I pretended, gladly accepting every deliberate attempt Lorenzo made to lure me in.

In the noisy casino, the hidden underground fight club, on the balcony, the couch, out in the open…

As the way he looked at me grew more and more certain, I pretended to fall for him.

After all, a prey delivered itself to my door. There was no reason not to take it.

When I brought him back to my private villa, Lorenzo began testing my limits like crazy.

He searched through my study, trying to steal the password to the core business vault.

However, I was already on guard.

He spent half a month and found nothing.

Since he couldn’t get the core secrets out of me, he changed his strategy.

That night, before we got into bed, he handed me a pill.

He leaned close to my ear, coaxing, “Anna, this enhances pleasure. Take it, and tonight you’ll feel unprecedented bliss.”

I took the glass.

After years of surviving in the family, I immediately recognized that the pill had a banned substance added to it.

Immediately, I understood his plan.

He wanted to drug me until I was mentally weak, then control me.

Using his looks, he’d trap my feelings, take my family secrets, and hand them to Darlene.

That way, he could gain her support and secure his position in the Corleone family, while also pleasing Angelina.

I pushed him onto the bed.

After he lost himself and fell asleep, I went to the bathroom and spat the pill into the toilet.

From that day on, he gave me pills every night, and every time, I pretended to take them.

Soon, I started showing headaches and memory loss in front of him and pretended to be completely obsessed with him.

I spent my days taking Lorenzo shopping through luxury stores, racing down highways late at night, and going in and out of private clubs and parties with him.

I pushed away all reviews of the core business and even handed over management of several large casinos to Angelina.

Every day, all I did was cling to him in bed.

Thinking his plan had succeeded, Lorenzo became even more eager in bed.

I watched his smug expression and felt nothing but endless mockery.

My decline quickly spread within the family.

Among the upper ranks of the mafia, rumors spread that Principessa Annelise had been blinded by beauty and turned into a useless joke.

The men under me were completely disappointed. Some even spat at my car in public.

At a family dinner, Darlene pointed at me in front of all the capos and mocked me.

“Some people are born to rot in a man’s bed, wagging their tail like a begging wh*re.”

At that time, I was sitting in Lorenzo’s arms, feeding him a peeled grape.

I didn’t even raise my head. I only laughed softly and asked him, “Darling, do you like me like this?”

Lorenzo smiled with satisfaction, his hand roaming restlessly along my waist.

“I like it very much, my principessa.”

Sometimes, when Lorenzo looked at me, there was a kind of condescending pity.

He thought I was pitiful, a fool who ruined her future for love.

In reality, every minute I spent fooling around with him was also to secretly contact money-laundering experts.

Through these high-end places, I secretly approached politicians and judges.

I pushed all the casino’s bad accounts onto Angelina, letting her take the pressure from the investigation team.

Using the excuse of “messing around” with Lorenzo, I frequently replaced the people around me.

Without anyone noticing, I removed the insiders who were close to Darlene and Angelina.

He treated each one of my “downfalls” as a victory, regularly reporting them to Angelina.

However, I acted as if I knew nothing and kept looking for Lorenzo to have some fun.

In bed, he indulged more and more. And off the bed, he grew closer to me in ways he didn’t even realize.

Angelina began to feel a sense of crisis.

Once, on the way to a family gathering, Lorenzo and I got too intense in the car. When I got out, my legs gave out.

Angelina blocked me at the car door, full of hostility.

She stared at the hickeys on my collar, her eyes full of anger.

Still, she held it back.

“You and Lorenzo must have a lot of energy. Don’t you get tired of doing the same thing over and over?”

I carefully covered the marks with my collar.

Then I looked at her with a smile.

“If I don’t spend my energy on men, where should I spend it?

“On taking your territory?”

Angelina was left speechless. I still remember the look on her face.

Later, when Lorenzo went to comfort her, I pretended not to know.

Lorenzo was naturally unruly.

He thought he could control everything, but never realized that from beginning to end, he was nothing more than a high-end toy to me.

“Annelise, sign this black market arms agency agreement and give it to Angelina.”

Lorenzo’s voice pulled my thoughts back to the present.

I was sitting in a bulletproof Maybach on the way to headquarters.

The air felt heavy.

Lorenzo took a document from his suit and gently placed it on my lap.

“Keeping these will only bring you trouble. Sign it, and I’ll take you to the airport.”

His tone was certain, as if granting me a kind of salvation called “freedom”.

I looked at the agreement and suddenly let out a soft laugh.

