On the day of my wedding, my fiance, Don James Colombo, left me at the altar again.

"Angelina is in the ICU," he said. "The ceremony will have to wait."

It was the ninth time he had abandoned me for his terminally ill childhood sweetheart.

The first time, she had run away from home, and he could not rest easy. "Angelina is missing, yet you want me to stand here toasting at the wedding? Don't be so selfish, Leticia."

The third time, he said Angelina was in a terrible state and threatening to take her own life — he had to go comfort her.

By the eighth time, James had stopped explaining and simply had the butler notify me the wedding was off.

For him, postponing a wedding was nothing. For me, the Buono Principessa left standing in a chapel, it meant ridicule and one hundred lashes from my furious father.

The lashes split open my skin and left me running a fever that would not break.

James would hold me afterward, apologize helplessly, and promise he would make it up to me after we married.

He promised nine times.

He kept none of them.

So when he left me again for Angelina, I did not cry or make a scene. I packed my bags alone and in silence.

It would be the last time he ever postponed our wedding.

One month later, he would never be able to find me again.

Leticia's POV

James Colombo canceled our wedding again.

After he rushed out, the guests looked at me with the kind of pity people reserve for a woman who has become public entertainment. I stood at the entrance of the estate in a wedding gown that had taken three months to stitch by hand, smiling at every guest as they left.

"It is all right," I said again and again. "Something important came up."

No one believed me.

The Principessa of the Buono family had been abandoned at the altar by the same man for the ninth time, yet I was still making excuses for him.

When the last guest was gone, I sat alone in the empty hall. The train of my gown spread across the marble floor like a flower already beginning to die.

This time, I did not cry.

I went back to the villa and quietly packed my bags.

James came home deep into the night. When he opened the door, his suit still carried the sharp smell of hospital disinfectant.

He paused, then hurried toward me. "I swear this is the last time, Leticia. You know Angelina is seriously ill. She needed me."

I smiled calmly. "I know."

He froze for a moment, as if he had expected tears, accusations, some familiar collapse he knew how to soothe.

"You could have stayed at the hospital with her," I said, turning my back to him. "Can you help me? The zipper is in the back. I cannot reach it."

"Of course." James stepped closer and pulled the zipper down for me.

Then he saw my back.

The scars crossed over one another in ugly ridges. Every old wound, every new lash, every punishment I had taken after he postponed a wedding and left me to face my father alone.

His fingers brushed over them, and his voice turned painfully gentle. "Your father did this to you? I only postponed the wedding. I never said I would not marry you." He took my hand. "This really was the last time, Leticia. I will stay with you tonight."

Once, I would have believed him.

Now I was tired of chasing a shadow that never stopped moving away from me.

I had let him see the scars on purpose. I wanted him to understand what happened to me every time he walked away.

"You are Don James Colombo," I said, tears gathering in my eyes though my voice stayed steady. "You do not have to answer to anyone. But I do. What am I supposed to give my family after another public humiliation?"

"Leticia, I know. You have suffered for me. I love you. I will arrange a new wedding date as soon as possible. Trust me." He wiped my tears and held me the way he always had, gentle enough to make the old me surrender.

I leaned against him and looked up through wet lashes. "To give my family something in exchange, transfer the northern route to me. If I bring that back, my father might not beat me to death."

The northern route was nothing to James. Its income was less than what he spent each month on Angelina's medical care.

So he agreed without thinking. "Of course. I am happy to give it to you."

I took out the papers I had prepared in advance.

Just then, his phone rang. Angelina's name lit the screen. He answered immediately.

"What? That serious? I am coming now."

Before he even ended the call, he flipped straight to the last page of the contract and signed his name in two careless strokes.

He never saw that the final page was not a route-transfer page at all.

It was the agreement dissolving our engagement.

"Darling, Angelina is vomiting blood again. I have to check on her."

He rushed toward the door, forgetting the promise he had made less than a minute earlier to stay with me all night.

At the threshold, he seemed to remember something and looked back.

"One month from today," he said. "We will hold the wedding. I promise."

One month from today.

What a shame, James.

There would be no wedding. I was leaving you for good.

Leticia's POV

The door slammed behind him.

I looked at his signature on the dissolution agreement. I did not cry. I felt free.

The next day, I returned to the Buono estate.

My welcome was my father's frozen stare and the whispers of relatives lining the hall.

"James never intended to marry her. She has dragged the Buono name through the mud."

"She cannot even keep her own fiance. How is she fit to be one of us?"

"A Principessa who cannot secure an alliance or deliver a profit is no Principessa at all."

I lowered my head and walked into the hall without a word.

My father sat in the chair at the head of the room, the whip already in his hand. His fury filled the marble space.

"A daughter of the Buono family cannot outmatch some woman off the street? Do you not know how to keep a man?"

The first strike landed like hot iron across my back.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood and made no sound.

The last time, I told myself. This was the last time I would bleed for one of James's broken promises.

After one hundred lashes, I lay on the floor with no strength left to lift my head.

"Go recover," my father said, tossing the whip aside. "If the next wedding fails, you know what happens."

Two servants carried me back to my room.

I lay on my stomach. My back burned as if someone had poured fire under my skin. New wounds cut across old scars. Broken scabs bled into the sheets.

The door opened softly.

Lucas stood at the entrance with a small case in his hand.

Years ago, I had pulled him out of the filth of the slums and placed him inside the family. He was brilliant, disciplined, and ruthless enough to climb rank after rank until he became my father's most trusted right hand.

