The night before my fiancé and I were supposed to sign the marriage certificate, the most powerful Don in the city's old-blood syndicate demanded that my family send a daughter to honor an arranged union with his comatose heir.

The moment my fiancé Luca Barone heard the news, he ripped the diamond ring off my finger and slid it onto the ring finger of my golden-child sister, Arianna Romano.

Then he made it official online for the whole world to see:

"She's taken."

When I confronted him, shaking apart at the seams, Luca barely furrowed his brow. His voice was calm, as if what he was saying made perfect sense.

"Arianna's never had a hard day in her life. Marrying a vegetable would destroy her."

"You're already pregnant. The Falcones would never want damaged goods. This is the best solution for everyone."

I stared at the man in front of me as though seeing him for the very first time. My eyes burned.

I had loved Luca Barone for seven years. I'd taken a knife for him. I'd drunk myself into a hemorrhaging stomach at alliance dinners held in back rooms where deals were sealed over grappa and handshakes.

Just weeks ago, I'd gone through IVF to carry his child, and only then had he proposed.

But the love I thought I'd earned could never compare to his childhood bond with Arianna Romano.

Everyone waited for me to scream, to cry, to make a scene. Instead I swallowed the tears and managed a tired smile.

"Okay. I understand."

Luca nodded, satisfied. He pulled Arianna close and started discussing the sham wedding with her, saying if they were going to put on an act for the families, they might as well go all the way.

He assumed I would do what I'd always done: swallow every indignity and never leave.

But what Luca didn't know was that the moment he walked out the door with Arianna to shop for wedding gowns, the Falcone family came knocking.

"The Falcones aren't the kind of people who force anyone's hand."

"Miss Romano, if you're willing to marry into our family, I'll give you half of my son's personal fortune, plus two properties in prime American real estate."

I rested my hand on my stomach, still flat enough that no one could tell. I nodded.

"I'll marry him."

Then, without a second of hesitation, I scheduled the termination.

1

Serafina Falcone took me to get the marriage certificate that very day.

I watched Arianna's social media posts, one after another, showing off the lavish wedding gowns Luca was buying her. I didn't waver. I signed the papers.

The process went through without a hitch. When the red booklet landed in my palm, I felt almost dazed. Somewhere outside the clerk's office a black sedan idled at the curb, two Falcone soldiers standing with their hands clasped in front of them, watching the street in both directions.

Serafina's voice was gentle. "From this moment on, you are the young Mrs. Falcone."

"Nico Falcone is receiving treatment in America. When can you come with me?"

I touched my stomach.

"Give me ten days."

"There are a few things I still need to take care of."

Serafina placed an intricately crafted ring in my hand, her tone warm.

"Marrying into the Falcone family, you may never have love, and you won't have a normal marriage."

"But everything else you could ever want, you will have."

I looked down, my fingertip tracing the ring. Something loosened in my chest, faint but unmistakable.

"I'll treasure it."

Three full days passed before Luca bothered to come home.

"I've got it all arranged. The wedding with Arianna is in a week."

"When the Falcones come asking, just tell them you're pregnant. If they have any pride, they won't force the marriage."

"Once the dust settles, I'll take you to sign our certificate."

He reached for me the way he always did, pulling me into his arms, having decided my entire future without asking.

I looked up at him. My stomach twisted with a dull ache.

"So on paper, Arianna is your wife?"

"It's just a title. It doesn't matter. As long as I know in my heart that you're my real wife, isn't that enough?"

He said it like it was obvious. Like he was doing me a favor.

As if this arrangement was the best I could ever hope for.

It never once crossed his mind what people would call me if Arianna became his public wife and I was the one pregnant and unmarried. In our world, where a name was the only armor a woman carried, he had stripped mine to nothing.

Being abandoned on the eve of signing the certificate had already made me the biggest joke in our circle.

After a long silence, I let out a hollow laugh.

How had I not understood until now? In Luca Barone's eyes, my feelings, my reputation, none of it mattered.

But Arianna? She deserved the grandest wedding. The most spotless reputation.

"Tomorrow night at the banquet, I'll announce the wedding date to everyone."

He informed me, not asked. "Just tell people we broke up a long time ago."

"...Fine."

My nails bit into my palms, forcing down the bitterness rising in my throat.

In seven days I'd be gone. It didn't matter what I said anymore.

