Adriana's POV

To wed his first love, the man I was promised to broke Omertà and gave up my father as a state agent buried twenty years deep in the Families. They kept him for a full day and a full night. They cut off his legs, they gouged out his eyes, and at the last they threw him into an iron cage and set him alight while his heart was still beating.

I went mad with grief and swore a vendetta against my betrothed. That was when Salvatore Marchetti, the youngest Don in Sicily, came home from across the water with a procession that made whole streets go silent. He used every hand he owned. He put the finest consiglieri in the country to work seeking justice for my father, and he swore to me he would clear the old man's name.

I believed him.

When the burial was done, I severed the pact between myself and Matteo of the Bruno Family, and I married the man who had stood beside me in the darkest hour of my life.

Five years later, I overheard a conversation that shattered my whole world.

"Adriana always looks like she wants to rip me apart every time she sees me," Matteo said, and there was oil in his voice.

"But," Matteo went on, the tone dropping low, "what do you think that foolish woman would do if she found out the man who sold her father to the fire is the same man she lies down next to every night?"

My hand froze on the door handle.

"You're a cold one, Salvatore." Venom dripped off every word. "You truly earned the ring on your finger."

He kept going, that twisted satisfaction thick in his mouth.

"Adriana loved you like blood when you were children. When you grew, she gave you everything a woman can give a man. Do you think she'd ever once suspect that the man she loves, the man in her bed each night, is the same man who handed her father over to be butchered?"

——

My hand trembled on the door handle as Matteo's mocking voice cut through the heavy air. Somewhere behind me, a soldier shifted his weight against the wall and said nothing. On this ground, hearing what I was hearing was itself a death offense.

"You said she rubs the ache out of your shoulders, tends you, worships you. Hell, if she could cut open her chest and hand you her heart, she would. But don't you think she'd skin you alive if she knew what you did to her father?"

"Enough." Salvatore's voice was cold, razor-sharp.

Matteo chuckled. "Oh? So the ruthless Don of Sicily has a heart after all?"

He scoffed. "You put the man who raised you, the man you called Uncle, straight into the ground. All to please Carmela."

The crack of a wine bottle breaking made me flinch. Salvatore's voice came after it, low and dangerous.

"Stay out of it."

The sound of glass smashing against the tabletop made me flinch a second time.

"What I did to Adriana and to Ruggiero is a debt I'll carry into my grave. But it had to be done. It had to be done so Carmela could live. If you so much as lay a finger on her, I'll make your dying take a very long time."

"Oh, the great Don truly loves his Carmela." Matteo's tone was all mockery.

"How touching," Matteo scoffed. "But do you think Carmela gives a damn about you? To her you're nothing but a devil with blood dried under his nails."

"You'd best keep playing the gentle husband with Adriana," Matteo went on. "Because to her, you're her savior. A pity she has no idea you're the nightmare she should have run from."

The sharp sound of glass shattering rang through the air.

My whole body shook with rage as I stumbled toward the bar on the terrace. I could never hold my liquor, but I threw back the entire glass of whiskey in one swallow. It burned my throat, and I choked, and the tears ran hot down my cheeks.

The conversation I had just overheard echoed in my mind.

So the one who betrayed my father was not Matteo.

It was Salvatore. The man who had fought for justice for my father. That charred, ruined thing I had looked upon that day, the body they made of him, was Salvatore's doing.

No wonder he had stood so calm at the burial, looking down at what was left of my father with that cold, still expression. I had been such a fool to think grief and fury had simply hollowed him out. It turned out the man I had shared a bed with for years, the man I trusted with my life, had been the executioner all along.

All those years of warmth, all that tenderness, had been nothing but a front, the same careful front the Family showed the world. A calculated act to ease his own guilt and keep me blind.

I was a fool.

Hatred boiled in my chest. My hand clenched around the crystal glass, and in that moment Salvatore appeared behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing his face into the curve of my neck.

"Sandra, where have you been?" His voice was heavy with drink. "I missed you. Let's go home."

For years, every time the wine took him, he would pull me into his arms and tell me he loved me, over and over.

They all said the youngest Don in Sicily never lied. That when Salvatore said he loved me, he meant every word of it.

But now, all of it made me sick.

I stared blankly as I helped him into the armored car. Salvatore collapsed onto my lap, the hard line between his brows finally smoothing as he drifted off, looking for all the world like an innocent child.

But now, all of it feels disgusting.

"Carmela… why… why. It should have been me."

At last, I could finally make out the name he'd whispered in countless drunken dreams.

Carmela Vitale. The woman who ruined my life. His first love, the one he could never forget. I had been so naive, underestimating how deep his fixation on Carmela ran. Even after all these years, he was still obsessed with her.

A satellite phone stamped with the gold Marchetti lion slipped from the pocket of his tailored suit. When I picked it up, an encrypted message glowed across the screen.

"Thank you for settling tonight's sit-down between the three Families, Don. But I can't accept the Sicilian territory you promised me. It's too valuable!"

Right beneath it came a post Carmela had set for one pair of eyes only: "Only a true queen deserves the crown."

Attached was a photo of a ruby-set ring, an old relic passed down from the oldest Family in Sicily. That ring meant absolute power.

I knew Carmela wanted me to see it.

Only last week, Salvatore had been shot during a brutal clash between Families. The bullet had gone clean through his chest. He'd barely been able to stand, and still he had boarded a plane overseas soon after, ignoring my pleas to rest. I had thought he was risking his life to defend the honor of the famiglia.

But I was wrong. He had gone for Carmela's coronation.

Even with a bullet wound, he had fought for that ring, for the crown, just to lay it at the feet of his first love.

