My birthday dinner was held in the gilded hall of the Moretti estate.

Besides my own family members, Vito had also invited the core figures of New York's five major Mafia families.

My friends, still in the dark, kept trying to console me. "It's okay, this banquet is just as good as being there. Your husband is just looking out for you."

"Yeah, look at all the heavy hitters he invited for your birthday. Enough to make anyone jealous."

I met my friends' envious gazes, a bitter taste in my mouth.

They didn't know that my husband, who should have been at my side, was parading Isabella through the heart of the underworld, introducing her as if she were the guest of honor.

It was time to cut the cake.

A waiter pushed a massive, seven-tiered cake to the center of the hall.

I saw right away that something was wrong. I had ordered a custom race car-shaped cake from a top pastry chef. It was supposed to have a fiery red body, silver wheels, and my favorite sports car elements on top.

But the cake before me was a simple pink. I walked over quickly to inspect it. On top were the words "Welcome Home."

My birthday cake had been swapped for one celebrating Isabella's return.

"What's going on? This isn't the super cool race car cake you ordered, Lily. Did they make a mistake?"

"Maybe it's the cake from the banquet next door? How could the staff screw up something as important as a birthday cake?"

My friends were either indignant on my behalf or questioning the Moretti family's competence.

Only I knew the truth. The waiter hadn't made a mistake. This was a carefully orchestrated move by Vito and Isabella.

Vito walked over, pulling Isabella to stand between us.

They stood so close they looked less like siblings and more like a perfectly matched pair.

"The cake is right."

"Today is both Liliana's birthday and the official welcome ceremony for Isabella, who has just returned to the family."

Isabella stepped forward, becoming the undisputed star of the show. She smiled slightly. "It's a pleasure to meet you all!"

Vito moved closer to me, tugging at my wrist, his tone coaxing. "Are you angry now?"

"Don't worry, your race car cake is in my study. We'll cut it together after the party, just the two of us."

It was the closest he ever came to pleading. In the past, whenever he did this, my anger would melt away, no matter how furious I was.

But this time, I coldly pulled my hand away.

Astonishment flashed in Vito's eyes. He opened his mouth to say something else,

but I had already turned away, picking up a beautifully wrapped gift box.

"Vito, I want to give you a gift."

Seeing the exquisite gift box in my hand, he let out a breath of relief.

That's right. I loved him that much. I even prepared a surprise for him on my own birthday.

That vague, unsettling feeling in his gut was probably just him overthinking things.

Just as Vito was about to take the gift box, Isabella's triumphant voice came from behind him. "Vito, shouldn't we move on to the next part?"

Vito glanced at me, a flicker of conflict and hesitation in his eyes. But after touching the gift box, he pulled his hand back.

"Open it when we get home."

He pushed the gift box back into my hands and strode toward Isabella.

I looked down at the box in my hands and felt a little regretful.

Because Vito would have been very "happy" to see that gift. It would have been the perfect way to publicly announce his true relationship with Isabella.

It was a divorce agreement.

The only gift I was giving myself for my twenty-fifth birthday.

Amid the cheers, Isabella moved to cut the cake.

It was as if everyone had forgotten that I was the one whose birthday it was.

No, Isabella hadn't forgotten.

She walked up to me with two glasses of champagne, feigning intimacy as she went to hug me. "Liliana, happy birthday!"

The moment she pressed against me, the heel of her stiletto came down hard on my unsuspecting foot.

At the same time, the champagne in her hand "slipped," drenching the front of my gown.

The sticky liquid ran down my skin and soaked into my dress, a complete and utter mess.

"Oh, I am so sorry, Liliana, I lost my balance..." she gasped, covering her mouth in a pitiful act.

I had always been one to return a favor. Even as I fought through the sharp pain in my foot, I raised my hand to slap her hard across the face.

But a large hand caught my wrist in mid-air, the grip so tight I thought it would shatter the bone.

Vito shielded Isabella, his eyes turning hard. "She didn't mean it. It was an accident."

He lowered his voice, his dark eyes filled with a vicious warning, as if he would cripple my hand on the spot if I dared to let the slap fall.

Isabella hid behind him, out of the guests' line of sight, and gave me a provocative and malicious smirk.

I, a Falcone Principessa, had never endured such humiliation. The rage forced a crimson flush into my eyes.

Vito saw the redness at the corners of my eyes. His jaw tightened, his hard features stiffening for a split second.

He took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped my face. "Alright. It's your birthday. Be happy."

I found him utterly hypocritical.

