My best friend and my husband, Lorenzo Bartoli, fought every time they met.

Lorenzo was the Don of the family, while my best friend was his Consigliere.

She always fiercely opposed his most ruthless, high-risk decisions. Tempers explode every single time.

But there was one rule that they both agreed on without any hesitation. No one was allowed to touch me.

Because of them, no one in the city dared to cross me.

Until the fifth month of my pregnancy, when I went down to the basement vault to organize Lorenzo's guns for him.

I opened the safe to see stacks of letters, hundreds of them, all unsent.

I picked one up. The moment I opened the letter, cold dread overwhelmed me. The receiver of the letter wasn't me.

[My dearest Sofia…]

I quickly scanned downward to the final lines of the letter.

[If I don't make it back alive, everything in the Swissie accounts goes to you. As for Vittoria, she's a good woman, but I have never loved her.]

With trembling hands, I tore open the rest of the letters like a hysterical woman.

Three hundred of them in total. Every single one was addressed to Sofia Finzi.

Sofia was not a stranger.

She was my best friend.

I collapsed onto the pile of letters, tears splashing across the papers, smudging the ink, yet I could still recognize the handwriting.

It belonged to Lorenzo Bartoli, my husband.

His every word was soaked with tenderness.

[My dearest Sofia, I'm going to propose to Vittoria tomorrow.

[I know it's selfish of me. I know it's unfair to you, but Vittoria… She's too fragile. In this dog-eat-dog world, she can't survive. She needs me.

[You, on the other hand, Sofia, you will always be my soulmate. My best Consigliere. A comrade that I can trust with my back.

[If there ever is a next life, I will marry you.]

There was a stain at the bottom of the page that looked like teardrops.

I once thought that I had hit the jackpot by marrying Lorenzo. I once thought that his protectiveness of me was because of love.

I never thought that it was nothing more than charity.

It was so noble, yet so cruel.

I bent down and started to dry heave. The child in me seemed to have gotten a fright as an excruciating pain exploded in my abdomen.

My world started to spin and my vision started to go black.

Suddenly, I heard the heavy steel door of the basement burst open, followed by two voices that I would recognize even in death.

"Vittoria, what are you doing? Damn it! You've lost a lot of blood!"

"Quickly! Call the doctor! Prepare the car! Lorenzo, hold her! Stop trembling!"

What perfect coordination.

One was my husband, and the other was my best friend, Sofia Finzi.

Their panic sounded so real. It was so real that for one desperate second, it almost felt like those 300 love letters were just a nightmare.

I tasted blood in my throat, and I passed out.

When I came around once more, I was in the family's private hospital. The fluorescent lights of the hospital wards pierced into my eyes.

Some time after, the doctor took off his bloodied gloves and shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Don Bartoli. The child didn't survive."

My child was dead.

Those few words completely broke me.

Lorenzo's unshaven face went closer to me, his eyes bloodshot. He held my hand so tightly it hurt a little, as if he was afraid I was going to vanish the very next second.

"I'm sorry. We didn't look after you properly."

Sofia stood by the end of the bed. Her eyes were puffy as she peeled an orange.

She sniffled and said with a catch in her throat, "Vittoria, please don't scare us. Could you say something?"

I looked at them.

In the past, I would have turned it around and comforted them. I would have told them that it was God's plan, and that I did not blame anyone for it.

However, at that moment, the contents of the 300 love letters replayed over and over again in my mind.

[Sofia, I can't marry you. That would be an insult to what we have. Vittoria needs a husband, and I need a comrade who could take a bullet for me.]

[Sofia, every time I see you smile, I want to give you the entire world.]

It turned out that I did not deserve to be loved. I was just a pet that they kept.

I retracted my hand and turned around, my back facing them.

"I'm tired."

I could hear stifled sniffling and Lorenzo's quiet consolation behind me.

"The doctor says she needs some rest, Sofia. Let's give her some space."