I'd already booked the procedure for two days from now. The baby inside me, I was letting go of that too.

Only then did Luca look satisfied. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

"Bianca, if I hadn't insisted the Romano family take you back ten years ago, you'd still be in that parish home."

"As long as you behave, I'll always give you a home."

A home?

Luca believed that a girl starved of love her whole life would put up with anything to build a home with him. That no matter what he did, I would never leave.

What he didn't know was that in seven days, while he was playing groom to another woman, I would be on a plane to America as the young Mrs. Falcone, with a fortune that dwarfed everything the Barone family controlled.

By then, I would never have to beg anyone for a home again.

The banquet began at eight sharp.

The hall was one of those old Barone-owned restaurants with private upstairs rooms, the kind where half the guests carried concealed and the waitstaff knew never to linger. Bianca chandeliers threw fractured light across white tablecloths. The families were out in force.

Luca walked in with Arianna on his arm, both dressed in matching formal wear. He kissed her amid the applause and announced their wedding in seven days.

Arianna swept her hair back with a flick of her wrist, and the diamond caught the light so sharply it stung.

It was a new ring. A three-million-dollar pink diamond Luca had bid on at auction, because Arianna hadn't liked the old one. He'd replaced it without blinking.

Every socialite in the room flocked to Arianna like moths.

"Arianna and Mr. Barone are so much more suited for each other. Bianca Romano only latched onto the Barone family by clinging and refusing to let go. Guess she finally got dumped."

"Think she'll show up crying, begging to be his mistress?"

The whispers sliced through the air. I pretended not to hear.

That was when Arianna turned to me.

"Bianca, since you two have already broken up, you won't keep going after Luca, right?"

Seven years of memories flashed before my eyes. I drew a slow breath.

"No. It's over, and I'll leave with my dignity."

Quiet laughter rippled through the crowd.

No one believed me.

Luca included. He assumed I was putting on an act.

"Then shouldn't you hand over the keys to Luca's properties?" Arianna smiled, and there was nothing kind about it.

"I'd hate for you to lose control and find some excuse to get close to him again. It would be so embarrassing if you showed up at his place and threw yourself at him."

My expression hardened. I opened my mouth to say I would never do something like that.

But before I could speak, Arianna moved where no one else could see. She grabbed my wrist and forced the juice in my hand up into her own face.

"Oh! Bianca, if you didn't want to give them up, you could have just said so. Why did you have to splash me..."

She turned to Luca with wide, wounded eyes as he rushed over. Her fingertips hovered near the inner corner of her eye a heartbeat before the first tear fell.

"Bianca Romano!"

His face went dark. Without a moment's thought, he hurled his wine glass at me.

I threw my hands up on instinct, but the shattered glass sliced across the back of my hand.

"Who gave you permission to bully her?" he snarled. "Apologize to Arianna. Now."

He didn't want to hear a single word from me. The verdict was already in.

The way he looked at me, you'd think I was something vile.

The murmurs around us erupted:

"See? She couldn't handle being dumped. She finally snapped."

"Bianca Romano just didn't want to give back the keys. She was probably planning to sneak into the Barone estate, sleep her way in, get pregnant, and claw her way to the top. Unbelievable."

I stood there. Blood ran down the back of my hand, mingling with the dark stain of red wine. The room had gone very still except for the whispers, and I could feel every pair of eyes on me like a physical weight.

Luca didn't so much as glance at it. He was too busy dabbing Arianna's face with painstaking care, his expression full of tender concern.

I thought of a day years ago, when I'd been shoved to the ground by bullies at school. He had been the one to help me up, cleaning each scrape with gentle hands.

All that tenderness, I realized now, had only ever been a fraction of what he saved for Arianna.

My eyes burned red, but I forced the tears back.

I didn't argue. I didn't lose control.

Instead, under the gleeful stares of every person in that room, I reached into my bag, pulled out every single key to every property I shared with Luca Barone, and dropped them all at Arianna's feet.

"You're right. I should have done this sooner. These keys belong to the real lady of the house."

"Your home. I won't set foot in it again."

Luca's eyes snapped up to mine.

Arianna was still clutching that bundle of keys and access cards, momentarily frozen, as if she'd forgotten which expression to put on.

I looked at Luca, my voice steady.

"You got your wine thrown back, and she got the keys she wanted. Are we done here?"

Luca's throat bobbed. He reached for me, his lips parting like he wanted to say something.

