There was a team-building dinner held at a three-star Kitchelin restaurant on the last day before I left, and Lorenzo was the one who'd be footing the bill.

Nadia tugged on my sleeve and looked at me with sparkly eyes. "Eliana! We should go together! This is going to be the last team-building dinner for us, and since the Don's the one paying for everything, it would only make sense for us to attend!"

I looked at Nadia's excited face and ultimately nodded, agreeing to go.

This was going to be the final time I would ever see these people in this city anyway.

That night, I walked into the luxuriously decorated Kitchelin restaurant and immediately caught sight of Fiore in the center of attention, with Lorenzo next to her.

I froze in my tracks at once, suddenly wanting to turn and leave.

However, my other colleagues had already begun to surround both Lorenzo and Fiore, bombarding them with curious questions and asking if there would be any good news from them very soon.

Fiore was surrounded by the colleagues' questions, blushing hard as she shook her head in denial, yet the delight in her eyes was unmistakable.

I sat alone on the couch like an outsider, watching as Lorenzo escorted Fiore to her seat and began cutting up her steak for her.

I watched him drape his coat over her exposed legs and switch out her whisky for apple juice so that she wouldn't be obliged to drink.

I recalled how, over the past three years—whenever I accompanied him to such drinking parties or events—he wouldn't even bat an eye, no matter how much I was coerced to drink by the others.

He never even offered me a glass of water, telling me instead to get used to it for the good of the Famiglia.

I had put up with it for three years. But now, I only found out that it wasn't that he couldn't switch out my drink for me—he just didn't want to do it.

After dinner, someone decided to liven up the atmosphere with a game of Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare.

The first person the bottle landed on was Fiore.

Someone immediately shouted, "Make her do a dare! A dare! I dare you to kiss someone of the opposite gender in this restaurant!"

Fiore stood there like a deer caught in headlights. She then turned to look at Lorenzo, her eyes red-rimmed.

Lorenzo immediately got to his feet and said, "If you don't mind, Ms. Marotta, you can go ahead and kiss me."

Then, they both kissed with everyone else clapping and cheering them on.

They even deepened their kiss, pressing desperately against each other's lips as if they didn't want to let the other go.

I lowered my head and gripped the glass in my hand until my knuckles turned white.

My secret boyfriend was kissing the woman he loved, with everyone from the company witnessing them.

Meanwhile, I could do nothing but stay in the corner and pretend that none of this had anything to do with me.

Just then, a waitress appeared with a scalding hot cup of caramelized onion soup. While walking past me, she suddenly slipped, and the entire bowl of soup came crashing toward me.

I shut my eyes on instinct. However, the scalding pain didn't happen.

Instead, I heard Fiore's blood-curdling scream.

I opened my eyes and saw that the waitress had spilled the whole bowl of soup all over Fiore's thigh. Her skin turned bright red at once and began to blister.

Everyone was completely taken aback.

Loreanzo was the first one to react. He immediately picked her up and rushed out of the restaurant, comforting her.

"Don't be afraid, I'm right here. I'll bring you to the hospital at once. I won't let you scar!"

He didn't even bother to look back at me, who was originally supposed to be the victim of this harrowing accident.

I stood rooted to the ground, still shocked out of my wits.

I had caught the waitress' movements clearly just now. She had abruptly changed the direction in which the soup was spilling at the last possible moment.

In other words, that hadn't been an accident—she had done that on purpose.

This accident was something that Fiore had staged herself so that she could make herself out to be the pitiful victim instead.

However, I was just too exhausted to think about anything of the sort anymore.

I bid my colleagues goodbye and went back to the apartment. After washing up, I'd only just lay down in bed when the bedroom door was suddenly kicked wide open with a bang.

Lorenzo stood at the door, his eyes bloodshot, his furious aura nearly burning me alive.

I was able to tell that it was Lorenzo, and not Vincenzo.

"What is it?" I asked him calmly.

He stormed up to me and grabbed me so firmly by my wrist that I thought he was going to crush my bones.

He growled through gritted teeth, "How could you be such a vicious, jealous bitch, Eliana Torre!

"How dare you bribe the waitress into throwing that soup all over Fiore just because she lost a game and I volunteered to kiss her to get her out of the awkward situation?

"Do you even know how badly injured she is? The doctor said that she would need a massive skin graft at once!"

I laughed so hard until tears streamed down my face.

As expected, he didn't even bother finding out the truth before concluding that I was the one who did it.

After all, I was indeed such an evil and vicious woman who would do something exactly like that.

"It wasn't me!" I said, struggling against his grip. "I was in the VIP room the whole time. I never had any opportunity to do anything of the sort!"

However, Lorenzo wouldn't listen to me. He continued dragging me out of bed and out of the apartment.

"Fiore cares the most about her appearance! And skin grafting requires her head to be shaved so that the doctors can get the scalp for transplant. But since you're the one who did this to her, then you're going to be the one suffering instead!"

I was then forcefully dragged to the hospital and pinned to the cold operating table. Two nurses held me down, with Lorenzo standing beside the operating table, looking down on me as I wept. His eyes were completely devoid of all emotion.