They left and gently closed the door behind me.

I opened my eyes to look out of the window at the night sky. A single tear drop fell from the corner of my eye.

That was the final tear for my dead child, and for the girl I used to be.

At midnight, I ripped out the IV cannula attached to the back of my hand. Then, I stepped onto the cold tile floor barefoot.

I did not know where I was going. Perhaps I just wanted to escape that cage.

When I was at the end of the corridor near the smoking area, I stopped in my tracks. Through the half-closed door drifted the smell of cigarettes and the sound of a familiar argument.

I pressed myself against the wall and held my breath.

"Are you nuts? Why are you smoking here?" Lorenzo asked with fury, but soon softened his tone.

"Sofia, put it out. It's bad for your body."

Sofia snickered. "My body? Hah! Vittoria's child is gone, and you're here talking about my body? Lorenzo, that was your child, too!"

Lorenzo snapped softly, "It was an accident! No one knew that she would open that safe!"

Silence hung thickly in the air.

A long time later, Sofia said with a trembling voice, "I'm pregnant."

"What did you say?"

"I said, I'm pregnant, Lorenzo."

I covered my mouth as tears subconsciously streamed down my face.

My heart ached so much as if someone were squeezing it tightly. It was so painful that I could not breathe.

So, that was the truth.

My best friend and my husband. Just when I had lost a child, they were discussing the arrival of another new life.

"That night was a mistake," Lorenzo said bitterly, but barely able to contain his delight and surprise.

Sofia sneered. "Mistake? So, what do you want to do now? Do you want me to get an abortion? Lying on the operating table just like what happened to Vittoria?"

Lorenzo answered definitively. "No! No way! You must keep the child. Vittoria can't have any more children. The doctor said that her womb was damaged. Sofia, this is God's way of making up to our family. It's his way of giving me an heir."

He continued, "I'll send you to Swisserland to carry to term. When the baby is born, we'll say that it's adopted, or an orphaned child by a distant relative. Vittoria is kind. She'll treat the child as her own."

'Treat the child as her own'.

Those words were like a huge slap to the face. Were they planning on using me to raise their illegitimate child?

Were they using me to love and care for the product of my husband's and best friend's betrayal?

At that moment, any hope I had left for them completely vanished. It turned out that there was no limit as to how cruel one could be.

I did not rush in to cause a scene or question them loudly. I merely stood in the shadows listening to their conversation.

They consoled each other as if they were star-crossed lovers. It was as if I was the evil witch who was in the way of their happiness.

I turned around and headed back to my room.

In my room, my thoughts drifted back to the past.

When I was 18 years old, when I realized that my feelings for Lorenzo were more than friends, I unreservedly told that to Sofia.

Back then, Sofia was at first stunned. Her expressions stiffened.

Then, she furrowed her brows in disdain. "Vittoria, have you gone mad? How could you fall for him? His hands are covered in blood. He doesn't deserve you."

From that point onward, Sofia hated Lorenzo even more. They started giving each other cold shoulders.

The day that Lorenzo and I got together, Sofia and Lorenzo fought in the training yard. She came out with red eyes, jaw clenched, refusing to say a word.

Later, when Lorenzo took over the family's affairs, he became the new Don.

Sofia went on to study law and economics. She later returned to be a core member of the family, becoming Lorenzo's most trusted Consigliere.

She held my hand and swore to me, "Vittoria, don't worry. I'll look after Lorenzo."

When Lorenzo proposed to me, Sofia cried terribly hard at our wedding. She grabbed Lorenzo by the collar.

"Lorenzo, if you ever mistreat Vittoria, I'll chop you up into pieces and feed them to the sharks."

Lorenzo did not argue. He had not yet shown the authoritative demeanor of a Don.

With reddened eyes, he looked at Sofia's quivering lips and replied softly, "I promise."

After that, Lorenzo's attitude toward Sofia had a subtle but unmistakable change. Whenever Sofia objected to his decisions, he would often listen to her quietly.

Sometimes, he would even give in to her excessively as he teased, "Yes, you're right, Lady Consigliere."

The day I got pregnant, Sofia cried once more. She got herself rather drunk on whisky that night, sobbing while drinking.

She said, "Vittoria, I'm really happy that you're about to become a mother…"

She trailed off before saying, "I don't think I'll ever get married in this life. Your child will be mine too, in the future…"

She was so drunk she could barely finish her sentence, but at that time, I thought that she was just happy for me.

It was Lorenzo who took her home. He was gone for a long time.

When he came home, his eyes were a little reddened. The corner of his lip was split. He said that the stairs were too dark, and that he accidentally bumped into a wall.

Sofia was not a person who cried a lot, but whenever it came to matters between Lorenzo and me, her tears somehow seemed to flow freely.

Once, I asked her, "Sofia, all these years, have you never fallen for anybody?"

She suddenly looked up and swept Lorenzo a glance before replying to me with a smile.

"Of course. I have my eyes on a soldato that just joined us. I'll show you one day."

As if on cue, the glass in Lorenzo's hand shattered.

As for that soldato, I had never met him.

It turned out that the signs were there all along, but I had never once paid any attention to them, nor did I want to.

…

As if trying to cover up the truth, for the following few days, Lorenzo and Sofia treated me well, even much better than before.

I had never brought up the 300 love letters. It seemed to have become an unspoken secret between us.

The days passed as if nothing had happened, but I no longer felt as happy as before.

One day, Lorenzo decided to bring me to attend talks with the ancient Cecile Island family, the Cecilia family.

He claimed that it would help me take things off my mind, but I knew that he only wanted to have the perfect Don image.

A Don who cared about his wife and family..

Sofia, as the Don's Consigliere, naturally went along as well. She donned a wide beige trench coat and flats with minimal makeup on. She looked every bit the smart and professional woman that she was.

She would only occasionally touch her abdomen, her eyes gleaming with a motherly pride.

The tension was razor sharp on the negotiation table.

The Don of the Cecilia family was Valentino Cecilia. According to the rumors, he was even more ruthless and bloodthirsty than Lorenzo. He was a master of more than half of Oropa's weapons shipping routes, a true king of the sea lanes.

Lorenzo brought with him his best interpreter, who failed at the worst possible moment.

Valentino spoke an ancient dialect of the Cecile Island, mixed with slang that only the older generation of smugglers understood.

The interpreter stuttered through as he sweated profusely.

Lorenzo started to lose his patience. He knocked his knuckle on the table, eyes looking sharp.

"Tell him that if he doesn't agree to a seventy-thirty split, we'll go to war."

Lorenzo placed his gun on the table as if trying to intimidate with force.

Sofia backed him up, not understanding a word Valentino had said but defending Lorenzo's authority all the same.

"Mr. Cecilia, just a reminder that you're on our turf."

Fools. What a bunch of fools.

I sat on the couch in the corner, watching the entire scene unfold. None of them understood what Valentino had said.

Valentino was not refusing. He was testing them. His coded phrase actually meant, "If you help me clear the cargo sitting at the port, I'll agree to a 10-90 split."

His bodyguards had their hands in their coats the entire time, ready to fire.

If Lorenzo had truly declared war, the negotiation table would become a bloodbath in the very next second.

I looked at Lorenzo's arrogant expression and Sofia fanning the flames beside him. How confident of them, yet so foolish.

I thought about my child who did not even get to come to the world. I thought about the safe of love letters. I thought about Sofia in Lorenzo's arms.

I should not have interfered. I should have just let them die there. Perhaps that would be the best revenge for me.

However, I looked at Valentino in the main seat, playing with his ring distractedly, scanning everyone with a mischievous look.

In the end, his eyes landed on me.

I realized that it was perhaps my only chance.