I obediently sat down beside him. Around me, eyes appraised me without shame while teasing laughter filled the air.

"Not bad at all! I haven't seen you in a while, but damn, you must be packing a D cup now!"

Vittorio pulled me close and brought his wine glass to my lips. I drank from his hand. The others around us grew even more boisterous.

"Wow, you really know how to show respect!"

Gaspare swallowed the wine that a beautiful lady beside him had fed him mouth to mouth. Sitting across from us, he smiled at me with satisfaction, like he was silently praising an obedient pet.

I nestled docilely in Vittorio's arms and leaned intimately close to his ear. "The Cutton supplier accepted your terms."

Vittorio blocked my face from view amidst the others' jeering and pretended to kiss me.

"Gaspare's already reached an agreement with the seller. Once he secures control of the East District port, it'll become the distribution channel for their new drugs."

"That's the Romano family's territory. His reach is getting too long."

Vittorio specifically requesting me had been planned from the start.

Three years ago, I attended my first "business dinner" like this. Gaspare made me keep company with a pot-bellied banker. I cried and screamed, fighting him off with everything I had. I smashed a wine bottle over the man's head and nearly killed him.

I held the broken bottle in front of me, wary of everyone in the room. The people on the couches looked completely unsurprised by the scene.

Gaspare spoke unhurriedly, his words sliding out like a serpent's tongue.

"It's just a drink. You don't like it?"

He walked toward me with measured steps and held up his phone. On the screen was a photo of Vera.

She wore the exact same white dress she had on the day she died, surrounded by a crowd forcing alcohol down her throat. Those animals had their hands on her legs, on her chest. Empty bottles littered the ground around her, along with some unknown powder.

Gaspare casually swiped through his phone. "Such a shame. Such a beautiful girl. But accidents happen everywhere, don't they?"

His tone was light, yet those words struck my heart like a hammer.

I stared at him in shock, finally understanding why Vera, who never drank, had been in a state of alcohol poisoning when she died, and why drugs were found in her system when she had always kept herself clean. The autopsy even found residue from five different men inside her body.

I had suspected Gaspare was involved in Vera's death, but I never imagined he could be this monstrous.

Gaspare continued watching me with that same half-smile.

The broken glass cut into my palm. The blood flowing from my hand pulled my crumbling sanity back from the edge.

I dropped the bottle. Gaspare nodded with satisfaction.

"I knew you'd be more sensible than she was."

…

After that day, I stopped resisting. I accepted every arrangement Gaspare made for me.

I was just a fake heiress with a borrowed name in the Toscano family, so trying to take down Gaspare on my own was impossible. I had no power, no resources.

I had to wait until I found evidence of Vera's murder, and until I had a weapon sharp enough to use against him.

Then I would strike and kill him, and make sure he had nothing left.

Gaspare's public identity was that of a young entrepreneur. His ambition was to become the boss who united all the mafia families in Damerelli.

However, his insatiable expansion had violated the ancient rule of non-aggression among the five major families. Vittorio, the Commission's chief arbiter, had already noticed his rule-breaking tendencies.

Therefore, I used an "evidence map" to ally myself with Vittorio.

It revealed the truth hidden behind Gaspare's charitable foundation. It was a silver bullet that could kill him.

The schools established by the Volpe family's charitable foundation were actually procurement fronts for sexual bribery transactions. Among the pieces of evidence I gave Vittorio was a photograph of one recipient's face.

It was the current Don, the Volpe family's greatest shield.

At gatherings after that, Vittorio always specifically requested that I sit beside him. Gaspare took the opportunity to gain many benefits from this arrangement.

My compliant performance at the dinner pleased Gaspare, but the moment we returned home, he backhanded me across the face.

"When did you and Vittorio start the affair? You used to throw a fit over a couple sips of wine, but suddenly you're so obedient when he's around?”

"You two seem awfully familiar for people who have just met."

He pressed a gun to my temple.

I covered my face and laughed softly. "Weren't you the one who offered me to him?"

Gaspare regained his composure quickly. After lowering the gun, he resumed his usual air of refinement, though his gaze remained cold and menacing.

"Don't think I don't know what you're planning! Don't even dream of using him to escape!

"Otherwise, I'll break your legs."

Just like before, Gaspare locked me in the bedroom and confiscated my phone. But this time, I did not just sit there waiting for my fate.

Vittorio's appearance was a signal.

Gaspare wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, so Vittorio and I joined forces to monopolize his source factories. He wanted to stand at the top, so I would ensure that he and his family fell into disgrace.

He monopolized drug distribution across the entire state and yet was still not satisfied. He stretched his hands into other people's territories.

I was not the only one who wanted to devour him piece by piece.

Perhaps because I had always been so docile, Gaspare never bothered posting guards. I tore the bedsheets into strips, tied them together, and climbed down from the second-floor window.

