Chapter 2

The slap rang through the entire living room.

I turned my face aside and gave a bitter smile.

The hand my mother had used to slap me was still trembling.

"Are you done making a scene?The Bellini family has given you so much,and this is what you've become?A spoiled,ungrateful little ingrate?"

"You want to leave?Where can you go?Do you want the whole city saying we abused you,slandering us for favoring Vera?

Isabella,when will you stop acting out and embarrassing the Bellini family?God,I truly regret giving birth to you.Vera would never do something this rotten."

The taste of blood spread through my mouth.

I ran the tip of my tongue over the corner of my lip.

Yes.

If this had been before,I would have screamed and fought.

Because I did not understand.

Why,when Vera broke the antique cigar box in Father's study,it somehow became my fault.

Why,when there was clearly surveillance footage,they still refused to believe I had not pushed Vera down the stairs.

I also did not understand how buying a few flowers,which happened to trigger Vera's allergy,became proof that I had deliberately tried to harm her.

This was not the first time my mother had hit me.

The last time was only two days ago,when I refused to let Vera wear my wedding dress.

Then she fainted on the spot.

Mother shoved me,then took scissors and cut apart the custom wedding dress I had waited six months for.

Because of Vera,my mother and I had almost become enemies.

Before,I would fight back.I would scream.I would force them to tell me I was not crazy.

But this time,I did not want to make a scene.

Because they needed me.I did not need them.

I had always been the luckiest person in this family.

The day after I was born,the Bellini family secured passage rights to the east docks.That deal dragged the entire family back from the guns of their creditors and made my father the most powerful Don in Aurelia Port.

His stage-two liver cancer went into complete remission around the same time,for reasons the doctors could never explain.

My friend Vivian had been an ordinary,forgettable girl before she met me.

After we became inseparable in elementary school,she slowly grew into the kind of beauty people could not help turning to look at.

She won every audition,took Best Actress,and became the country's biggest box-office star.

Later,even the mafia families called her"the princess who came out of the neighborhood."

And Luca.

He used to be nobody.A man selling fake cigarettes and fake watches at the dockside night market,chased by cops and beaten black and blue by other crews.

Until one night,he found me lost at a street market and brought me home.

I fell in love with him on the spot.

After that,everything he touched turned to gold.

He took over his first gray cargo route,never lost a dock negotiation,and before he turned thirty,pushed the small Rossano name into the leading seat on the port committee.

They doted on me for more than twenty years.

Luca,too,once treated me as the center of his universe.

But later,Vera was brought into the Bellini family.

And everyone changed.

Seeing me stay silent,Father's voice turned cold.

"You want to leave,Isabella?Then leave.This time,we will hold a family hearing and formally sever ties with you.From now on,you are no longer the daughter of the Bellini family,and you are no longer protected by this name."

"Take all her things away.Everything here belongs to this family.She doesn't get to bring a single thing with her."

They did not even let me take a change of clothes before pushing me out the front gates.

Luca sighed and quietly slipped a key into my hand.

"Take it.It's an apartment.You can stay there.Isabella,we're all tired.This is where we end."

"I really wish the person I saved that night had been Vera,not you."

I let out a scoff.

"Then marry her."

Luca released a long,exhausted breath.

"Stop making a scene.I said I would marry you,and I will marry you.That won't change."

"Vera is a good person,a truly kind person.I won't let you talk about her like she's something that can be thrown away.Don't say that again."

After saying that,he turned and walked back up the steps.

I threw the key on the ground and turned to leave.

But Vera rushed over and grabbed my sleeve.

"Don't go,Isabella.I overstepped.I wanted something that wasn't mine.I don't deserve any of this."

"You stay.I'll leave.I'll leave this house right now."

I knew exactly what she was doing.

So I only stood there and let her clutch me while she cried her fake tears.

But when she realized I was not pushing her away like before,she suddenly gasped for air and collapsed at my feet.

"Vera!"

"Call the doctor!Vera,my precious daughter!"

Everyone rushed over and surrounded her.

Luca's hand closed around my throat,his eyes so dark he looked ready to kill.

"You dared to push her?Do you really think I won't lay a hand on you?"

So this was what remained when anger reached its end:laughter.

I had not even touched her.

Yet in the end,I was still the one punished.

"Luca,I hope none of you ever regret this."

No one took that sentence seriously.

Father's voice lashed over like a whip.

"Someone lock her in the basement.No one lets her out without my order."