A fortune-teller once told me that my husband would betray me in the seventh year of our marriage.

Looking at Mario Brasco—his eyes filled with nothing but me—I couldn't help but scoff at the fortune-teller's words.

Everyone knew Mario loved me enough to give up everything.

When I caught a simple cold, he abandoned a multimillion-dollar mafia deal and flew home just to be by my side.

When I was kidnapped, he took three bullets rescuing me, yet never once thought of giving up.

When my sister confessed her love to him, desperate enough to end her own life, he turned her down without hesitation and forced my father to send her overseas.

But on the seventh anniversary of our marriage, I received an unexpected email from an unknown sender.

After reading it, I asked Mario for a divorce.

A fortune-teller once told me that in the seventh year of my marriage, my husband would abandon me and fall in love with someone else.

Back then, Mario Brasco, still young and hot-headed, kicked the fortune-teller's table over and snapped, "Nonsense! I would never do anything to betray Alessia."

Years later, he became the Don whose name alone made others tremble. Yet to me, he was the man who loved me to the bone, who couldn't bear to see even a frown on my face.

For six years after our marriage, he spoiled me like a child. But the fortune-teller's words lingered in my mind like a curse that refused to fade.

My father's illegitimate daughter, Carmilla Marino, kept clinging to Mario—so persistently that she once confessed her love to him in front of me and tried to kill herself.

Disgust flickered across Mario's face as he forced my father to send her abroad.

After that, I finally allowed myself to relax.

But on the seventh anniversary of our marriage, I received an email from an unknown sender. Inside was a medical report—Carmilla's, showing she was two months pregnant.

Beneath it was a single line of text: [Alessia, Mario gave you his love, but he gave me his child.

Scrolling further, I found a photo—Mario and Carmilla tangled together on a bed, lost in passion.

It felt like plunging into an icy abyss.

I waited for him in the living room all night, but Mario never came home.

I printed the divorce papers and placed them neatly on the table.

By dawn, he finally returned. When he saw the medical report on the computer screen, panic flashed across his face. He slammed the laptop to the floor.

"Alessia, listen to me," he said, voice trembling. "Carmilla faked those photos. Nothing happened between us. You have to believe me. She's still angry that I forced her to go abroad. She's doing this just to break us apart."

His tone was desperate, almost convincing. But I could still see the lipstick stain on his collar.

I stared at him in silence, disappointment sitting heavy in my chest.

"Alessia, I'll call her right now. I'll make her explain everything."

He pulled out his phone, and the moment the call connected, he barked into it, "Carmilla, if you dare send Alessia any more lies to come between us, I'll personally send you to meet God."

He hung up before she could say a word.

"Alessia, now you can rest easy, can't you?"

Then his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and quickly flipped it face down. His voice softened, weary.

"Alessia, I have some business to take care of. Don't worry, I'll fix this. But I won't agree to a divorce."

He left in long, hurried strides. But I had already seen the caller ID. It was Carmilla.

Watching his retreating figure, I stepped into the courtyard. Around me bloomed the roses he'd planted with his own hands—my favorite.

Scenes of his tenderness flashed through my mind, yet the ultrasound image I'd seen burned my eyes like fire.

When Mario returned later that night, exhaustion shadowed his face. Out of habit, he tried to pull me into his arms.

I turned away.

"I just want to be alone," I said, and walked to the guest room, leaving him frozen in the doorway.

Near midnight, Carmilla sent a flood of new photos—hundreds of flight records showing Mario's secret trips to see her, and more of them in bed together, intimately entangled.

The most painful part was one particular date—yesterday. Our wedding anniversary.

Carmilla: [Dear sister, I'm coming home tomorrow. I just can't stop missing Mario.]

I laughed bitterly, saved the photos, blocked her number, and lay awake till dawn.

The fortune-teller had been wrong. Mario hadn't fallen in love with someone else in the seventh year of our marriage. He had loved her long before that.

The next morning, Mario acted as if nothing had happened, keeping up the same loving routine.

He tore the divorce papers apart and tossed them in the trash. He made me a heart-shaped breakfast, gently called me awake, and came home that night with my favorite cake.

I sent him, one by one, the photos Carmilla had sent me the night before. The instant he saw them, he froze for a beat, then his face contorted.

"I'll print another copy of the divorce agreement. Sign it soon," I said.

I shrugged the cake he'd handed me into the trash and turned to leave. He grabbed me from behind with a grip that wouldn't let go. I couldn't break free.

"Alessia, please don't divorce me. I'll deal with all of this. Trust me."

I said nothing; numbness had already moved into me.

…

The next day, my father summoned me home. Mario insisted on coming along.

When we walked in, Carmilla was kneeling on the floor, her back streaked with blood, her pale face stained with tears. My father stood nearby holding a whip that still bore her blood.

Mario tightened his arm around my waist. In that instant, I knew he had forced my father's hand—ordered him to hurt Carmilla—to prove he didn't love her. It was a brutal, deliberate display meant to close whatever door might have opened.

Carmilla sobbed at me. "Alessia, are you satisfied now? You not only used divorce to blackmail Mario, you forced him to pressure Father."

She stumbled to her feet and lunged at me.

I slapped her.

"You seduced my husband, you destroyed my family, you sent me harassing messages… You think you don't deserve this?"

