I quickly replied.

[Don't send anyone. I'll handle it myself. If you show up, I'll block you forever.]

He was quiet for a few seconds.

[...Okay. Whatever Mistress says.]

I didn't reply.

I put my phone down, rubbed my burning eyes, and walked over to the easel.

The restoration draft Cassius tore into five pieces was lying on the floor. Just like my life.

I crouched down and picked up the pieces, one by one.

12:01 AM.

I was using tweezers to carefully place a cracked paint layer when my phone buzzed.

A long string of voice notes.

I frowned and clicked play.

"Mistress." Cassius's voice spilled out, raspy and trembling. "You really can't leave me."

My hand shook. I almost dropped the tweezers.

"I know I'm older. I know I might not be good enough. But these past two years..."

He paused, taking a deep, ragged breath.

"These past two years, you've been the light of my life. You're the only one who listens to me."

The next voice note almost stopped my heart entirely.

"Mistress, I want to meet you. I want to marry you. I don't want anyone else. Whatever you don't like about my body, I'll fix it. If you don't like my face, I'll get it changed. Anything. I'll do anything you want."

The hand holding the tweezers shook violently.

The light on the workstation flickered.

I looked up at myself in the mirror. Dark circles under my eyes, hair a mess. Twenty-four years old, looking like I was forty.

I’d been nursing a grudge all night, fantasizing about tearing him apart.

And now he was telling me he wanted to marry me.

I took a deep breath and held the record button. "Am I really that important?"

He replied instantly. "More important than my life."

Cassius sounded so calm. So unsettlingly calm.

Like he was stating the most obvious fact in the world.

"Mistress, marry me. Whatever you want, it's yours."

I bit my lower lip. An image of him flashed in my mind.

I hadn't seen him in private, but I knew that face too well.

A jawline sharp as a knife. Cold gray eyes. Rich. Obedient. Gorgeous.

And he was dead serious.

I typed.

[Let's talk after June. I'll give you an answer once I sort out my mess.]

June.

When I finally saved up the last installment, cleared my family's debt, and got the debt forgiveness contract from the gallery.

Then, I could actually be with someone. Even if that someone was a Mafia godfather with a split personality.

He was quiet for a moment.

[Okay. I'll wait for you.]

I closed my eyes, the corners of my lips lifting into a smile.

The next morning at 10 AM, holding the draft I stayed up all night to redo, I knocked on Cassius's office door.

"Enter."

That familiar, ice-cold voice came through. The polar opposite of the man choking back tears to propose to me last night.

I pushed the door open.

Cassius sat behind a massive desk in a flawless three-piece suit, signing a document.

He didn't even look up.

"Leave it. Get out."

My heart sank a little, but I placed the draft gently on his desk.

"Boss, I'd like to..."

"I said, get out."

He finally looked up. His gray eyes swept over my draft, and his brows instantly slammed together.

"...You sure this is what I asked for?"

My heart jumped into my throat.

"Yes. I pulled an all-nighter. I followed every single one of your—"

"Stop."

He cut me off, dragging the portfolio closer and flipping it open slowly.

His frown deepened.

Finally, he slammed it shut, looked up, and stared at me.

"Good things take time."

I blinked.

What? Was Cassius Falcone actually complimenting me?

My eyes lit up.

"But," he drawled out slowly, "God must think you're a fucking mule. Just blindly grinding away."

My smile died on my face.

Cassius tapped a specific spot on the draft.

"This shadow here. Did you use some cheap, synthetic pigment you mixed in a lab?"

"No." I shook my head frantically, my voice trembling. "I used 19th-century mineral pigments, every stroke was done by hand..."

"Aria." He cut me off.

"I'll say it one more time. Show me this garbage again, and you won't get a dime."

He stood up, walking slowly around the desk until he was right in front of me.

"I'll send the debt collectors to your house. They'll harvest every usable organ you have to pay it off. Understand?"

My blood ran completely cold.

The man who said he wanted to marry me last night—the man who said I was more important than his life.

Was now threatening to chop me to pieces?!

My brain just... short-circuited.

Then, I raised my hand and slammed it hard onto his ridiculously expensive desk.

Cassius's brow twitched up.

I shot my head up, my eyes red and burning as I stared him dead in the eye.

"Cassius! Are you really going to let your wife die broke and homeless on the fucking street?!"