My hands trembled as I keyed in his private passcode. My breath hitched when the last digit fell into place and the screen unlocked. It showed Carmela at her birthday party. He had made her photo his wallpaper.

Of course.

Salvatore never let me near his private phone. Said it was "the Don's business." Her face filled the screen now, smiling radiant in a gown that must have cost a fortune. No wonder his gaze softened every time he woke that phone.

I opened his gallery. I opened his photo folder. There were albums he had named after her:

Carmela at the Opera House. Carmela in the Vineyard. Carmela's Coronation.

Thousands of pictures of Carmela, taken at Family gatherings and grand affairs, smiling, laughing, glowing. There's not a single photo of me. Not even of him. Only Carmela. Because from the very beginning, his heart had always belonged to her.

The car turned into the drive of the old estate. A chill settled into my bones as I stared through the tinted glass at the darkened doors of the underground vault.

Once, that room had held my father's crest and the evidence he had gathered across twenty years buried undercover in the underworld. Seeing it always made me feel as if my father were still out there somewhere, finishing the mission he never got to finish. Then one morning, all of it was gone. The polizia said the evidence had been destroyed by an unknown hand.

Salvatore had held me while I broke apart, staying awake three days straight, refusing to leave my side.

Now I know. It was him all along. He was the one who destroyed the last traces of my father's legacy.

A new message surfaced on the screen:

"Don, as you instructed, the papers signing over the empire are finalized. All of your Sicilian assets and the right of succession will pass to Miss Vitale upon your confirmation."

"We wait only on your signature."

"Sandra, I swear it on my honor as the Don of Sicily. I'll protect you. I'll give you a home, and everything I have is yours."

I laid Salvatore down on the bed without bothering to take off his shoes and socks like I usually did. Without saying a word, I left the room and walked the long marble corridor to the guest bedroom, past the soldier standing his silent watch at the head of the stairs.

As I closed my eyes, my mind was flooded with memories of how he had spoiled me over the years.

Morning light streamed through the tall estate windows, warming my face. When I opened my eyes, I found Salvatore's gaze fixed on me, intense and focused.

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. "Were you upset because of last night? I'm sorry. I had too much to drink at the sit-down. It won't happen again, I promise."

Soft and gentle, as always. I murmured a response and slipped into the bathroom, scrubbing his scent from my skin.

The breakfast table was loaded with a spread of beautifully prepared Sicilian dishes. There was a time when I would've been touched by such a gesture. But after seeing his phone, I couldn't even force a smile. Every single dish on that table was Carmela's favorite.

The heavy front doors opened without a knock, and Carmela walked in, wearing a high-end designer dress fresh from the latest collection. She sat down at the table like she owned the estate, smiling at me.

"Sorry to barge in, Adri," she said sweetly. "The Don and I are meeting a shipping man this morning, and he told me to come here for breakfast."

My gaze dropped to the keycard in her hand. The highest-level access to the estate grounds, identical to mine.

Salvatore noticed the tension settle over the room and leaned in to explain, his voice low and soothing. "Carmela is part of the famiglia. It's normal for her to move freely through the estate."

Before he could finish, he suddenly stood, alarm flashing in his eyes. He took the hot cup from Carmela's hand.

"You have low blood pressure. You can't drink espresso," he scolded. "After all these years, you're still so careless." He shook his head.

Carmela smiled coyly. "Yeah. Good thing you always remember."

They locked eyes, and it was as if the whole room had frozen. Even the associate refilling the water by the sideboard went still, his hand hovering over the pitcher.

I stood to leave, but Carmela's voice stopped me.

"Adri, the body restoration today needs professional documentation. Can you handle the photography? I don't trust the new forensic man."

After my father's brutal death, I hadn't picked up a camera since. Every time I looked through a lens, I remembered how he had taught me to capture evidence in an instant. I remembered the agony in his eyes as they tortured him for the truth he died protecting.

Salvatore knew this.

That's why he had locked away all my photography equipment, telling me to wait until I was ready. But now, without even asking, he pushed me into the back seat of the bulletproof SUV.

"Adri, can you sit in the back? You know Carmela gets carsick."

He'd forgotten. After years of running for my life, my motion sickness was far worse than hers.

The bumpy ride down from the hills left my stomach churning.

When we arrived at the morgue near the old monastery grounds, Salvatore personally checked Carmela's protective gear, adjusting it with meticulous care before leading her into the restoration room. I leaned against the car door, struggling to catch my breath and calm the dizziness.

"Hurry up, Adri. The restoration is about to start. Stop being difficult," Salvatore said, taking my arm. "This documentation is important for both Carmela and the famiglia."

My balance wavered as he pushed me inside, and my equipment nearly slipped from my hands.

Five years. Five years since I last held a camera. Fear wrapped around me like a steel vice. My hands trembled so badly I could barely press the shutter. But I forced myself to breathe, to focus. I steadied myself the way my father used to, and began methodically documenting the restoration. When we reached the halfway point, Salvatore left, leaving only Carmela and me in the room. She glanced at my photos, a cold smirk curling her lips.

"Isn't it pathetic how useless you are, just like your father, Adriana?" Her voice dripped with contempt. "The audacity to bury himself inside the Families for twenty years, only to fail at keeping his cover."

"The daughter of a traitor like you," Carmela's smile sharpened, "doesn't deserve to stand beside the Don of Sicily."

Then came the sharp crack of skin against skin. My head snapped to the side as a sharp sting exploded across my cheek. Carmela had slapped me.

My breath hitched. My hands tightened around the camera until my knuckles turned white, fury burning beneath my skin.

Carmela's eyes glittered with malice, and her fingers drifted to the pendant at her throat. "I didn't think you'd be so pathetic. The second Matteo tossed you aside, you latched onto Salvatore like some desperate stray."

My face burned, but I held my ground.