Chapter 1

My sworn Family sister and I lost the men we loved on the same night, but unlike me, she couldn't let the wound close quietly. She wanted a romantic ending written in ash, the two of us dying together like some fever-dream she'd nursed for years.

Ignoring my protests, she set fire to my house.

When she saw me burning alive, skin blistering and flesh charred, she panicked and ran.

I survived with severe burns and lay in a safe-house infirmary for three long months.

The day I was finally cut loose, I discovered she was marrying my wealthy ex, the Don who once wanted me at his side.

When I confronted her, she brushed it off with a sweet smile. "Don't overthink it. I married him to punish the scum and take your revenge for you."

But her actions told another story.

She sold off every piece of the wedding jewelry and told her husband I'd taken it to buy trinkets for some kept man.

She bled his laundered accounts dry, swearing it was to clear my gambling debts to the loan sharks.

When she got pregnant and took her husband's own driver to bed, she nearly bled out on the floor. Then she told the whole Family I'd gone to a hotel with a stable of pretty boys, and that she'd lost the child trying to drag me out of the filth.

In the end, her husband packaged me up like a debt to be settled and sold me off to the men who run the Golden Triangle.

There, they cut the kidney out of me and worked me over until I died screaming.

But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very night she took the driver to her bed and lost the child.

——

Bianca always used my name as the cover whenever she went to meet her lover.

She told her husband, Salvatore, that I was the one calling her out into the dark. Sometimes I'd been beaten half to death by a made man's wife for playing mistress and needed comforting. Sometimes I owed the sharks and had come crawling. Once she even swore I was being treated for a dirty disease and couldn't be left alone.

If Salvatore hadn't stormed into my house in my past life, spitting venom, condemning me for every sin she'd invented and hung around my neck, I never would have known how "colorful" my life had become inside her lies.

And now his number was lighting up my phone again, the thing buzzing against the table like something alive.

The moment I picked up, his fury detonated in my ear.

"Adriana! It's the middle of the night. Why are you keeping Bianca with you again?"

"I've tolerated you long enough. After we ended things, you wanted to burn your own life down, fine. But do you have to keep bleeding Bianca dry? She's your sworn sister, not your mother."

"She's married now. She's carrying my child. Don't you have any shame left, dragging her out every single night? Do you even understand how pathetic you've become?"

"Is this some kind of vendetta because I let you go? Are you trying to tear my house apart? Bianca is pure, she's loyal to this Family. If you dare use her again, don't blame me for what I do next. Send her back to me. Now."

His voice was so loud and so venomous my ears rang.

The truth was I hadn't spoken a single word to Bianca since the night she set me on fire.

But Salvatore never believed that.

His calls came almost every day.

At first, hearing him rage down the line, I actually let myself believe Bianca was punishing him for me, settling my accounts the way she'd promised.

It wasn't until he kicked in my door, beat me black and blue, stuffed me into a sack, and sold me to the men in the Golden Triangle that I understood I had never been anything but the name they pinned their sins to.

Remembering the flames she lit, the lies she spread, and the merciless way he settled his false debt against me, hatred burned in my chest.

Salvatore, this time you'll see with your own eyes exactly what your "pure, loyal wife" really is.

I went very still. Unhurried, I reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, then curled my lips into a cold smile and answered him. "Bianca's busy right now. She's unclogging the sewer. She won't be back anytime soon."

Then my face went hard. Without waiting for his answer, I ended the call and switched the phone off.

But only moments later, fists were pounding my door hard enough to rattle it in the frame.

The lock had barely turned before a force slammed the door wide, throwing me backward.

Before I could get my feet under me, two of his enforcers had me pinned to the floor.

And Salvatore came through the doorway, footsteps heavy and furious, tearing through my home in search of Bianca.