Damian was the fearsome don of a mafia family, but I was his sole weakness.

In order to marry me, a poor girl from the slums, he was punished by his family sixteen times, and the scars on his back remained terrifying, even to this date.

To make me happy, he killed one of the best arms dealers in the world just to get the blue crystal I had mentioned offhandedly once.

He built a manor named “One and Only” for me and swore that I was his one and only true love.

I had thought that our happiness would last forever, until the day I saw him cradling a pair of twins in another manor.

The twins’ mother was my mortal enemy. She had once had someone break my ribs and stuff dirt into my mouth.

Hence, on the day of our wedding anniversary, I prepared a grand gift for him: a private jet that exploded and plummeted into the ocean, along with a charred wedding ring.

In my world, betrayal never led to forgiveness, only abandonment.

“I want you to stage a plane crash for me so that I can leave Damian’s side forever.”

Chester, my best friend, was in disbelief. “Have you lost your mind, Annie?”

Then, he lowered his volume, worried that someone might be eavesdropping.

“You’re Damian’s reason for living. If you ‘die,’ he’s going to search through the entire Western Shore and kill all those who might have caused the plane crash, including me.”

I sneered as I stared at the large blue crystal on my ring. Damian had given me the ring on our third wedding anniversary. Apparently, in order to get the crystal, he had killed a disobedient arms dealer.

“He won’t suspect you. He’ll just think that this is God’s punishment for his sin,” I whispered.

Damian Morrety. That name meant absolute rule in Zolnah’s underground.

He was the sole heir of the Morrety family, a huge criminal empire that had seized control over the borders of the far east and Auropa.

As for me, I was just a dirt-covered weed who crawled out of the slums at the borders.

According to the rumors, our union was a real-life mafia fairy tale.

The Morrety family’s heir had fallen in love with a poor girl who was washing dishes at the port. It was love at first sight.

For my sake, he broke the Morrety family’s iron rule of not marrying someone from outside the family.

He had also set up countless sanctuaries in my name in the southeastern region. On paper, it was a form of charity. In truth, though, he was setting up a network of spies for me, claiming that if he died one day, all the people who had benefited from my kindness would become my shield.

To marry me, he let his family punish him sixteen times during the family meetings. He was whipped with a steel whip soaked in salt water, and each lash tore off a bit of flesh from his body.

I cleaned the wounds on his back with my own hands. The criss-crossing scars were still a part of his body, even to this date.

For me, he sent away all the women by his side and installed the best GPS tracking system on himself so that it could tell me his whereabouts every day.

Everyone believed that I was the happiest woman on the planet. I believed that as well until I saw that video.

My darling husband was holding a woman and a pair of one-year-old twins in his arms in a manor less than three miles away from mine. He was smiling so happily that he looked like an apostle of God who had never taken another life.

That woman was Alice Kent, Damian’s childhood friend and the bully who had her subordinates break my ribs and stuff dirt into my mouth.

For me, Damian had sent the entire Kent family into hell.

However, it was all just a show.

He turned Alice’s hell into a nice cage and hid his darling in it, away from my sight.

“Annie?” I heard Damian’s voice at the door.

I snapped out of my reverie, and Chester quietly vanished into the shadows.

Damian walked in, and I could smell the faint traces of gunpowder and expensive cologne on him.

He removed his blood-drenched, black trench coat, strode over to me, and hugged me tight.

“Why didn’t you turn on the lights?” He kissed my crown and asked in a soft, gentle voice. It was magnetic in a way that seemed to pull me under. “I heard from my men that you didn’t have a good appetite today, so I pushed back my meeting with the Lassian and came back to keep you company.”

I leaned into his cold shirt and felt my heart bleed.

“Damian, do you love me?” I asked softly.

He chuckled and put my hand over his heart before saying in a firm tone, “Of course. I would gouge out my heart for you. You’re my god and my faith.”

He gazed at me with such sincere eyes that I felt sick.

After all, half an hour ago, I received another photo on my phone. He had used those very same hands to gently stroke the twins’ faces, and Alice had been carrying them at that time.

“I have one piece of good news for you, Damian. I’m pregnant.” I looked into his eyes and lied.

Damian froze for a moment before crazed delight shone in his eyes.

He picked me up and spun around a few times. He acted as if he were a young man who had just become a father for the first time.

“We’re going to have a baby! I’m going to have an heir!”

He kissed my face. “Annie, I’ll prepare a huge gift for our baby. I’ll give the baby the entire maritime route!”

When I saw his delight, I felt sick to my stomach.

If the baby really did exist, who would their mother be?

