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.

I said nothing, just slid an agreement across the table.

"If you truly feel indebted to me," I told Mario, "then give me the Lyndette continent medical-equipment company—this is the share-transfer document."

He took it and, without hesitating, signed his name.

"Alessia, I can give you anything. I just want to make it right." He sounded earnest.

I took the papers and, when I saw the signature on the last page, something inside me unclenched. If Mario had bothered to flip one more page, he would have seen what he had really signed: a divorce agreement.

His guilt made him reach for more words, but his phone rang and cut him off. It was Carmilla.

He glanced at me, suddenly guilty. "Alessia, there's an emergency at the company. I have to go. I'll be back later." He answered the call before I could reply and hurried away.

He never came to see me before I was discharged. Instead, I watched a new photo on Facebook: Carmilla, smiling, Mario's back in the frame.

The caption read: [Bootlicker gets everything in the end.]

Jessie sent a message that their team still needed people and they'd welcome me. I agreed without thinking and bought a ticket to Claeyron.

Only Risa Mandolin—the nanny who'd raised me—came to pick me up when I left the hospital. We went to the cemetery. My mother's headstone still wore that calm, painted smile. I brushed the dust from her photograph and felt the old ache.

"Mom, you were right. Once a man's heart changes, you can't hold onto him." My voice broke.

I remembered telling Mario once about my father's betrayal, how it had hollowed my childhood. Back then, his eyes had been red; he'd held me and whispered, "Alessia, I would never betray you. If I did, may I die badly."

Those vows blew away like smoke. He'd followed my father's path after all—yet I swore I would not follow my mother's.

"I won't beg a man who has turned away. I'm divorcing him. I'm going to Claeyron. I'm going to try my luck."

The wind was sharp. Risa hugged me like she used to, patting my back as if I were still a child.

"Alessia, go and create a new world for yourself. Whenever you feel tired and wish to come home, I'll be here waiting for you."

Tears came, and when they broke, I cried until I couldn't breathe.

That night, Risa had a brain hemorrhage. The family doctor was summoned—only he was at Carmilla's, recruited by Mario for prenatal care.

I begged Mario to release the doctor, to help Risa. He said only, "I'm sorry, Alessia. Carmilla's prenatal care is more important."

By the time Carmilla's session ended, Risa was gone.

I chose her grave beside my mother's and watched the photograph on the stone as tears fell.

Footsteps approached. Carmilla stood there, her belly prominent, a look of contempt on her face.

"Alessia, Mario isn't here. What are you doing—making a scene over a dead maid? Trying to make him feel sorry for you?

"You're just as useless as your mother—your dad loved my mother, Mario loves me. You and your mom are pathetic, unloved." The venom in her voice was loud enough to make the air hurt.

I stood, furious. My eyes fixed on her like a weapon.

Carmilla lurched backward, clutching her belly. "Alessia, I'm sorry. I just wanted to see Risa. I didn't mean to upset you. Ah—my stomach—" she cried.

A clean slap landed across my left cheek as Carmilla fell; Mario helped her to her feet and looked at me with a killing cold in his eyes.

"Alessia," he said, voice hard, "how can you be so vicious? She's carrying my child. How dare you—"

He had hit me with everything he had. My ears rang.

"Mario, you'll burn in hell," I yelled. He answered by having me bound and thrown into the villa's basement, where he ordered his men to beat and torture me until I was almost broken.

I clawed my way out with half my life gone and, on time, boarded the plane to Claeyron.

On the flight, I compiled everything I had: years of Mario's drug-deal locations, contacts, and shipment logs. I sent it all to his rival, Gio Agnelio.

'With this,' I thought as I clicked send, 'crippling the Brascos—or even destroying it—shouldn't be impossible.'