“Mrs. Moretti! Something terrible happened!”

The maid came running into the living room so fast she nearly crashed into the marble table. Her face was ghostly white, her entire body trembling.

“Miss Claudia brought people to the memorial garden. She dug up the young masters’ urns! She said she wants to turn their ashes into fireworks...”

The teacup slipped from my fingers and shattered across the floor. For a second, I could not understand what I had just heard.

My twins? My babies? Fireworks?

My chest locked so violently I could barely breathe. I ran out of the mansion barefoot, not even feeling the sharp stone slicing into my feet as I sprinted toward the private memorial garden behind the estate.

But the moment I arrived, my entire world collapsed.

The marble memorial site had been destroyed. Soil covered the ground. The flower arrangements were trampled under expensive shoes. And the small white urns that carried what little remained of my children were sitting carelessly on the grass beside metal fireworks shells like garbage.

And Claudia was standing there smiling.

The twenty two year old secretary Xander’s hired three months ago. The same girl who now sat beside him at every banquet as if she was the lady of the house.

“Careful!” Claudia laughed while directing the workers. “Don’t spill too much. I watched tiktok videos online and they said baby ashes make the prettiest fireworks. Apparently the younger they are, the brighter the colors. I want them posted tiktok live!”

My vision went black for a second.

“STOP!!!”

My scream ripped through the garden so violently that every worker froze.

Claudia turned toward me slowly, blinking with fake innocence. “Oh!” She smiled sweetly. “Mrs. Moretti. Perfect timing! We were just about to light the first one.”

I stared at the urn in the worker’s hands and felt my knees nearly buckle. Inside that urn were my children, Kyle and Cora. My son who used to cry whenever thunderstorms scared him. My daughter who slept holding my finger every night. Both murdered four years ago during a mafia ambush meant for the Moretti family. And now their ashes were being stuffed into fireworks.

“What the hell are you doing...?” My voice sounded broken even to myself.

Claudia tilted her head curiously. “Making memories? I mean... keeping ashes in a box forever is so depressing, Lorraine! Like duh?” She pointed excitedly at the fireworks shells. “But this? This is beautiful. Your twins can finally light up the sky together. Don't you like that?”

I stared at her in horror. Was she insane?

“They're my children!”

“Yeah, I know they are your children.” She nodded casually. “That’s why this is extra meaningful!” Then she giggled. “Honestly, I think this is way cuter than a funeral.”

“How dare you! How fucking dare you touch them?”

Claudia pouted immediately. “Why are you acting like this?” she whined. “They’re already dead, Lorraine. Ashes. Gone. It’s not like they can feel it.” Then she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Besides, cremated babies are super expensive online. Some people even turn them into jewelry. I thought fireworks were more creative—”

SLAP!

The sound echoed across the garden.

Claudia gasped dramatically and stumbled backward, covering her cheek while tears instantly filled her eyes.

“Lorraine!”

A tall figure stormed into the garden surrounded by bodyguards.

Xander Moretti.

The mafia boss of the Golden Lion Empire. CEO of Moretti Global Holdings. The man who once collapsed beside our twins’ coffins and swore he would destroy everyone responsible for their deaths.

He shoved me back hard enough that I nearly fell onto the stone pathway.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he snapped.

Then immediately, his expression softened as he turned toward Claudia. “You okay, baby?”

Baby?

Right in front of our children’s graves.

Claudia’s lips trembled as she leaned against his chest. “I was only trying to do something special for the twins,” she whispered weakly. “I thought turning them into fireworks would be romantic and meaningful.” She sniffled. “Lorraine hates me because you like me.”

Xander wrapped an arm protectively around her waist and looked at me with cold irritation.

“The fuck, Lorraine. Can you stop acting insane for once?”

I stared at him like he was a stranger. “She dug up our children.”

“So?” he said flatly. “They've been dead for four years.”

What?!

The words hit harder than the ambush bullets ever could. I physically stepped back. Did he really just say that?

Xander sighed impatiently like I was exhausting him. “Claudia got curious and asked if she could try it. I said yes. End of story.”

What—? Try it?

Our babies were not some fucking science experiment! I started laughing through my tears because if I stopped laughing, I thought I might completely lose my mind.

“Xander...” My voice cracked violently. “Those....those are our children.”

His jaw tightened for half a second before his face turned cold again. “They're gone, Lorraine. Move on!”

I remembered my twins covered in blood inside that overturned SUV. I remembered screaming until my throat tore apart. I remembered Xander holding their tiny bodies while shaking so hard he could barely stand. And now he was letting another woman turn them into fireworks?

He pulled me aside and lowered his voice impatiently. “Lory, stop making a fucking scene will you?”

I looked at him in disbelief. “The woman you’re fucking dug up our babies and you tell me I'm making a scene?!”

“She’s young,” he muttered. “She got excited about the idea. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.”

Out of proportion? Was I losing my mind? Had he destroyed me so completely that I could no longer recognize cruelty when it stood right in front of me?

Xander rubbed his forehead. “Listen carefully. The woman I married is still you. Claudia is just something entertaining. Something fun.”

My stomach twisted violently.

“She’s temporary, Lorraine. Temporary fun. I’ll get bored eventually.”

I stared at him like I had never known this man at all. Did he hear himself? Did he honestly think those words fixed anything?

“But right now,” he continued calmly, “I like her very much. So nobody touches her. Not even you.”

Tears kept pouring down my face. “For three months, that girl stole my clothes and my jewelry and you told me to ignore it.”

Silence.

“She sat on your lap at parties while everyone laughed at me and you told me to stay quiet.”

Still silence.

“And now she’s digging up our dead children...” My voice shattered completely. “And you still expect me to endure it? What kind of husband are you?!”

I was crying so hard I could barely stand anymore. But Xander only looked at me coldly and somehow, that hurt even more than the graves themselves. Because four years ago, this man once cried so hard over our twins that doctors had to sedate him. Now he looked at their ashes like they were nothing.

Xander didn’t even look at me. He just pulled Claudia closer by the waist and said calmly, “Go ahead, baby. Do it... I’m here. Nobody’s gonna touch you.”

My whole body went cold.

“Xander!”

I completely lost it and rushed forward but before I could reach it, his guards grabbed me roughly from behind.

“Let me go!” I screamed, fighting so hard my wrists burned in their hands. “You can’t do this! Those are Kyle and Cora!”

Xander’s face darkened slightly from my screaming. He lifted a hand impatiently. “Hold her still.”

The guards tightened their grip immediately.

I looked at him in disbelief. Was this really the same man who once cried while holding our children in the hospital nursery?

“Xander! If she burns their ashes, I swear to God, I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.”

For one second, something shifted in his eyes but quickly disappeared. “Lory, stop fucking making this harder than it needs to be.” Then he turned away from me completely like I wasn’t even worth looking at anymore. He walked back to Claudia’s side and gently fixed the sleeve of her coat because she said she felt cold.

Meanwhile I was on the ground breaking apart.

Claudia smiled excitedly and carefully poured Kyle and Cora’s ashes into the custom fireworks tubes. “Xander, look! I think it’s gonna work.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Good girl.”

Then the fireworks exploded.

The night sky lit up in bright colors, gold, blue, red, purple. The entire Moretti estate glowed under the lights while everyone stared upward in shock.

Claudia clapped happily like a little kid. She quickly pulled out her phone and went live on TikTok, holding it up toward the sky. “Oh my God! Watch this fireworks! Is it colorful?! It’s Cora and Kyle Moretti’s ashes inside… so beautiful.”

She turned the camera towards me, grinning maniacally. “I know those kids are happy now watching their ashes turn into colorful lights in the sky. Am I right, Lorraine?”

The lens focused directly on me, capturing my face streaked with tears as I sobbed uncontrollably on the grass.

“Beautiful?”

I collapsed onto the ground completely. My chest hurt so badly I thought I was dying, and all I could do was stare at the fireworks exploding above me while tears blurred my vision.

“Kyle...” I sobbed brokenly. “Cora...”

My babies.

Those were my babies... Now they were nothing but colors in the sky for someone else’s entertainment.

I covered my mouth and cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. How did we end up here? How did Xander become this person?

We grew up together. Everybody in the city knew Xander Moretti was obsessed with me long before he became the mafia boss of the Golden Lion Empire and CEO of Moretti Global Properties.

When we were kids, he followed me everywhere like a shadow.

“Lory, wait for me.”

“Lory, look what I got you.”

“Lory, don’t cry.”

Back then, if I even frowned, he’d panic.

I was scared of thunderstorms as a teenager, so he sat outside my bedroom door the entire night with a gun in his lap just to make me feel safe. I once mentioned liking white roses, and a week later every garden in our estate was filled with them. When I got sick during winter, he shut down an entire business meeting in Hong Kong just to fly home because I told him I missed him.

That was Xander; cold to the world and gentle only to me.

Everyone feared him. Mafia bosses, politicians, CEOs. Nobody dared cross him. But he’d kneel in front of me to tie my heels if I got tired.