Me? Or would they eventually belong to Alice?

Damian’s phone vibrated on the table.

He gave it one look before his gaze turned fierce. When he turned to me, his eyes were gentle again.

“I have an emergency at the company. I need to go take care of it. Be good and wait for me for dinner.”

He hurried off.

Half an hour later, I received a video from Alice.

In the video, Damian was kneeling by Alice’s feet and letting the woman step on his shoulder with a high-heel-clad foot.

In his hands was a milk bottle, and he was patiently feeding one of the twins.

“That woman is also pregnant, Damian. What are you going to do?” Alice’s charming voice came through the speaker.

Without even looking up, Damian answered in a voice as cold as ice, “She’s just a scapegoat. Someone needs to become the Morrety family’s donna, and she can only be a puppet. She doesn’t have a powerful family that can support her, so she can be easily controlled. As for the baby, if she manages to give birth to it, I’ll get rid of the parasite myself.”

Alice’s lips curled upward for a moment. Then, she wiped the smile off her face. In fake concern, she asked, “Isn’t that too cruel?”

“No. You’re the only one who is allowed to give birth to the Morrety family’s heir,” Damian said.

How very romantic.

I turned off the video and squatted down on the cold floor. My heart hurt so much that I could not breathe. Then, I started stuffing cold pizza into my mouth.

This was an eating disorder I had had since I was a child.

Whenever I was in extreme fear or pain, I would start binge eating. Only when my stomach felt bloated would I feel that I was still alive.

Tears ran down my face, and I only stopped when my stomach started cramping in such pain that I knew it could only be from pancreatitis. I collapsed on the floor. With trembling hands, I called Damian.

“Damian… My stomach hurts… Help me…”

However, I heard a lot of noise from the background, along with Alice’s suppressed moans.

“Annie, be good. I’m in an important meeting. Let the doctor check on you first. I’ll be back in a bit.” Damian sounded a little breathless.

He hung up.

As I lay on the freezing floor, I stared at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling, and I started laughing.

‘Damian, you told me before that mafia members never cried. They only shed blood,’ I thought.

Since he wanted a perfect puppet, I would prepare a perfect funeral for myself.

…

When I woke up in the hospital, Chester was sitting beside me.

“You almost died. Did you know that you have severe pancreatitis? Where’s Damian? He didn’t even come to sign the papers.” He tossed a medical report in front of me.

“He’s busy.”

He was sleeping with his childhood friend, obviously.

I pushed myself up, even though that ended with my face as white as a sheet. “Chester, we need to move the plan forward. I want to ‘die’ on my wedding anniversary.”

“Are you sure? Once the plan is put into motion, you can’t turn back anymore.”

“I don’t need it. I just want his life to turn into a living hell.” I looked outside.

…

The next day, Damian came back exhausted.

In his hands, he held a beautiful jewelry box. In it was an expensive ruby necklace worth millions.

“Sorry, Annie, the meeting yesterday was just too important.”

He knelt by my bed and kissed the back of my hand. When he saw the IV needle attached to it, pity shone in his eyes. “I heard from the doctor just how bad your illness is, and my heart hurts so badly for you.”

Suddenly, I thought that he was a really bad actor.

So, I changed the topic and whispered, “Damian, I want to attend the alumni party tomorrow. I want to meet my university friends.”

Damian frowned at that before nodding. “Alright. I’ll go with you. You can do whatever you want if it makes you happy.”

The alumni party was held at the most luxurious private club in the city.

Like a loyal knight, Damian stayed close to my side. He prepared expensive gifts for all of my friends and even draped a shawl over my shoulders.

“Annie, you’re seriously so lucky.” One of my friends watched me with great longing. “Don Damian really treats you like a princess.”

I smiled politely while counting down the minutes until my staged death.

Just then, the door to the club flung open, and Alice strode in with a fiery red backless dress. She looked like a ball of flames.

The entire place fell silent.

Everyone knew that three years ago, Damian had destroyed the Kent family as a gift for me in order to propose to me. He sent Alice’s father to jail and had the entire family vanish from Zolnah.

Yet the disgraced heiress who should be struggling to survive in the slums was walking straight to us while wearing a diamond worth millions and a champagne flute in hand.

“Good evening, everyone.” Alice pretended not to notice how unwelcome she was and remained smiling. Then, she looked past the crowd and saw the shawl around my shoulders.

In the next second, she covered her mouth in exaggerated movements, though her amusement never reached her eyes. “My goodness, Annie, that shawl you’re wearing… What a coincidence. That’s the limited-edition shawl Phoenix launched this season, and it’s the brand I created.”

