Chapter 1

A long silence followed.

Dante Falcone closed the folder and leaned back, his body sinking into the expensive Italian leather chair behind his desk. He picked up a pair of scissors, clipped open a Cuban cigar, and lit it with unhurried precision. Smoke curled through the air, obscuring his expression, leaving it unreadable.

"It’s not actually that urgent," he said at last. "Even though you’ve signed, the lawyers are still dealing with the trust fund split. It’s complicated. Until the judge signs the Final Judgment of Dissolution, legally speaking, you’re still my wife."

He exhaled a slow stream of smoke.

"The main issue is Olivia. She’s about to run for chair of the Falcone Charity Foundation. That foundation is key to cleaning up our image in New York City.

"You keep showing up at Massachusetts General Hospital, causing scenes. You disrupt her fundraising galas. It embarrasses the family. A few of the old men on the board are very unhappy about it."

I did not respond. I simply held the pen and signed the agreement, stroke by stroke, with the name "Sofia Rossi".

My real name.

When I finished, I looked up and met the gaze of the Don who ruled Boston’s underworld.

"Don’t worry," I said. "I won’t do it again."

Dante’s fingers paused slightly around the cigar. Smoke blurred his handsome yet ruthless face. After a moment, he straightened, his tone carrying a faint trace of irritation layered with threat.

"Good. It’d better stay that way."

"Otherwise..." He smiled thinly. "You know what happens to people who go against the family, Sofia. In this house, no one can hear you scream."

My body shuddered before I could stop it.

The last time he forced a divorce on me, I completely fell apart.

I released the evidence of Olivia Ricci stealing my laboratory data on Twitter and Reddit. The screenshots clearly showed that her research on a new opioid drug, published in The Lancet, had copied the core data directly from my notes from two years earlier.

And the result?

Dante mobilized the family’s legal team and sued me in Boston Federal Court for theft of trade secrets and federal defamation.

Afterward, Olivia’s fanatical supporters—or rather, the online shills hired by the family—doxxed my home address and launched a targeted harassment campaign meant to destroy me.

After the judge ruled in her favor, Dante stood exactly the same way he was now.

In his tailored Tom Ford suit, he looked down at me as I broke apart, sobbing. He raised his brow, the corner of his mouth curled into the cruel smile of a victor.

"My dear," he asked softly, "are you satisfied with the outcome? Now you understand. Some families are not meant to be crossed."

Strangely enough, the suffocating pain I felt back then—the despair so deep I wanted to die—felt distant now.

Looking back, there was no emotion left. Only irony.

Dragging my Louis Vuitton suitcase out through the doors of the Beacon Hill mansion, I stood in the freezing wind, staring down at the one-way plane ticket in my hand.

It was only then that it hit me. I was finally escaping this marriage that dragged me into hell.

And I was getting out alive.