Chapter 1

Before she died, my mother rode thirty hours in a hard coach seat across the country, just so she could stand at the blood-bound union between me and Lorenzo Fontana.

I knelt on the cold stone outside the Fontana estate for ten hours, my mother's medical records clutched in my hands, before the Underboss finally agreed to play along.

But when the hour came for him to appear, I screamed myself hoarse into an empty chapel and never saw a trace of him.

My mother stopped breathing the moment she crossed the threshold of the hotel the Family kept for such occasions. My union became her funeral.

At midnight, after I had finished settling my mother into the ground, I saw the post go up from Lorenzo's personal courier:

【The one who isn't loved is the real intruder.】

Calmly, I sent him a message ending it.

Lorenzo brought his courier back to our home instead.

……

By the time I finished with my mother's arrangements it was past midnight. I came back to the cold apartment the Family had tucked me away in and peeled off the cheap rented union dress.

Ten hours had passed since I sent Lorenzo the message ending things.

This wasn't the first time Lorenzo had left me alone for the sake of Vittoria Bruno.

After Vittoria came into the Family's favor, every evening we were meant to share got cut short by her, sometimes by accident, more often by design.

Sometimes it was an allergy. Sometimes her stomach turned on her.

Those small, ordinary complaints, once they reached Lorenzo's ears, became matters of life and death.

At first I made a scene. Later I understood exactly where I stood in the Fontana house.

All that was left in me was numbness.

I sank down onto the cold tile floor and, without realizing it, fell asleep.

When I woke, Lorenzo was sitting on the sofa, a cigarette burning low between his fingers, staring at the union dress beside him with open irritation.

"Why aren't you in the bedroom? What's wrong with you, sitting out here in the dark? I nearly had a heart attack when I walked in."

He drew his brows together at my red, swollen eyes. "It's just a ceremony. It wasn't even sanctified, it was for show. I'll stage you another one later, all right? Are you ever going to let this go?"

As he finished, Vittoria let herself in with her own key, a paper bag of breakfast in her arms.

Every bit of how wretched I looked was suddenly laid bare in front of her.

Reading the heavy air between me and Lorenzo, Vittoria spoke up, all innocence.

"I'm so sorry, Elena Ricci. My time came this afternoon and the cramps nearly put me on the floor. If Mr. Fontana hadn't seen how bad it was and rushed me to the Family's clinic, I might not even be standing here now."

I let my gaze drift over her frail little face and didn't bother answering.

Then, as if she'd only just remembered, Vittoria turned quickly and drew a black plastic bag from her purse.

"Mr. Fontana drove halfway across the territory to buy me this. It isn't right for me to keep it, so I should give it back to you, Elena."

Those innocent eyes blinked and blinked. Her sympathetic little smile held a half-second too long before it slipped.

She thought I still cared about this ridiculous arrangement.

A mocking curve pulled at the corner of my mouth. When she was done, I said coldly, "Lorenzo. Let's end it."

Sanctified or not, I didn't want the union anymore.

Even the air near him turned my stomach.

I didn't wait for his reaction. I stood and went into the bedroom for the suitcase I'd packed the night before.

Holding one position for so long had left my body stiff.

But Lorenzo only lowered his head, eating the breakfast Vittoria had brought, as if he'd seen nothing at all.

I wheeled the small suitcase to the door, then remembered something in the fridge.

So I turned back, and ended up standing right in front of Lorenzo.

His hand paused. He gave a cold snort.

"So now you know you were out of line? It's not too late to apologize. Don't push your luck with me. I've spoiled you too much these past few years."

I didn't spare him a glance. Looking only at the fridge, I said, "Excuse me. Move, please."

His face darkened and he pretended not to hear, so I simply stepped over his legs.

On the very bottom shelf, I took out the dumplings my mother had folded for me the last time she came.

I tucked them carefully against my chest.

As I turned to leave, Lorenzo stuck out his leg and tripped me.

My head struck the corner of the coffee table head-on.

He frowned, contempt written into every line of his face. "A box of garbage and you cradle it like treasure? That trash should have been thrown out ages ago. It's made my whole fridge stink of raw meat."

I forced myself up with both hands, my eyes falling on the flour dusted across the floor.

But my vision was slowly staining over with fresh blood, and I couldn't see clearly.

Lorenzo looked down on me from above, his face grim, and jerkily lit himself another cigarette. His thumb turned the heavy signet ring around his finger, once, twice.

"Elena, can you stop embarrassing yourself? Why not just kneel on the floor and grovel? All I did yesterday was help Vittoria out a little. Who is this pitiful act for?"

"You knew that ceremony was for show, so what are you throwing a fit about now?"

"A ceremony that was never even sanctified. Is that supposed to matter more than a human life?"

To this very moment he still believed I was only angry that he'd missed the union.

I knew perfectly well. It wasn't that the empty ceremony didn't matter.

It was that in Lorenzo's eyes, I had never mattered.

For five whole years, in whatever we were, I was always the one kept beneath him.

Maybe, more than me, Vittoria could be the woman the Family would be satisfied to see beside him.

Countless nights I waited for him to come home.

All that ever came was word of him out entertaining the Family's associates with Vittoria at his side.

I'd send a message asking him to take care of himself, to drink less.

The only reply was ever a red exclamation mark.

When it ran too late, the two of them would simply take a room at the same hotel, and then Vittoria would use his phone to lift me off the blocked list and send me a message.

The room number, and a photo of the two of them.

【Elena, I'll take good care of Mr. Fontana. Get some rest.】

She really did take good care of him. By now, Lorenzo no longer needed me for anything.

I looked at him, my eyes cold. "A human life does matter. But my mother's life doesn't count, does it, Lorenzo?"

His face sank under the question.

As I dragged my suitcase toward the door, Lorenzo couldn't hold it back and snapped, "Are you dead set on losing your mind at me today? I'll go down to the clinic and apologize to your mother, is that not enough? Or I'll drag Vittoria along and we'll apologize to your mother's face, will that do it? You want me to lay the receipt for her IV drip right in front of her?"

His words set a fire blazing in my chest, and it heaved violently.

So in his eyes, my mother and I were the ones being unreasonable.

Sensing the shift, a flicker of confusion crossed Lorenzo's face before he moved to come grab me.

Vittoria stopped him.

"Her mother's ticket was a forgery anyway, so she probably never even arrived. I don't think it's really that her mother is upset. It's just that you missed the ceremony yesterday and Elena got angry. It's fine, I can show her the clinic documents and explain everything."

The fire exploded in my chest all at once, burning away every last shred of my reason.

The next second I snatched the black bag off the shoe cabinet and slammed it down on her head.