My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I picked it up, the screen illuminating the dark bedroom.

Flight confirmed. Your new apartment in Paris is fully furnished and paid for the first year. Everything is ready, Natalia's text read.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding. Freedom was finally tangible. Just three more days.

Before I could lock the screen, another message popped up. It was from an unsaved number, but I knew exactly who it was.

What about the deal? Have you thought about it? Lorenzo asked.

I stared at the glowing words. Last night in the car, Lorenzo had made me an offer. He knew I wanted to disappear, and he had the resources to make me completely untraceable. In exchange, he wanted the internal financial records I had memorized during my years playing the dutiful Don's wife. The ledgers. The tribute flows. The laundering routes through European operations that I'd absorbed silently across eight alliance ceremonies and eight annulments, sitting in rooms where men forgot I existed because I was nothing more than furniture to them.

I was still weighing my options when the bedroom door suddenly flew open, slamming against the wall.

Before I could even sit up, a hand cracked across my cheek. The slap was sharp, the sting immediate.

"You bitch!" Gianna screamed, her perfectly manicured face twisted in ugly rage. "What did you do to Dominic? Why did he change his mind?"

I slowly turned my head back to face her, tasting copper on my lip. I didn't flinch. I just looked at her, my expression completely blank.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, my voice eerily calm.

"Don't lie to me!" Gianna shrieked, stepping closer. "He was supposed to propose to me tonight! The ring was ready, the families were waiting! But he canceled everything and said he needed to finalize his remarriage to you first! What kind of spell did you put on him?"

I let out a dark, humorless laugh. So Dominic had actually delayed his precious proposal just to keep me trapped. The Don of the Castellano Family, and he couldn't even let his captive bride walk away clean.

I stood up from the bed, towering over her slightly. "Maybe he finally realized you're just a tourist in his life, Gianna. You leave whenever you get bored, and you only come back when you need his protection. Maybe he actually loves me now because I was the one who stayed."

It was a lie, of course, but I wanted to see her bleed.

Gianna's eyes widened in fury. She raised her hand to strike me again. "You delusional—"

"What the hell is going on here?"

The deep, furious voice came from the doorway. Gianna froze, her hand suspended in the air.

Dominic stood there, his eyes sweeping over the room. The hallway light cut across his shoulders. Behind him, in the corridor, the soldier on night rotation had gone completely still, gaze fixed on the middle distance, seeing nothing. Hearing nothing. That was the rule in this house.

The second Gianna saw him, her entire demeanor shifted. The vicious, screaming woman vanished.

"Dominic!" she cried, running to him and burying her face in his chest. "She's crazy! I just came to ask her why she was doing this to us, and she started saying horrible things! She said you never loved me!"

I stood there, the metallic taste of blood still on my tongue, the red mark burning into my cheek. I waited for Dominic to look at me. I waited for him to see the cut on my lip, to see that Gianna was the one who had hit me.

But he didn't.

Dominic wrapped his arms tightly around Gianna, kissing the top of her head. Then, he looked at me. His eyes were completely devoid of the possessive fire from this morning. There was only cold, hard disgust.

"Are you out of your mind, Bianca?" he spat, his voice laced with venom. "I brought you back here to keep you out of trouble, not to terrorize the woman I actually love."

My chest tightened. Even though my heart was already dead, his words still managed to twist the knife.

"She hit me, Dominic," I said quietly, pointing to my bleeding lip.

He didn't even blink. "Don't play the victim. You provoked her. Let me make this perfectly clear to you so you stop living in a fantasy: I only delayed the proposal because the optics of a sudden annulment look bad for the Family right now. The other families are watching. The Commision is watching. I need you to play the good wife for the allies for a few more months."

He sneered, his grip tightening protectively around Gianna.

"Don't flatter yourself into thinking I want you," he added cruelly. "You are nothing but a convenient shield until Gianna and I are ready."

He turned around, guiding a sobbing Gianna out of the room, leaving me completely alone in the cold, silent bedroom. The soldier in the hallway resumed breathing. A door closed somewhere deeper in the compound. Then nothing.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty doorway. The last pathetic, lingering shred of hope I didn't even know I was holding onto finally turned to ash.