Vittorio intercepted me on the road down the mountain. I handed him the USB drive hidden in my hair.

"Inside are the detailed records of Gaspare's port trade operations."

In exchange, he passed me a roll of film.

"My men intercepted this. You guessed right. Vera wasn't the first."

Vittorio's voice carried a chill.

"Three years ago, they did it to a starlet in that villa. They made it look like she'd jumped."

After parting with Vittorio, I returned to the villa the Toscano family had given me and waited for Gaspare's next move.

Sure enough, early the next morning, my nominal father, Silvano Toscano, came pounding on my door.

"You've got some nerve now? Daring to run away!"

Before I could speak, his cane came down on me. Even though I had prepared myself, I was still beaten until I was dizzy and disoriented.

This was not the first time.

Whenever things did not go his way, Gaspare would threaten Silvano. He knew Silvano would do his dirty work for him. All Gaspare had to do was sit on his throne and wait for my apology.

Silvano only stopped after beating me half to death.

"Don't forget why I went through so much trouble to send you into the Volpe family! If you don't behave, Vera's fate will be yours!"

I glared at Silvano through gritted teeth, seething with hatred.

Silvano had thrown Vera to the wolves for his own selfish interests. Neither he nor Gaspare would escape my revenge.

I was beaten black and blue, then locked up for three days without food or water. When I was at the point where I was barely clinging to life, Silvano sent someone to treat my wounds.

I had won my gamble again. He did not dare let me die.

Before I had even recovered, he hurriedly sent someone to drag me to Gaspare to deliver food and apologize.

When I stood before Gaspare, the pain made my entire body tremble uncontrollably. I forced out a placating smile.

Gaspare did not even look at me properly. He dumped the food I brought into the trash.

"If it weren't for that old fool from the Toscano family crying and begging me, and you looking so much like Vera, how could you possibly have had the chance to marry me?

"Smart people learn to cherish what they have. Vera didn't have that fortune. I hope you're not the next her."

I nodded with downcast eyes. My hands were clenched behind my back so hard that my fingertips turned white.

Seeing how I obediently agreed, Gaspare did not make things difficult for me. Silvano's spy finally withdrew.

My marriage to Gaspare was nothing more than a transaction.

Whether it was Vera or me, we were both tools for the Toscano family to earn the Volpe family's favor.

Among the younger generation of the Volpe family, only Gaspare stood out as a playboy, which naturally made him hot property.

To squeeze into the upper class, Silvano went through great pains to find Vera. He trained her every smile and frown according to Gaspare's preferences.

On the day of the engagement to the Volpe family, the Toscano family got their wish and secured a trade route under Gaspare's control. Their attitude toward Vera immediately improved.

To win her over, they gave her whatever she wanted. Villas, cars, company shares.

After Vera's death, the Volpe family's stance towards them took a turn for the worse. As such, the Toscano family came looking for me, someone with an identical background to hers.

"Bloodline? That's the most useless thing there is.

"As long as you can be useful to the Toscano family, whoever we say is the Toscano principessa is the principessa. No one will care whether it's true or false."

Although my identity was fake, when Gaspare first saw me, his gaze did waver for a moment. After all, aside from appearance, the way I behaved was almost identical to Vera.

At first, he treated me as Vera's replacement and showed some interest. He kept me like a cat he could toy with when bored.

Now, Gaspare's Greenfield Tech bid was imminent. The bidding was just a front. In reality, he planned to use this project to launder money from the East District port.

I needed to meet one of Gaspare's former lovers, Elisa Moretti.

When she stood before me, her belly was already slightly swollen.

Gaspare never allowed any of his lovers to get pregnant. Every time, I would watch them swallow their birth control pills before letting them leave.

Elisa was the only exception.

When she agreed to cooperate with me, I knew the moment I had been waiting for had arrived.

I had switched out her pills, and she had successfully gotten pregnant.

Gaspare would never know that this one-night stand he had barely paid attention to would become his biggest problem in the near future.

After settling Elisa somewhere safe, I immediately bought a plane ticket to Cutton.

Elisa's appearance gave me the perfect opportunity to completely destroy Gaspare.

I had been preparing for five years. Finally, the time had come.

I was no fool.

The Toscano family needed me to be their puppet, and I needed the Toscano family as my stepping stone.

What I truly wanted to do was avenge Vera.

I wanted the Toscano family to go bankrupt. I wanted Gaspare to fall from grace. I would destroy him completely and make sure he suffered every moment of it.

A message from Vittorio arrived on my phone.

"The Romano family has agreed to join forces. Everything's in place. We're just waiting for the right moment."

I smiled at a photo of Gaspare and made a gun gesture with my hand.

Gaspare, you had more enemies than you knew.