I slapped his hand away without expression and quietly waited for the final event of the evening.

"And now, I would like to announce the new director of the Moretti family's E-Customs bespoke tuning studio."

This was the part I had been most looking forward to, because this studio was my creation, my passion project.

At first, Vito had just let me play with it to keep me happy. He never expected me to achieve top-tier results in the industry.

"Let's welcome Miss Isabella Moretti!"

The champagne flute in my hand shattered.

Isabella's "masterpieces" scrolled across the giant screen.

From the initial aerodynamic sketches and aggressive body kit designs to the engine's peak performance data on underground tracks.

But all of that was my work!

It was the first time in my life I had reined in my wild nature. I stopped getting drunk in nightclubs and locked myself in a stuffy garage, working through the night.

For a whole month, I ran on four hours of sleep a night to produce those one-of-a-kind blueprints.

And now, on every blueprint and data report I had personally drafted, my signature rose emblem had been erased from the bottom right corner, brazenly replaced with Isabella's forgery.

Isabella stood on stage in her haute couture gown, shamelessly soaking in all the applause.

She even smugly announced that for the future of the studio, she would be disbanding the current core team of technicians for a complete overhaul.

My crew, the men who had been through hell and back with me and were waiting to be introduced tonight, stared at me in disbelief.

I was shaking with rage, my face a deathly pale mask.

I pushed roughly through the crowd, ready to storm the stage. "No! Those aren't her designs—"

Before I could finish, a large, leather-gloved hand clamped down hard over my mouth and nose from behind.

A suffocating pressure clamped down on me.

Vito's unique scent of cigar smoke filled my nostrils.

"It's just a damn garage, Liliana. Is it worth making such an ugly scene over?"

Vito? Why?

I wanted to ask more. A sharp sting pierced my neck.

A cold sedative was ruthlessly injected into the vein in my neck.

Before I lost consciousness, all I heard was his cold command. "Take my wife back to the estate."

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the leather bed in the master bedroom.

Vito sat on the edge of the bed, still in his suit, surrounded by gift boxes from Cartier and Hermès.

I didn't say a word. Without even bothering to change out of the silk nightgown I was wearing, I stumbled out of the room.

I would not let my life's work fall into the hands of that venomous snake. I would not let my team be left homeless on the streets.

My fingers had just closed around the cold brass doorknob when a powerful grip seized my waist.

I was yanked back with brutal force into a hard chest.

"Where are you going?"

The side effects of the sedative made me dizzy. I fought against the nausea roiling in my stomach and struggled desperately in his arms.

"Let me go! Isabella stole my studio, and now she wants to fire my team! I have to find her. I have to get back what's mine!"

"It's no use."

Vito's deep, flat voice sounded from above me. "The Moretti family leadership has already unanimously approved her appointment."

I gripped his designer shirt tightly, begging, "Can't you vouch for me? You know those blueprints are—"

My voice died in my throat.

As our eyes met, a horrifying realization struck me like lightning.

All of my core data was locked on my private computer in the studio's safe.

In all of New York, only Vito had ever seen them!

How stupid I had been. As if I were showing off a prize, I had told him the computer password was the anniversary of the day we met on the track.

And now, the work I had cherished like a treasure had become a stepping stone for Isabella's rise!

No one but Vito could have stolen those files so silently.

I froze completely.

I stared at the husband before me in disbelief. Despair, devastation, absurdity—all my emotions were reflected in his eyes.

The sight of me in this state made something in his chest clench. His throat tightened, and he raised a large hand to cover my eyes.

He couldn't bear to look at me right now. "Liliana..."

My heart was in agony. I pressed a hand to my chest, barely able to breathe. All that was left were large tears streaming down my face.

I heard my own voice, trembling uncontrollably. "Why?"

Vito gently wiped away my tears, a flicker of pain in his eyes that he himself didn't notice.

"Be good," he murmured. "I'll compensate you for it, double."

"Bella needs this spotlight. She needs this career more than you do."

"You're the Principessa of the Falcone family, you've had everything you ever wanted since you were a child. And now you're the lady of the Moretti estate. But Bella? Her father took a bullet for mine. She has nothing."

"This is a blood debt my family owes her."

Vito would never be on my side again.

The moment I accepted this fact, my heart felt like it had been run over by a heavy truck, leaving nothing but wreckage.

But even so, I swallowed my pride and begged him.

"Then please, just don't fire my crew. They're talented guys from the streets. They trusted me with their lives. Please, just give them a chance..."