Her hand went to the reddened mark on her face; she glared at me.

Mario stepped in front of me, shielding me, his gaze sharp and cold.

She, reckless and defiant, rushed forward and bit his lip hard. "Mario, I'm carrying your child. You can't treat me like this."

I moved to strike her again, but Mario stopped me, his hand rough as he wiped his mouth.

"You've slept with so many men—who can say whose child it is? Don't pin this on me." He said, clear and clipped. "I would never betray Alessia."

Then he snatched the whip from my father and lashed out at Carmilla. She didn't dodge; she just stood there, looking at him with eyes full of hurt.

"This is the price for harassing Alessia. If you try this again, I can't promise you'll be alive to stand in front of her." With that, he took my hand and walked out of my father's house.

Whatever cruelty his actions displayed, his trembling fingers betrayed the tenderness he still felt for that wounded girl. That night, in his sleep, he muttered her name over and over, "Carmilla, don't hate me."

I sat bolt upright, frozen, the room suddenly cold.

By the moonlight, I watched him sleeping—his face the same as it had been years ago, but whatever emotion had lived there had shifted, quietly and irreversibly.

My eyes fell to the scar on his shoulder, left by the bullet he once took to shield me in a firefight. The memory came back with a vividness that made my chest ache: the blood that spattered across my face while he smiled and told me it was nothing.

Over the years, under his leadership, the clan prospered, and his burdens grew heavier, yet he still cooked my breakfast in the mornings and tore himself away from everything to come care for me when I had a fever. He never noticed that the person living in his heart had already been replaced.

I didn't sleep that night. I messaged my childhood friend who lived abroad in Claeyron.

[Jessie, is your invitation still open? I'd like to join the research on comatose patients.]

After that day, our relationship cooled, little by little, like a radio losing signal.

One day, at a company mixer where they were planning a move into medical services, Mario and I sat side by side at the head table. The room hummed with polite conversation until a young man suddenly lunged at Mario, raising a gun.

"You fuckin' asshole," he shouted. "You don't deserve Carmilla's love. How dare you hurt her?"

People froze. No one moved.

I looked at the man and, without thinking, remembered: he had obsessed over Carmilla back in college.

"You remember when you and Enzo Romano fought? Carmilla took a bullet for you. Her wound still aches whenever it rains." The man's voice shook with fury. Carmilla wore a look of pain; she clutched at her shoulder like it hurt.

A flash of guilt crossed Mario's face.

"You think you stand where you stand as Don by yourself?" the man continued. "It's Carmilla—she drank and drank until her stomach bled to win you support. She pleaded and begged to keep you in business.

"Even after you lost the shipment worth millions on that international deal with Lorenzo, he still worked with you because of Carmilla. She knelt and banged her head bloody to get you another chance. You should thank her."

The conference room fell silent; eyes flicked between Mario and Carmilla.

"She did all of that of her own free will," I said, looking straight at the man.

"That's right. She did those things willingly. I didn't ask her to do them for me. My wife is Alessia. No matter what Carmilla did, the woman I love is Alessia." Mario's voice trembled as he spoke; he avoided Carmilla's eyes.

"I'll kill you," the man rasped. "How dare you trample on Carmilla's love?"

He seemed on the verge of madness.

Carmilla threw herself in front of Mario to shield him. She sobbed and begged, "Please, don't—everything Mario says is true. I did it willingly."

While the man hesitated, a bodyguard behind Mario squeezed a trigger.

The man's arm was shredded; he screamed like a wounded animal. The guards dragged him away and shielded Mario.

Don Marco Abano from the Abano family, who sat nearby, rose and leveled a gun at Carmilla.

"Don Brasco," Marco said, "if you can't handle women, how can you run the syndicate? Want me to take care of this trouble?" He pointed the gun at her.

"Mario, I'm carrying your child! Please, save me." Carmilla pleaded.

Mario's face tightened; he trembled.

After a long moment, he said, "Joke's over. Put the gun down. Don't scare Carmilla."

Marco lunged and grabbed me instead, turning the barrel toward me, laughing. "A wife can only be one woman. If you can't give Carmilla up, then what about her?"

The gun went off. Pain flared across my shoulder like fire. The world smeared and folded; darkness crept in at the edges. Before I lost consciousness, I saw Mario hugging Carmilla, his face a map of fear.

When I opened my eyes again, it was to a white ceiling and the slow, clinical beeping of a hospital room. For a long time, I couldn't gather myself.

Around me came some excited gossip.

"Did you see? Don Brasco was holding Carmilla the whole time. He called every gynecologist in the hospital. He looked terrified; that's true love, isn't it?"

"And the other patient in that room—she was in the ICU for days. They almost couldn't save her. Don Brasco didn't visit her once."

The chatter stopped as the ward door opened. Mario came in carrying half a bowl of rice porridge and an apple, already bitten—half for him, half for Carmilla. He moved to feed me.

Instinct rose like ice. I tipped the bowl; the scalding porridge spilled over his hands and down his shirt. He jerked back, soaked and humiliated. He only furrowed his brows and sighed, a trace of guilt in his voice.

"Alessia, I'm sorry. But this is what I owe Carmilla."

Each word was earnest, but the heat in my chest didn't thaw. I only wanted to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness.