Chapter 1

Daniela's proudest achievement is fucking the Don of the Vitale family behind his wife's back.

That wife is me.

Back then, I'm scrolling through the thread after work, half-numb from a fourteen-hour day, when the top reply catches my eye.

Question: What's the proudest thing you've ever done?

Answer: Stealing my son's classmate's father straight into my bed.

"Two years ago my son pulled a little prank on the girl sitting in front of him at school. Carved his initials into her back with a pocket knife. Cute, right? Her mom found out and came screaming into the headmaster's office calling me trash. Said I raised an animal."

"And she made some calls. Used her family's money. Got my son expelled and blacklisted from every elite academy in the city."

"That's when I met her husband. A real man. Gorgeous. Powerful. He told me she was a vulgar, mouthy bitch — and I was hooked."

"We ended up in bed. Easy. He paid to put my son into a private school overseas — she still has no idea."

"Cheating tastes so good, girls. Highly recommend."

"And the best part? I'm carrying his baby right now. If it weren't for the bump, I'd shove it in her face. But I can wait. When my kid's older, we'll come back for her daughter's inheritance. I want to see her face then."

Underneath the words, a photo.

A man's face pressed into a woman's chest. Neither of them showing.

They don't have to.

Because right there, on his forehead — just above his eyebrow — is a two-inch scar. Clean white line. Hair never grew back.

My palm goes cold around the phone.

I zoom in.

Two centimeters of dead follicles in a perfect stripe. The kind of scar you only get when someone splits your skull open with intent.

I should know. I gave it to him.

Two years ago. The night our daughter came home from school with her back carved up by a six-year-old with a pocket knife. The night I broke a whiskey bottle over Lorenzo's head.

I keep scrolling.

The comments are a war zone. Half the thread is calling her a shameless whore. She's loving it.

She drops another photo to shut them up — a man shirtless, arms wrapped around a swollen pregnant belly, a box of strawberry-flavored condoms tossed on the nightstand.

Lorenzo's brand. Lorenzo's size.

"The mistress is the one who isn't loved, sweetie. He only has eyes for me now."

"Not my fault, she couldn't hold onto her man."

I know that voice before I see the name.

Daniela Rossi.

Nico Rossi's mother.

The woman who stood in the headmaster's office two years ago and screamed at me in front of every parent on the board.

I tap into her profile.

Two years of daily posts. Every single day. Every single one of them about her and Lorenzo.

The first one — a coffee shop, the week after Mia came home bleeding. Lorenzo's hand resting on the table, wearing the watch I bought him for our anniversary.

I scroll.

A trip to the Maldives the weekend of our wedding anniversary, while I sat in a hospital room holding Mia's hand through a fever.

A black-tie auction in Monaco the night I called him crying because Mia wouldn't stop asking where Daddy was.

Every post. Every receipt.

Two years of my marriage, livestreamed by the woman fucking my husband.

I stop on a post from last month. The fifteenth.

"My king took me to my prenatal check-up today. Cried when he heard the heartbeat."

I remember the fifteenth.

I had a meeting I couldn't push. I called Lorenzo and asked him to pick Mia up from school. He grunted something into the phone. I thought that meant yes. It was the first time we'd spoken all year.

I came home at midnight. Mia wasn't there.

Lorenzo wouldn't answer. The school said she'd left at three. I called the police. I sat on the kitchen floor in a blood-pressure spiral, waiting for the worst news of my life.

They found her the next morning. She'd tripped on the way home, scraped her knees raw, and a baker on the east side took her in because she was too scared to walk in the dark.

Lorenzo walked through the front door at 8 a.m. like nothing happened.

I slapped him so hard his lip split.

He told me he got busy and forgot. Told me Mia was fine. Told me I was overreacting like always.

We had the worst fight of our marriage that night. He slammed the door behind him and didn't come back.

Three weeks. No call. No text. Nothing.

And now I know where he's been.

I lock the phone. Set it face-down on the table.

This isn't the first time Lorenzo has chosen someone else over us.

It's just the first time I'm done pretending I didn't see it coming.

Our marriage was rotting long before Daniela Rossi ever walked into it.