Chapter 2

Back then, I was Don Vincent Caruso's cherished daughter.

And Adrian was the bastard son the Moretti family refused to acknowledge.

Until we met, and fell in love.

And just as I was ready to abandon everything and run away with him, my family was set up by its enemies.

My father was murdered. A bounty was put on my mother, Gianna, and she lost her mind under the hunters' pursuit.

To save themselves, my relatives sold me to my ex-husband — Christian Valenti, the man who once ruled all of Sicily with an iron fist.

The three years I was married to him were hell on earth.

Christian hated that I'd fallen in love with another man.

My love for Adrian consumed him with jealousy.

He forced me to get pregnant, then let his lovers torment me until I miscarried.

By the time he'd had his fill of breaking me, there was barely anything human left.

For my sake, Adrian clawed his way up, nearly killing himself to do it.

Until he controlled the Moretti family — and made the Morettis the most powerful family in Sicily.

And at last, he pulled me out of that pit.

The next day, he knelt before the Moretti elders with a gun to his own temple and forced the entire family to yield.

In the end, he got what he wanted.

He married me, and with a wedding of obscene extravagance, he gave me the title of Donna of the Moretti family.

And now...

"I'm tired of the two of us tearing each other apart."

Adrian bent his head and wiped the tears from Bianca's face.

"I owed you a life. That bullet settled the debt."

"From now on, keep Bianca out of your games."

I stood frozen, my throat closing.

All these years, I had tried so hard to be a proper wife.

But the damage from my last marriage meant I could never be the kind of woman Adrian wanted.

He turned away, and there was exhaustion and wear in the line of his back.

"If you really want a child to secure your position, I'll arrange IVF at a private clinic tomorrow."

"I'll provide the sperm. But I will never touch you again."

Something in my head that had been stretched too long finally snapped.

I rushed forward and slapped him across the face as hard as I could.

His head snapped sideways and blood welled at the corner of his mouth.

"Satisfied?" His voice was flat. "You've got it out of your system. Go home."

He put an arm around Bianca, took the yacht, and left without looking back.

I stared blankly at that black water, like a gambler who'd lost everything.

It was deep into the night by the time I got back to the house.

I didn't turn on the lights. I climbed into the tub fully clothed and opened the cold tap.

The freezing water rose over my chest.

Only a cold that went into the bone could hold down the memories I refused to revisit.

The PTSD Christian left me with.

I'm afraid of the dark. And of water.

Back then, Adrian would hold me all night and kiss my forehead over and over.

"Don't be afraid, Natalie. It's over. I'm right here."

Everyone said Adrian loved me to the point of madness. That he'd die for me.

There was a time I believed it absolutely.

Until I slowly noticed that the way he looked at me had changed. Complicated. Tired.

As though he were being pulled endlessly between obligation and resentment.

Maybe it was the years of the Moretti elders humiliating him, mocking him for marrying a soiled woman.

Maybe it was that flicker of revulsion that crossed his face whenever he saw the ugly scars on my body.

Or maybe all of it started the day the spotless, untouched Bianca first appeared in front of him.

In her, he had finally found the Natalie he used to know.

And I had become the burden he couldn't shake.

Bang.

The bathroom door flew open.