I walked calmly back to the nightstand and picked up my phone. I opened the message from the unsaved number.

My thumb pressed hard against the inside of my ring finger. I didn't catch myself doing it.

My fingers didn't tremble at all as I typed my reply to Lorenzo.

I'll take the deal. Get me the hell out of Dominic's life.

The brush glided smoothly across the canvas. I mixed a deep, bruised shade of purple, completely lost in the quiet of my room.

I was just counting the days. Lorenzo was moving fast, pulling strings through his network to finalize everything for our sudden wedding and my complete extraction from the country. Safe houses, forged documents, a route through neutral territory that the Castellano Family couldn't touch.

The heavy oak door suddenly banged open.

Dominic stormed in, his collar loosened, a crumpled piece of paper crushed in his fist.

"Why the hell did you walk away from your duties?" he demanded, his voice echoing off the walls. "You're supposed to be running the front office at the social club. I just found out you haven't been there in days."

I didn't even flinch. I carefully dipped my brush into the water glass. "You locked me in this house, Dominic. Have you forgotten?"

"Stop making excuses!" he snapped, crossing the room in three long strides. "The associates are a mess because you didn't handle what you were supposed to handle."

Before I could answer, he lashed out. His hand caught the edge of my easel, violently shoving it. The wet canvas crashed onto the hardwood floor.

He stepped right on it, his expensive leather shoe smearing hours of my work into an ugly, ruined streak of paint.

I stared at the ruined canvas, my chest tight.

"I told you," Dominic growled, leaning down so his face was inches from mine. "You are mine. So get to the club right now and arrange everything. Including the charity gala on the 17th of next week."

The 17th. The night before my scheduled flight. The night before I was supposed to marry Lorenzo.

I looked up at his furious, entitled face. Fighting him would only draw attention to my escape.

I let out a long, exhausted sigh. "Fine."

An hour later, I walked onto the top floor of the Castellano social club, the legitimate office wing where the Family's real-estate holdings and import company kept their books clean for the Feds. The whispers started the second I came through the doors.

"She's still here? I thought she was finally gone."

"She just won't let him go. It's pathetic."

"She always played favorites anyway, sleeping her way to the top."

I ignored the venomous stares and walked straight to my desk. I spent the next few hours ruthlessly fixing the scheduling disasters and smoothing over angry associates whose shipments had stalled.

Around noon, the glass doors swung open. Gianna strolled into the office, carrying a tray of expensive coffees.

"Oh, Bianca!" Gianna called out loudly, making sure the entire floor was watching. She walked over to my desk, a sickly sweet smile on her face. "You're still working? Dominic is just too kind, letting his ex-wife keep a position out of pity. Just make sure you don't mess up the charity gala, okay? It's very important to us."

She left a coffee on my desk with a condescending pat on my shoulder. The entire office snickered. I just picked up the cup and dropped it straight into the trash can.

A few days later, the tension in the Family reached its peak.

It was the quarterly investor sit-down. The grand back room of the club was packed with the most powerful financiers and silent partners the Castellano syndicate kept on its books.

Dominic sat at the head of the long mahogany table, radiating power. Two soldiers stood behind him near the paneled wall, hands loose at their sides.

Gianna, despite having no actual role in the organization, was perched in a chair right behind him, her hand resting possessively on his shoulder.

I stood at the front of the room, holding the presentation remote.

"If you direct your attention to the screen," I said clearly, "you will see the projected revenue for the upcoming quarter."

I clicked the remote.

The massive screen flickered. But it wasn't my financial slides.

It was security footage from Dominic's private office in the compound. The timestamp in the corner was from months ago, the night of our fourth annulment.

My own voice, thick with tears and desperation, echoed loudly through the silent room.

"Please, Dominic. Just look at me. Don't do this."

On the massive screen, my past self was sobbing, clinging to his suit jacket. I watched in absolute horror as the video showed me desperately trying to kiss him, begging him to love me back, while Dominic stood there, cold and unmoving, looking at me like I was garbage.

The room erupted into shocked gasps and frantic whispers. One of the investors set his pen down very slowly. The soldiers by the wall didn't move, but their eyes shifted to Dominic, waiting.