Lorenzo frowned, confused.

Relying on the favor I had shown him this past year, he spoke to me as if giving an order.

“What are you laughing at? Sign it. We don’t have much time.”

I raised my hand and slapped his face hard.

Lorenzo’s head tilted to the side, and a trace of blood immediately seeped from the corner of his mouth.

He covered his face, his eyes filled with shock and pain.

He probably couldn’t understand how someone so mentally weakened could still have such strength.

“Are you crazy? How dare you hit me?”

I slowly cupped his chin and warned him coldly, “Lorenzo, don’t push it.

“After a year of playing, have you forgotten what you really are?”

The affectionate look that was always in Lorenzo’s eyes flashed with a hint of panic for the first time.

This foolish man thought I had been poisoned into stupidity by his pills during this year.

My clarity and indifference today made him feel, for the first time, what it meant to lose control.

The car came to a steady stop outside the iron gates of the headquarters estate.

My stepsister, Angelina, stood arrogantly at the gate with several capos loyal to her.

She caught sight of the slap mark on Lorenzo’s face, froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.

“Oh my god, Annelise, did you get dumped by a man and get mad?

“What a loser.”

Lorenzo forced down the pain on his face and the humiliation in his heart, stepping in front of me.

According to plan, he sided with Angelina and deliberately raised his voice at me.

“Annelise! You can’t fight Angelina! Give the power to her, and let’s leave now!”

Angelina looked down at me, her tone sharp.

“Annelise, as long as you kneel and bow to me three times right now, I’ll spare your worthless life and let you run off with this pretty boy.”

I looked at the two of them putting on a show and sneered before slowly straightening my gloves.

“Then let’s see who will kneel today.”

After saying that, I walked straight toward the family gates and entered the meeting hall without giving them another look.

In the highest conference room, the atmosphere was heavy.

The don sat in the main seat, coughing violently, looking extremely ill.

Several capos who had long been bribed by Angelina exchanged glances, their eyes filled with greed.

Angelina couldn’t wait to stand up and present her “achievements” on the big screen.

“Elders, the casinos under Annelise have suffered heavy losses this year.

“Meanwhile, I not only recovered my losses, but also took control of all the marinas on the East Coast.

“Today, I demand to take over as donna!”

The capos nodded. A bespectacled consigliere stood up and pointed at me.

“Annelise, you’ve indulged in men and squandered the family’s assets. How can you still have the audacity to sit here?

“We should remove you completely and drive you out of New Haven!”

Several capos from Angelina’s faction immediately echoed him, openly accusing me of losing control this year, indulging in men, and ruining the family’s reputation and business.

“She should be expelled from the family to atone for her behavior!”

Voices rose one after another, and the entire conference room turned into a meeting condemning me.

At that moment, Lorenzo rushed in.

His face was full of “anxiety” and “affection” as he grabbed my hand.

“Annelise, don’t fight anymore! Give everything to Angelina! I’ll take you away, and we’ll travel the world. I’ll support you for the rest of your life!”

Angelina had already stood up in excitement, ready to receive the transfer of power.

All eyes were on me and the don.

Sitting there, I suddenly let out a soft laugh.

I shook off Lorenzo’s hand.

“Support me?” I raised an eyebrow, my gaze teasing.

“With your drugs that you thought could control me? Or with your body that serves both Angelina and me?”

“No way…”

His lips trembled uncontrollably.

“You clearly took them every day…”

Angelina’s face instantly turned red. She slammed the table and shouted, “Throw this madwoman out of the family!”

I ignored her shouting and slowly removed the glove from my right hand.

I raised my hand.

On my thumb was an ancient, heavy black-gold ring, engraved with the family emblem—a phoenix in flames.

The don’s ring was the symbol of the family’s highest authority.

The entire room fell silent.

“Impossible!”

Angelina screamed, “How could Father’s ring be on your hand?!”

At that moment, the “weak” don suddenly stopped coughing.

He stood up abruptly. His eyes were clear, without a trace of illness.

“Who said it’s impossible?”

The don laughed and walked over to me, personally draping a black head-of-family cloak over my shoulders.

“Annelise is the only heir I chose from the beginning!

“I pretended to be ill for a year just to draw out all of you ungrateful traitors!”

As soon as his words fell, the doors were kicked open.

Countless armed assassins rushed in.

Dozens of cold, silenced guns were pressed against the backs of Angelina and the traitorous capos.

I sat there, lifted a glass of red wine, and looked at the pale-faced Angelina with a smile.

“Kneel.”