When he proposed to me, he got down on one knee in front of the entire Moretti family and said, “I don’t give a damn who disagrees. Lorraine’s the only woman I’ll ever have.”

And for years... he really did love me.

Or maybe I was stupid enough to believe he did.

Then Claudia appeared three months ago.

A twenty two year old secretary he hired after she accidentally slapped him during one of his drunken nights. He told me later he thought she was me at first, but when he tried touching her, she shoved him away and slapped him across the face.

Nobody had ever done that to Xander before.

Instead of getting angry, he became obsessed.

He searched the entire city to find her again.

Turns out she was a girl I once helped. Some poor college dropout being harassed outside one of Moretti Global’s buildings.

I saved her because I felt bad for her.

God, what a joke.

Xander moved her into headquarters after that, then beside his office, then beside his bed.

“I’m not interested in rich men,” she used to tell him proudly and Xander loved hearing that shit.

She acted like she was different from every woman around him and he got addicted to chasing her.

“She’s interesting, Lory,” he told me once while adjusting his cufflinks casually. “Nobody says no to me. I wanna see how long she lasts.”

I remember staring at him in disbelief. “You’re humiliating me.”

He walked over and held my face gently back then. “The woman I love is still you.”

Those words ruined me because I believed them.

“She’s temporary,” he whispered. “Once I’m bored, I’ll come back to you fully. Just tolerate her for now, baby.”

So I endured everything. Claudia wearing my clothes. Sitting in his lap at public events. Mocking me inside my own house. Sleeping in his mansion while I cried alone in our bedroom.

And now? Now she burned my children’s ashes while he stood beside her smiling.

The fireworks slowly disappeared from the sky and darkness returned to the estate. My ears rang loudly and my body suddenly felt numb.

I looked at Xander one last time. He was still standing beside Claudia while she laughed happily in his arms.

And I realized something terrifying. The man I loved was gone. My vision suddenly turned black and everything disappeared.

….

I had a long dream.

In the dream, Xander was still mine. Not this cold monster standing beside another woman while my world burned around me.

No.

He was still the boy who used to sneak into my room during thunderstorms because I couldn’t sleep alone. Still the reckless teenager who drove across the entire city at two in the morning because I casually said I wanted strawberry pastries. Still the man who held my hands after Kyle and Cora were born and cried harder than I did. Still the man who promised me forever.

“Lory,” he whispered in that dream while kissing my forehead softly, “I’ll never let anyone hurt you. Never.”

Then why did you become the person who destroyed me the most?

“Mrs. Moretti! You’re awake!”

My eyes slowly opened.

My personal maid was kneeling beside the bed crying so hard her shoulders shook.

“Oh my God! Thank God...” she sobbed. “How could Mr. Moretti treat you this way after everything? After Kyle and Cora...”

I turned my face away quietly. My head hurt. My chest hurt worse.

The entire mansion felt empty even though it was worth hundreds of millions.

My maid kept talking angrily through tears. “He’s gone too far this time. Burning their ashes? Letting that woman humiliate you? If your mother was alive, she’d be heartbroken seeing this...”

“Enough,” I whispered weakly. “Please. I just wanna be alone.”

She hesitated before finally leaving.

The room turned silent, and the second the door closed, tears started falling again. I cried quietly into my pillow because I was too exhausted to even make a sound anymore.

How pathetic had I become?

I used to be Lorraine Sinclair. Daughter of one of the most powerful families in the country. Now I was just the wife everybody pitied. The wife whose husband openly paraded his mistress around like a prize.

After a while, I slowly reached for my phone on the bedside table and stared at one particular number saved there. The emergency number my father gave me years ago.

He once told me quietly, “No matter how many decades pass, if you call this number, someone from the Sinclair family will answer.”

My fingers trembled as I pressed dial it. The call connected almost instantly.

“Miss Lorraine.”

Just hearing that voice shattered something inside me all over again.

“I wanna leave,” I whispered. My voice trembled violently. “I wanna disappear from this place.”

The man on the other end immediately went silent.

I wiped my tears slowly and forced the words out.

“Help me fake my death.”

The line became completely still for two seconds then his voice came calm and firm.

“It’ll be done.”

“How long?”

“eleven days,” he answered quietly. “Give me eleven days and everything will be ready.”

I looked toward the giant glass windows overlooking the city skyline. The moonlight looked so cold tonight just like Xander.

A broken laugh escaped my lips.

“Xander,” I whispered softly to myself, “if you stopped loving me... then I’ll leave you first.”

