrible than you think. If there comes a day that you want to come home, or someone has hurt you, press this.

"It's the family rule of the Corleones. No one would dare touch you, even if you're in Micosa."

I took a deep breath and pressed down hard on that metallic silver sensor. My fingers trembled slightly.

Did Ernest really think I had no background? Let's see how arrogant he could still be when he witnessed the Corleones plant their black flag on the lands of Micosa.

On the morning of the surgery, a storm hit Micosa. The sky was so dark that one could not help feeling worried that something was about to happen. The thick clouds covered up every ray of sunlight.

Ernest's bodyguards forced me into the car. I was extremely weak after days of heavy medication and mental stress. Ernest was sitting next to me as he put up a show of tidying up my messy hair.

"You just need to take a nap, Mia. Once the surgery is over and Anna gets her health back, I'll make it up to you several times over."

His tone resumed to its usual tenderness, but this fake act was making me nauseous instead.

The car stopped at a remote private hospital. In name, this place was a clinic, but it was actually a site used by the Marinos to conduct unseemly business. The doctors here have taken numerous lives.

I was pushed into the surgery room where Anna was already prepped in the bed next to mine. She looked at me tauntingly with a crazed sort of delight in her eyes.

"Thank you for making this come true, Mia. Ernest told me he will be waiting out there to look out for me until I wake up."

I ignored her. All I did was stare at the blinding lights on the ceiling of the surgery room while Eernest stood outside. He was looking at me coldly through the window of the surgery room as if I were an animal waiting to be slaughtered.

The doctor put on his mask. The surgery blade in his hand flashed under the cold light.

"Don Marino, the Donna's indicators have all come back positive. Her immune system has been suppressed to its lowest point. We can start removing her kidney."

"Do it," Ernest spat out the words coldly.

The anesthesiologist walked slowly toward me and came closer to my spine with a long, thick needle.

"Relax, Donna Marino. It will be over very soon."

When the needle pierced my skin, I closed my eyes and started a silent countdown.

Three.

Two.

One.

Boom!

There was a loud explosion. The roof of the entire hospital was instantly blown off. Deafening sounds of windows shattering and howling screams were heard next.

The surgery door, which was supposed to be shut tight, was blown apart from the outside by a huge explosion. Smoke was everywhere. Teams of cold-looking men in dark suits came flooding into the room like phantoms. All of them were holding a silencer that glittered grimly with death under the lights.

They blew up the heads of all the Marino bodyguards standing guard at the surgery door in an instant. Ernest quickly turned around. Before he could touch the gun in the holster behind his back, a bullet shot into his wrist with great precision. There was a loud crack. It was the sound of his bone cracking.

"Who dares touch a daughter of the Corleones?!"

A low, husky voice filled with anger echoed in the corridors. The dust settled down, and a muscular man in a huge, black coat appeared. He had a sinister-looking scar between his eyes, and his appearance created tension in the air.

Behind him were dozens of the Corleones' core Soldatos standing in rapt attention. They had formed a wall of black where no one was able to cross. That man was Silvio, the current Don of the Corleones, the man known as the Madman of Severia by the underworld of the West.

Silvio came to my surgery bed and cut off the binds on my wrists with his dagger with ease. He lowered his head while his hands, which had killed many people, started to tremble as he gently pushed the hair on my forehead to the side.

"I'm here to take you home, Mia."

After that, he turned to look at Ernest, who was cowering in the corner with fear on his face. Silvio smiled sinisterly at him.

"I heard that you were trying to take my sister's kidney, Ernest Marino."

Ernest's eyes widened in shock when he saw the red tulip insignia on the man's chest. That was the mark of destruction, a sign that was considered taboo. His gentlemanly features were now contorted into absolute fear.

"S-Silvio Corleone? You're Silvio Corleone?!" His voice was shrill and had a tinge of desperation.

I tore off the tubes on me as I sat on the surgery table. I looked coldly at Ernest, who had fallen limp to the floor.

"You said that I was lucky to exchange my kidney for being the Donna for six months, didn't you?" After that, I pointed at Anna, who had gone into shock from fear in the bed next to mine.

"Since you love her so much… Silvio, take his kidney and give it to her. Let's see if their 'true love' can withstand any organ rejection."

Silvio sneered while flipping his dagger in the air, "Hear that? That's the Coleone family rule. Blood for blood."