Gianna jumped up from her chair, her hands flying to her mouth in exaggerated horror.

"Oh, god!" she cried out, her voice piercing the room, trembling with fake devastation. Tears instantly spilled down her perfectly made-up cheeks. "I can't believe you'd do this to me, Bianca! You're seducing your own Don? Have you no shame? You knew we were together!"

The remote slipped from my numb fingers, clattering against the floor.

"Are you stupid?" he roared, the sound bouncing off the oak-paneled walls of the war room. "You couldn't even check the damn flash drive before you plugged it in? You just cost me three of my biggest backers!"

"I didn't put that video there, Dominic, and you know it," I said, my voice dead. "But I don't care anymore. Keep the Family. Keep Gianna. I just want to leave."

"Leave?" Dominic sneered, his grip tightening on my arm. "You think you can just walk away after what you've done? After you ruined my sit-down with the council? No. You are staying right here until I fix this. You aren't going anywhere until we remarry and fix this mess with the other Families."

"I'm not marrying you—"

My words were cut off by the sharp ringing of Dominic's phone.

He snatched it from his pocket, his eyes never leaving mine. "What?" he snapped.

He listened for a second, and all the color drained from his face.

"What do you mean she had an accident?" Dominic demanded, his voice dropping into a panic. "Where is she?"

He hung up the phone and glared at me with pure hatred. "In her hysterics over what you did, Gianna tripped and crashed through the glass display in the lobby. Her arm is shredded. The paramedics are saying she might need a skin graft."

He didn't hesitate. He yanked me toward the door. "And you're going to give it to her."

I dug my heels into the carpet, fighting against his iron grip. "No! Are you insane? I will not do that!"

"You will do it!" Dominic shouted, his eyes wild with desperation for his first love. "You'll do it for the sake of Gianna, because you're the one who ruined our Family's image today! You caused her to panic! If you don't do this, Bianca, I swear to God, you will never see the light again!"

I froze. My breath hitched in my throat.

I stopped fighting. I let him drag me into the private elevator, into his armored car, and straight to the VIP wing of the Family's private clinic.

When I woke up hours later, the side of my thigh burned with a stinging, agonizing pain. The hospital room was dark and completely empty.

I laid there staring at the ceiling. Dominic didn't come to check on me. Not that night, and not for the next three days as I recovered in absolute isolation. I was nothing but spare parts to him.

On the fourth night, the eve of our supposed alliance ceremony, the door finally opened.

"I'm leaving," he announced coldly, checking his watch. "Gianna is traumatized by everything you've put her through. She decided to go back to London, and I have to go to the airport to stop her."

I sat up slowly, the pain in my leg a dull throb. "Tomorrow is the day you told me we were filing our marriage papers."

"I know," Dominic snapped. "I can't come. I'm sending her home, so you need to go to the civil registry and file the paperwork yourself. Consider marrying me a punishment for making Gianna leave again. Make sure you file it. Got it?"

He turned on his heel and walked out, leaving me in the dark once again.

I didn't reply. I just listened to his fading footsteps, a slow, quiet smile spreading across my face.

The next morning, the sun was shining brightly over the city.

I wore a simple, elegant white dress. I limped slightly as I walked up the marble steps of the civil registry, but I had never felt lighter in my entire life.

I pushed open the heavy double doors. Standing at the end of the aisle, looking devastatingly handsome in a tailored black suit, was Lorenzo.

He smiled when he saw me, stepping forward to gently take my hand. "Ready to disappear, Bianca?"

"More than ready," I whispered.

We stood before the magistrate. We signed the papers. And with clear, unwavering voices, we exchanged our I dos.

Miles away, at the international airport terminal, Dominic was standing at the boarding gate, holding Gianna's luggage.

His phone buzzed in his pocket with a priority notification from the city's legal registry, an automated alert he had set up to ensure I filed our marriage certificate.

He pulled out his phone, a smug, satisfied smirk on his face, fully expecting to see his own name asserting his permanent ownership over me again.

Instead, he stared at the official digital document glowing on his screen.

CERTIFICATE OF MARRIAGE

Husband: Lorenzo Ferraro.

Wife: Bianca Ferraro.