Because I couldn’t survive this anymore. I couldn’t survive watching him destroy me piece by piece.

...

The next morning, Xander came to my room like nothing had happened.

Several staff members followed behind him carrying expensive gift boxes from luxury brands. Diamonds. Rare jewelry. Designer bags. Limited edition watches.

The usual things he threw at me whenever he wanted to shut me up.

“Lory,” he said calmly while loosening his tie, “about yesterday... yeah, shit got messy.”

Messy? Was that what he called it now?

He waved a hand toward the gifts. “I had the guys bring you some things. Pick whatever you want.”

I stared at him silently. There was nothing left inside me anymore.

“I don’t want any of it.”

His brows pulled together immediately. “Don’t fucking start acting difficult again.”

Again?

That word hurt.

Xander sighed heavily and sat down on the couch.

“I’m busy as hell, Lorraine. I don’t have time to keep calming you down every five fucking minutes.”

My chest tightened painfully.

I remembered years ago when he canceled a billion dollar meeting in Tokyo because I got upset he came home late for our anniversary dinner.

Back then he held me all night and said, “Baby, nothing matters more than you.”

Now he couldn’t even pretend to care.

I opened my mouth to speak but suddenly loud footsteps interrupted us.

“I don’t want this crap! Xander! I hate these!”

Claudia stormed into the room carrying several expensive boxes before throwing them onto the floor dramatically.

The staff looked terrified but Xander just smiled.

“What now?” he asked gently. “You don’t like those either?”

“No,” Claudia huffed while crossing her arms. “You can’t just buy me off every time.”

There was teasing in her voice. Xander chuckled softly under his breath.

“Alright then, baby. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it.”

I stared at him quietly. So he still knew how to be patient. Still knew how to spoil someone gently.

It just wasn’t me anymore.

Then Claudia’s eyes suddenly landed on my wrist.

“Oh.” Her face lit up instantly. “That bracelet’s pretty.”

My entire body stiffened. Instinctively, I covered it with my hand.

“No.” My voice came out too fast. Too desperate.

“You can’t have this.”

The silver bracelet around my wrist was old and delicate, engraved with tiny family initials.

My mother gave it to me before she died. Before Kyle and Cora were even born. It had been passed down from mother to daughter in my family for generations. It was the only thing left that still made me feel connected to home.

Xander frowned immediately. “It’s just a bracelet.”

“No... It’s not just a bracelet.”

Claudia pouted dramatically. “But I like it. Xander, do something!”

Xander looked annoyed now. “For fuck’s sake, Lorraine. Just give it to her.”

I stared at him like he slapped me.

“I’ll buy you ten better ones,” he continued impatiently. “Custom made if you want. Diamonds, platinum, whatever.”

Tears filled my eyes instantly. He didn’t remember. Of course he didn’t.

“Do you even know what this bracelet is?” I whispered.

Xander answered casually, “Your mother gave it to you before she died. Some old family heirloom shit.”

That was it.

Not the bracelet my mother kissed onto my wrist while telling me to stay strong no matter what happened. Not the bracelet she wore while raising me. Not the bracelet meant to be passed down to my daughter someday.

Just some old family heirloom shit.

Something inside me went cold. Didn’t he once hold this bracelet in his hands and tell me he’d protect it forever because it was part of me? How could someone forget love this easily?

“It’s been years, Lory,” Xander said flatly. “You need to let go of the past. Lol.”

Then before I could react, he grabbed my wrist hard and ripped the bracelet off.

“Ah!” The sharp metal scraped my skin painfully. A red mark instantly appeared around my wrist.

I gasped and clutched my arm while tears burned my eyes. “Xander!” My voice shook. “Please...”

But he already handed it to Claudia. She held the bracelet up under the light, smiling happily. “It’s actually really pretty, baby! I like it.”

Xander leaned closer to her with that low dangerous voice that used to belong only to me. “If we ever have a daughter,” he murmured softly, “I’ll buy you something even better.”

My heart stopped. For a second, I genuinely thought I heard wrong.

A daughter?

Claudia’s face turned red instantly.

“Who said I wanna have your babies?” she laughed while lightly hitting his chest.

Xander smirked and grabbed her waist. “Yeah? Keep talking shit.”

She squealed and ran out of the room laughing while he followed after her like nothing else in the world mattered.

I forced myself off the bed and stumbled after him weakly.

“Xander... you promised me.” Tears finally spilled uncontrollably down my face. “You said you’d love me forever...”

But he was already gone and I collapsed onto the floor shaking.