Whispers rippled through the crowd instantly.

“Didn’t the Kent family go broke? Where did she get the money to create a luxury brand?”

“I heard that Phoenix received a huge investment…”

Alice seemed to be basking in the crowd’s puzzlement.

She twirled the champagne flute and cast a flirtatious glance at Damian’s tensed jaw before crooning in a sickeningly sweet manner, “That’s right. I thought that I was done for, but later on, I got myself a good husband.

“Not only did he give me a startup capital worth tens of billions, but he even used his connections from both the criminal world and legal world to help me launch more than ten luxury brands across the globe.”

After a brief pause, she gave me a challenging look. “He said that he couldn’t bear to see my talents fade into obscurity. After all, I’m the most special woman he’s ever met.”

My heart clenched, and the sharp pain made all the blood drain from my face.

Back then, Damian had traveled frequently to Cesely Isles on the excuse that he had to get rid of the family’s traitors, but he was really paving the road for Alice. He used the family’s power to help my mortal enemy rise to power.

“Annie?” When Damian noticed me trembling, he held my waist and scowled. “You’re so pale. Are you feeling sick again?”

His loving facade made me feel nauseous.

“I’m going to the washroom.” I pushed his hand away and tried to leave the suffocating space.

However, when I walked past Alice, she discreetly extended a foot in my path.

I could not avoid it in time and staggered so badly that I nearly fell.

Damian quickly grabbed me.

“Oh my!” Alice covered her mouth in feigned alarm, but her eyes shone with malicious glee. “Donna Annie, why are you so unsteady on your feet? Is it because you’re old now and suffering from osteoporosis?”

“That’s enough!” An enraged shout stunned the entire crowd.

Damian let go of me and went up to Alice. He grabbed Alice’s thin neck with one hand and lifted her from the floor.

“Who let you in? Get out, now!”

Alice’s face turned red as she kicked around in the air. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she looked like she had suffered a great injustice.

Damian seemed visibly affected by that.

He let her down and ordered her to leave again.

After smoothing out her wrinkled red dress, Alice could only listen to him and leave.

When she walked past me, she spoke at a volume only the both of us could hear. She whispered, “Don’t act so smug, Annie. Want to bet that he’ll come running to me and leave you behind the moment I call him?”

I ignored her and went straight to the washroom.

Once I splashed my face with cold water, I stared at the woman in the mirror. Her face was pale, and her dull eyes slowly filled with determination.

When I walked out of the washroom, Damian was smoking while leaning against the wall. The moment he saw me, he immediately put out his cigarette. Panic shone in his eyes as he walked over and held my hand.

“Annie, about the brand. I didn’t know it was hers. You know that my subordinates sometimes don’t notify me when they do certain things.”

What a cheap lie.

Damian knew everything that went on in the Morrety family. He would know even when a fly flew through his territory.

Just then, his personal phone rang. Only a handful of mademan knew that number.

Damian took one look at the screen, and his expression changed.

He answered the phone, and out came Alice’s shrill cries. It was especially piercing to the ears in the quiet corridor.

“Damian, help! Leo is down with a fever, and he’s spasming! The doctors say he’s in critical condition! You have to hurry!”

He hung up and looked at me before swallowing. “Annie, the company—something happened at the harbor. Our goods have been seized. I need to deal with it.”

It was yet another lie.

However, I did not expose him. I just called out to him softly. “Damian, you promised me before that no matter what happens, you’ll keep me company tonight. Don’t go, please?”

A strange wave of panic suddenly seized his heart.

It was a weird feeling, reminiscent of a hunter who was about to lose his most prized prey. His instincts told him that if he walked out that door today, he was going to lose something forever.

His knuckles turned white around his phone, and conflict raged in his eyes.

Leo was his and Alice’s child.

His phone vibrated again, and he received a photo from Alice. It showed Leo in the hospital.

The scales tilted in Alice’s favor.

He sucked in a deep breath, took a step forward, and kissed my forehead. It was as if he wanted to use that to make sure that I still belonged to him.

“I’m sorry, Annie. It’s really an emergency, but I swear to you that I’ll come back immediately once I’m done with it.”

Then, he let go of me and walked toward the elevator. He moved so decisively that he never once turned back around to look at me.

I stood in the empty corridor. As the elevator door closed, it obscured me from his sight.

“You don’t have to give me anymore excuses, Damian,” I whispered to the air, and I smiled, as if I was free.

“This was the last time, and you still chose her, Damian.

“This will also be the last chance I give you.”