The razor blade glided across my scalp, and just like that, the long hair I'd grown out for three years fell to the floor in tufts.

He used to tell me that he liked it when I had long, shiny hair draped across my shoulders like a silk scarf. But now, he was the one who had cut it off with his own hands.

There was only one thought in my mind as I began drifting into unconsciousness.

My hair was all gone, and so was the pathetic, pitiful bit of fate that connected us together.

There was no going back anymore.

I was lying in a hospital bed when I woke up.

I was completely bald, and my scalp was also throbbing with a tearing pain. The beeping of the medical equipment hooked up to me wouldn't cease, and the strong stench of disinfectant hung in the air.

The door opened, and Lorenzo walked in. He looked at me with a slight hint of unease in his eyes.

"You're awake. You bribed the waitress to burn Fiore, so the skin graft is what you owe her. But since what you did was also a crime, you'll be sent to prison for a few days as punishment."

He was calm when he said all of that, as though he was just commenting about the weather.

"I've already brought the salve. Take care of yourself in prison."

I stared at him with wide eyes as though he were nothing but a stranger.

"I didn't do it, Lorenzo Caputo. You're framing me. That is illegal detention!"

He ignored me and clapped his hands together, summoning two strong bodyguards as they entered my ward, carted me off the bed with one on each side, and started dragging me out of the ward.

"Let me go! I didn't do it! Let go of me!"

I wouldn't stop screaming and struggling, but nobody paid any heed to me.

Passersby would stare at me in shock, but when they saw the two intimidating bodyguards next to me, they hurriedly averted their gazes and hurried off without another look.

I was shoved behind bars. There was the metalling clank of the door slamming shut behind me before it was locked and bolted in place.

The next five days were the darkest days of my entire life.

The other inmates with whom I shared a bunk room snuffed out their cigarette butts on my head, one after another, until there was the putrid smell of burnt flesh in the air. It hurt so much that I couldn't stop shuddering in pain.

They also made fun of me and mocked me for being a bitch and a slut. They sliced into my still-recovering scalp with tiny blades, writing derogatory words on my head.

Blood flowed down my face and blurred my vision.

Every day was like a living hell for me.

After the fifth day, the door finally opened for me early in the morning, and I shuffled out of the prison like a zombie.

I'd only just reached my apartment and was walking past a surveillance camera blind spot when a hand suddenly reached out. They clapped over my mouth to stop me from screaming, and someone threw a sack over my head.

I was then carried off like a sack of potatoes and thrown into a dark place with the door locked from the outside. I ripped the sack off my head at once and instantly felt a chill running through my entire body.

This was an abandoned basement, teeming with rats. Their eyes glowed red like they'd been starving for days as they swarmed around me.

They didn't seem afraid of humans as they started crawling up my pant legs, gnawing through the fabric, and sinking their razor-sharp teeth into my skin.

"No… No…"

I kept retreating until I was backed into a corner, trembling like a leaf.

Then, a rat bit right into my foot, and a sharp pain shot through my entire body instantly.

I screamed out loud and kicked it away at once, but more rats just swarmed up and continued biting me everywhere.

I pounded on the door, screaming loudly for help, but nobody came.

Just as I was on the verge of passing out, I suddenly heard Vincenzo's voice outside the basement door.

"So what if Lorenzo has already punished her? That's on him. Fiore was terribly bullied, and as her biggest fan, of course I also had to do something on her behalf! Since Eliana caused Fiore so much pain, I'll make sure to return the pain to her tenfold!"

So, that was the truth after all.

Even this sudden hellish nightmare was nothing more than their punishment toward me for Fiore's sake.

I didn't know how much time had passed after that, but when I woke up again, I was lying in the hospital once more.

My entire body was covered in tiny wounds, all stinging and throbbing very painfully.

Still, it wasn't a life-threatening or fatal kind of pain.

They just wanted me to constantly be in pain and continue suffering for as long as they wanted me to. They wanted me to be afraid, to be intimidated, and to make me wish that I were dead.

I struggled to get out of bed and went down to the front counter.

I saw Lorenzo and Vincenzo in the hospital lobby, one on each of Fiore's side as they showered her with care and concern while she was in her wheelchair.

The concern and tenderness they were showing her were something that I had never experienced from them for the past three years.

I inhaled deeply and realized that my heart didn't seem to be hurting anymore.

They said that there was no greater sorrow than a broken heart, and perhaps I was experiencing it right now.

I no longer harbored any hope for either Lorenzo or Vincenzo anymore.

Just then, my phone buzzed with a call from Claudio, who told me that my resignation procedures were complete and that I was free to go.

Meanwhile, I also received a text message from the airline company reminding me of my flight and boarding time soon.

I smiled. Finally, I could leave now.

I paid the hospital bills, went back to my apartment, grabbed the suitcases I'd packed up earlier, and headed straight for the airport.

I got past security and boarded the plane. The plane slowly taxied onto the runway before soaring into the sky.

I looked out the window, watching as the city of Deyork grew smaller and smaller until it became a blurry dot and vanished into the clouds.

I leaned against the glass window and muttered, "I hope we never meet again for the rest of my life, Lorenzo, Voncenzo, and Fiore."