But in the very next instant, Arianna let out a soft hiss and pressed her fingers to her temple.

"Luca, I think I might have caught a chill. My head hurts..."

He pulled his hand back without a second of hesitation and turned to her.

His suit jacket came off and settled over Arianna's shoulders. He leaned down to adjust her collar, his movements careful, tender. The gesture carried the practiced authority of a man used to having people watched over, belongings accounted for, loyalties maintained.

"Don't just stand here. Go back to the room and change. I'll have someone bring hot water."

The expensive fabric was already blooming with ugly juice stains, but he didn't spare it a single glance.

Just like he hadn't spared one for me.

I turned and walked away from a place that had never been mine to begin with.

I didn't notice that Luca's gaze followed me from the moment I turned around, trailing after me until I was gone.

I took a cab back to the small apartment I hadn't lived in for ages. I practically stumbled into the bathroom, gripping the edge of the sink, and threw up for what felt like forever.

Bitter acid surged up in waves, scorching my throat raw.

When I finally lifted my head, the person in the mirror stopped me cold.

Colorless face. Hollow eyes.

She looked almost identical to the girl who had walked out of Saint Lucia's parish home ten years ago.

I was sixteen that year, fighting tooth and nail for a chance at a scholarship in a parish home where every kid was clawing for the same thing.

In the end, someone locked me in the basement storage room, and I missed the exam entirely.

I pounded on the door. I screamed until my voice gave out.

No one found me until the next day, when Luca came along with the Ashford family on one of their charity visits and heard me.

He draped his jacket over my shoulders, gentle as anything. "Your name's Bianca, right? Do you want to go home?"

That jacket was so warm. It carried a faint, clean scent I could still remember to this day.

And I did go back to the Ashford household. I got my chance at school, got clothes on my back and food on the table.

The Ashfords never liked me. They preferred Arianna. They said I was too withdrawn.

Luca was the only one who was different.

He went out of his way to visit me at the Ashford house. He helped me with schoolwork. When someone picked on me, he stepped in without being asked. The Barone name alone was enough to stop most of it before it started.

I loved him in silence for three years before I worked up the courage to tell him, the day I got my acceptance letter.

The day Luca said yes, he kissed me like it was a vow. He told me he'd give me a home, that I'd never have to suffer again.

My first kiss was so sweet it made me cry.

Now the face in the mirror was streaked with bitter tears, and I couldn't even tell when they'd started.

I reached up and wiped them away, the motion clumsy and graceless.

Seven years. I was done waiting for Luca to keep his promises.

I was rinsing my face when the bathroom door swung open without warning.

My heart slammed against my ribs. Before I could react, a familiar force pinned me against the wall.

Luca's scent crashed over me, and then his mouth was on mine.

The instant I remembered he'd kissed Arianna the same way just moments ago, my stomach turned and I shoved at his chest.

He caught my wrists, his grip impossible to break.

"Why did you hand all your keys to Arianna? I thought you'd at least put up a fight."

I stared at him. The irony was almost funny.

"Isn't that what you wanted?" I said quietly. "We broke up. Giving your fiancée the keys to your place seems pretty straightforward."

Something flickered behind his eyes, a trace of guilt he almost managed to hide, and his tone softened. His signet ring turned once against his knuckle, a small, restless motion.

"I told you, it's all an act. There's nothing between Arianna and me. If there were, it would've happened a long time ago."

"Just be good for a little while longer. Everything that's yours will still be yours. You'll always be mine, and the baby will always be my heir."

If not for the jasmine perfume clinging to his skin, Arianna's scent so thick I could almost taste it, I might have actually believed him.

I didn't bother explaining anymore.

I just nodded, going through the motions.

Luca wanted to tend to the cut on the back of my hand. I felt too wretched to resist.

His touch was surprisingly gentle. When I flinched, he instinctively blew on the wound, the way he'd done a hundred times before, as if nothing had changed.

I watched his profile, and my heart clenched before I could stop it.

It reminded me of the car ride home from the parish home, when he'd dabbed ointment on my scrapes with the same quiet care.

Then his phone rang.

Arianna's voice came through the speaker, trembling on the edge of tears.

"Luca... I feel awful, I'm so dizzy... Where did you go? I'm scared being alone..."

His fingers tightened visibly, pressing harder against my wound without realizing it.