He now controlled the family's intelligence network. He knew everyone's secrets and repeated none of them.

My father did not know that Lucas's true loyalty had always belonged to me.

"Everything you requested, Principessa." Lucas placed a sealed envelope on the table.

Inside were new identity papers and flight documents.

"According to your plan, you will leave by private plane in one month. Once you are gone, that man will never find you."

I held the folder to my chest. "Thank you, Lucas."

He bent down and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.

"You do not need to thank me. You pulled me out of that gutter. I will spend my life serving you, my Principessa."

I nodded. "The stronger painkillers? I cannot spend the entire month in bed."

He took a small bottle from his pocket. "They work, but the side effects are harsh. Are you certain?"

"Give them to me."

I swallowed the pills with the water he handed me.

Then I dismissed him and pulled the blanket over myself.

The pain kept crashing over me in waves. Sleep was impossible. When the medicine finally dulled the fire across my back, nausea took its place and twisted through my stomach.

Near dawn, I drifted into a shallow, feverish sleep.

Three days later, I could barely get out of bed.

I returned to the villa James had given me. Once, it had been our private nest. Now I only wanted to clear out what belonged to me before I left.

The moment I opened the door, I smelled thick, cloying perfume.

My stomach turned. I did not have to look back to know who was there.

James's arm rested across Angelina's shoulders.

He looked relaxed, even pleased, and at first he did not notice me. He was too busy laughing with her.

"Oh," Angelina said when she saw me. "The Buono Principessa is out of bed already. I thought you usually needed a month after these little incidents. How brave of you, Leticia."

James's laughter stopped.

His eyes met mine. Seeing me dressed and sitting there seemed to anger him and surprise him at the same time.

"Leticia?" He came toward me, frowning. "I heard your father punished you again. What, was the old man not satisfied with the route I gave him?"

Then he saw how pale I was, and concern softened his voice. "You look terrible. Why are you moving around? You should be resting."

Angelina pouted and tightened her hold around his waist. "Maybe she just wants attention, James. You know how a mafia Principessa gets when she feels ignored."

"Leticia," James began, taking one step toward me. "About the wedding in a few days—"

"James," I said with a polite smile that never reached my eyes. "You gave me this villa. I want to rest. Take her out."

His expression hardened.

I turned to Angelina and let my smile sharpen. "And Angelina, do you only fall gravely ill when a wedding is scheduled? The moment it is canceled, you seem perfectly healthy."

I went into my room and closed the door, cutting off their stunned faces.

Even that small amount of movement left me dizzy and sick.

I steadied my breathing and packed what I needed. I had too much to do to waste time waiting for a wedding that would never happen.

Leticia's POV

After every postponed wedding, James usually disappeared for days to stay with Angelina.

I assumed this time would be the same and that I would not see him again before I left.

Unexpectedly, he texted me that night.

Do not take Angie's words to heart. She is kind underneath it all.

I glanced at the message and tossed my phone aside.

It rang again.

James was calling.

"Are you still angry, Leticia?" he asked. His voice sounded rough.

"Do you care?"

The days when a few soft words from him could melt me were gone.

"You are my fiancee. You are the Buono family's daughter. Of course I care."

"If you cared, you would be here with me instead of with Angelina, James." The words came out before I could stop them.

"Leticia..." He said my name gently, the way he used to when he wanted me to forgive him. "This is the last time. I swear. I will make it up to you."

Then he added, "Let us go out tomorrow. Just you and me. I want to spend time with you."

He hung up before I could refuse.

I did not refuse anyway.

It would be the last time I saw him before leaving. I wanted one clean farewell to the past.

The next day, James arrived to pick me up.

When I opened the passenger door, Angelina was already sitting there.

I looked at him. "You said it would be just the two of us."

A flicker of hesitation crossed his face. "Angie has been recovering. She wanted to get some air, so I brought her along."

I waited, thinking Angelina would move.

Instead, James said the words that tightened something inside my chest.

"Would you mind sitting in the back, Leticia? Angie gets carsick. She needs the front seat. You understand, right?"

I said nothing. I got into the back and closed the door.

As the car drove off, I watched them through the rearview mirror. James's hand rested near the center console. Angelina's fingers naturally covered his.

They seemed to forget I was in the car.

At the park, James did not take my hand. He followed Angelina like an attendant.

"This place is beautiful!" Angelina stood in front of a field of flowers and posed. "James, take pictures of me."

He complied with every request, adjusting angles, crouching down, taking shot after shot, then handing her the phone so she could choose the best ones.

Watching them together, I laughed quietly to myself.

I was the fiancee, yet I was the extra.

Only then did James remember me. "Leticia, come take a few pictures too."

Before I could refuse, Angelina called him away.

"James, this one makes me look awful. I want to go deeper into the woods. Come retake it for me!"

James looked at me. For one brief second, he seemed torn.

Then Angelina pulled him away.

"Wait here for me, Leticia. I will be right back."

Ten minutes passed.

Then fifteen.

I walked toward the trees with my heart pounding against my ribs. I told myself I was only checking on them.

Then I heard it.

A low, familiar groan.

I stopped behind a tree.

Angelina was pressed against the trunk, her legs wrapped around James's waist. His face was buried against her neck. His hands gripped her hips with a hunger he had not shown me in months.

I watched them lose themselves in each other.

There was a hollow place in my chest like an open wound. But this time, it did not ache.

It was numb.

I called Lucas.

"Come get me."

In the end, James still managed to destroy everything. The last shred of dignity between us was torn apart in those woods.