Most of those technicians were marginalized people from the streets. I was the one who pulled them out of the muck of gang wars.

Without this job, they'd be eaten alive by the streets of New York!

Vito brushed my tear-soaked hair away from my face, a hint of helplessness in his expression.

"It's Isabella's studio now."

"I can't interfere with her decisions."

My hand, clutching his sleeve, fell away. My throat was raw, as if it had been scraped with a razor, and I could taste blood.

He ignored my pain and my pleas, treating my life's work like trash to be tossed aside.

Yet he protected Isabella to the extreme, unwilling to let her suffer even the slightest grievance.

Suddenly, the tears stopped.

I remembered a line I once read: tears only work on people who love you.

I forced myself to calm down, wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand, and began to mentally map out the Falcone family's underground network of garages, trying to find a way out for my crew.

Vito sat on the edge of the bed, expecting me to throw a fit like I always did, to try and force him to take back his decision.

After all, the word "compromise" had never been in Liliana Falcone's dictionary. Anything I wanted, I either took by force or destroyed so no one else could have it.

But I said nothing. I just threw back the covers, walked to the sofa farthest from him, and unlocked my phone.

My unnatural silence brought a flicker of annoyance to his eyes.

He suppressed the inexplicable panic rising in his chest and tried to compensate me.

"Stop being angry."

"That pigeon's blood ruby you glanced at during the Sotheby's auction last month? I bought it for you."

"It's the only one in the world, and it's all in your name."

That necklace was worth enough to buy ten E-Customs studios with change to spare.

In Vito's mind, he had shown more than enough sincerity in placating me this time.

But I didn't even look up, seemingly uninterested, my focus solely on my phone.

Vito pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice low. "That's enough. Come here and sign the asset transfer documents."

Hearing the word "sign," I finally looked up, my voice perfectly calm. "Alright."

"Let me see the documents."

Vito didn't realize that in the instant I agreed, the corner of his mouth had tilted up slightly.

With my back to him, I pretended to flip through the complicated jewelry transfer agreement.

Just then, Vito's phone rang. He answered without hesitation, his voice soft and low.

After hanging up, he grabbed his jacket and started to leave.

I quickly pulled a single document from the middle of the stack and put my hand on his arm. "What's the hurry? Sign this before you go."

He fought back his impatience, took the pen, and quickly signed his name where required.

"You go to sleep. I might not be back tonight."

Watching his retreating back, I lowered my eyes to the now valid divorce agreement and found it almost laughable.

Our marriage hadn't even lasted a full year.

I could barely remember what it felt like to be that Liliana on the cliffside, the one who would have given her life for him.

In the middle of the night, I lay in bed, wide awake.

Suddenly, with a loud "bang," the bedroom door was violently kicked open.

My neck exploded in pain, and a scream tore from my throat. "Ah—"

A bright light blinded me, reflecting the tears of pain streaming down my face.

Vito's hand flinched slightly, as if burned by my tears.

But he only froze for a second before his rage returned.

"Liliana, you've gone too far this time!"

I didn't even have to ask. I knew that murderous look was all for Isabella.

For Isabella, he kicked down my door in the middle of the night.

For Isabella, he took away my team.

For Isabella, he ignored my pain and threw me to the floor like an enemy...

I didn't even have the energy to struggle. I casually pulled together the torn collar of my nightgown and let out a mocking laugh. "What is it now, my boss? What's wrong with your precious sister?"

My indifferent attitude completely ignited the fury he had been suppressing.

"You dare ask?" he snarled, looming over me, his eyes filled with a deadly disappointment. "Isabella takes over your pathetic little garage, and you send her a bloody razor blade and death threats?!"

"Have you forgotten her father died taking a bullet for mine? You've scared her into a nervous breakdown. She's hiding in a closet, trembling. Are you satisfied now?"

I took a deep breath, defiantly meeting his furious gaze. "I didn't do it. If I wanted her dead, I would have put a bullet in her head myself, not stooped to these cheap tricks."

"You still dare to deny it?" Vito snarled, throwing several enlarged photos in my face.

The photos showed a blood-stained card with twisted writing on it: "Thief," "Usurper," "You will die in a car."

I kept telling myself that Vito would always side with Isabella, but seeing the crudely forged evidence, I couldn't help but bite back. "That's not even my handwriting!"

"If you didn't do it, one of your lowlife friends did. Now Isabella is terrified to even get in a car. She's having nightmares."

"Congratulations, Liliana. You got what you wanted!"