I sucked in a sharp breath. He didn't notice.

"I'm out. Just picking up some medicine for you."

Arianna's voice turned small, cautious. "Did you... go see Bianca?"

Luca didn't miss a beat.

"No. I'm on my way back to you now."

It was spring, but I felt cold down to my bones.

The part of me that had softened moments ago felt pathetic.

Arianna was the one who got every ounce of his tenderness. How did I still not understand that?

To him, I was no different from an obedient pet. Something kept in a quiet room of the Barone world, never acknowledged where anyone could see.

I loved Luca. But I needed love that was mine alone, not scraps tossed my way out of obligation.

The cut on my hand had split open again from the pressure, fresh blood seeping through.

I couldn't tell which hurt more, my hand or my heart.

He hung up and seemed to remember I existed.

"Bianca, just hang on a few more days. Once this is over, we'll file the papers."

I said nothing.

A few more days.

Then I'd never have to endure this again.

Luca was about to leave when my phone buzzed.

A reminder from the OB-GYN popped up on the screen, confirming tomorrow's procedure.

His gaze drifted over to it. His brow creased, slowly.

"Why are you going to the OB-GYN?"

"Didn't you just go a few days ago?"

Until I was truly gone, I didn't want to stir up trouble.

"The morning sickness has been pretty bad lately. I'm going to the hospital to get it checked out."

Luca visibly froze for a second.

As if it only just hit him that he hadn't spared a single thought for his pregnant girlfriend's wellbeing these past few days.

Something uneasy flickered in his eyes, and he hesitated, half-considering whether to stay.

But the next second, another message from Arianna lit up his phone, urging him to hurry.

That sliver of hesitation crumbled like it had never existed.

"Then go back to the house and rest. Don't stay out overnight."

He tossed out the instruction and was gone from the apartment before the words had settled. The bolt-lock on the safehouse door clicked behind him, and then I was standing in silence with nothing but the hum of the baseboard heater.

His choice didn't surprise me. I was used to it by now.

But I did need to go back to the Barone estate. My personal documents were still there, tucked in the dresser of the room I'd been given years ago, and I'd need them for tomorrow's procedure.

The next morning, when the housekeeper led me through the front entrance of the villa, I stopped dead.

In barely half a day, the place I'd called home for years had been gutted.

The matching couple figurines that used to sit on the entryway table were gone. The rug beside the sofa, the one Luca and I had picked out together, had been swapped for something new. The framed portrait on the wall, the one we'd taken months ahead of schedule as though we were already promised to each other before God, had vanished without a trace.

Even knowing what I knew, my chest seized before I could stop it.

I forced the feeling down and headed for the stairs.

That was when the smell hit me. Acrid. Burning.

"Miss Romano, these things... they belong to the lady of the house, don't they? Burning them doesn't seem right..."

The nanny's voice carried from somewhere nearby.

Arianna's reply came laced with undisguised malice:

"Lady of the house? Get your facts straight. I'm the future Donna of this family."

"This junk was an eyesore. So what if I burned it?"

My brain whited out. I didn't think. I just ran toward the courtyard.

Firelight danced against the stone.

A pile of belongings had been thrown into a bonfire pit near the garden wall, already half-consumed. The old iron grate the Barone groundsmen used for burning brush had been repurposed like a pyre.

These were Sister Bellandi's things. The woman who raised me at Saint Lucia's parish home. Her keepsakes. Her last traces on this earth.

I lost my mind. I lunged at the fire without a second thought, bare hands reaching straight into the flames.

"Bianca, are you insane?!"

Arianna stumbled back a step, startled.

I didn't spare her a glance.

Fire seared my skin, the pain boring down to bone, but I couldn't feel it. I clawed everything I could reach out of the blaze, dragging it free with both hands.

Blisters rose instantly across my palms.

I gritted my teeth and smothered the flames with my body, shaking so hard I could barely stay upright.

When I finally looked up, my eyes were raw and burning.

"What is wrong with you, Arianna? Why would you burn my things?"

Arianna stared down at me from where she stood, untouched. Her fingertips drifted near the inner corner of her eye, though no tears had arrived yet.

"They were an eyesore. So I burned them."

"Besides, who knows if this junk from some parish orphanage is even clean?"

"What if it carries diseases?"

One breezy sentence, and she'd insulted both me and the woman who raised me in a single breath.

The last thread holding me together snapped.

I swung my arm and slapped her across the face with everything I had.

The force knocked Arianna sideways. She opened her mouth to curse at me, but a voice cut through first:

"Bianca, what the hell are you doing?!"

Luca's voice cracked through the courtyard like a whip.

He stormed over and shoved me away without a heartbeat of hesitation. One of the soldiers posted at the garden gate took a single step forward, then stopped, reading the situation and pulling back against the wall.

I staggered backward, nearly falling into the still-smoldering fire pit.

He was already pulling Arianna into his arms.

"Why did you hit her?" His face was terrifyingly dark.

My voice broke. "She burned Sister Bellandi's things!"

Luca knew better than anyone what those keepsakes meant to me.

He knew the parish home director had been the closest thing to a mother I'd ever had. He had been there the day I told him about the worn holy card she used to press into my palm, thumb to skin, as if courage could be passed between us.

In that moment, I still believed that just this once, he would take my side.

But Luca only frowned, his tone clipped with impatience.

"It's just some old junk."

"Arianna thought it was trash and cleaned it out. She meant well."

"Why would you hit her over that?"

My heart stopped.

Right on cue, Arianna's eyes reddened, her voice going soft and wounded:

"I'm sorry, Bianca. I really didn't know those things meant so much to you..."

"I was just worried they weren't sanitary. I didn't want Luca getting sick..."

"You don't need to apologize." Luca cut her off, his voice hard as iron. "If anyone owes an apology, it's her."

He turned to me. His gaze went cold.

"Bianca. Apologize to Arianna. Now."

There is no grief greater than a dead heart.

I stared at the man in front of me, hollow with disappointment.

He looked like a stranger. The heir to the Barone name, the boy who'd pulled me out of Saint Lucia's, the man who'd sworn I was his. He looked like someone I had never met.

"I won't apologize." Each word fell from my lips, frozen solid. "I did nothing wrong."

"She did it on purpose. If you don't believe me, ask the nanny."

The nanny nodded quickly. "It's true, sir. Miss Romano, she..."

Luca cut her off without looking. "A nanny's word means nothing."

"Luca, my face hurts so much..." Arianna's tears spilled instantly. She cupped her cheek, sucking in a delicate breath.

His expression hardened.

"Since these things are causing this much trouble,"

he bent down and picked up the lighter from the ground,

"then get rid of them for good."

"Maybe then you'll stop acting like a lunatic."

The flame snapped back to life with a sharp pop.

Every muscle in my body locked. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

"Luca, what are you doing?!"

The scream tore out of me raw, and I threw myself toward the fire.

But he caught me from behind, arms clamping around me like a vice.

I thrashed against him, my voice cracking apart:

"I was wrong... I was wrong, okay..."

"I'll apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just put out the fire, please?"

"I'm begging you, Luca!"

This was the first time I had ever broken down like this. The first time I had begged him on my knees.

Something clenched in Luca's chest. His grip loosened, just barely.

I seized that split second, wrenched free, and threw myself into the flames.

Fire licked up my arms. The pain went past sharp into numb.

But in the end, the only thing I pulled out was a watch, blackened beyond recognition.

I knelt on the ground, hollowed out. Like someone had reached inside me and scooped out everything that made me whole.

The sounds around me faded to nothing. The soldier at the gate, the wind through the Barone estate cypresses, Arianna's theatrical sniffling. All of it gone.

I didn't register anything until Luca hauled me to my feet.

He looked at me, and for one instant, regret flashed through his eyes. The recognition that he'd gone too far. His signet ring was still against his knuckle, motionless.

But then his gaze landed on Arianna's swollen cheek, and that flicker of regret vanished as cleanly as if it had never been there.

"Let this be a lesson."

"Now you'll know what's acceptable and what isn't. You're supposed to be the future Mrs. Barone. You can't go around slapping people like some common shrew."

I didn't want to hear another word. I just stared at him, eyes bloodshot, looking at him the way you look at an enemy.

The look cut him. He flinched, glanced away. Then the flinch curdled into anger at my defiance.

"You still don't think you were wrong?"

He grabbed my arm and dragged me into the bedroom we used to share, locking the door behind him.

"Then sit in here and cool off!"

I couldn't fight him. All I could do was stand there, trapped, the scorched watch still clutched in my blistered hand.

My eyes burned. But not a single tear would come.