Chapter 5

Then, Natalie burst into the room.

Ignoring my blood-soaked body, she walked past me and pulled Mia into a fierce hug.

"Oh, my sweet girl, did this awful place scare you?"

Decades of raising me meant nothing next to blood ties and family interests.

Darien looked down, comforting a terrified Mia.

I gripped the miniature camera hidden in my sleeve.

"Why should I?"

"I barely made it out alive, and you want to sweep it under the rug?"

"Look closely, Darien."

"Am I the one acting out, or did your bride try to kill me?"

I slammed the camera onto the table and hit play.

The footage was clear: Mia handing cash to the fixer.

Darien's face hardened.

He raised his foot and brought the heel of his custom leather shoe down on the camera.

"That's enough."

The metal crunched beneath his weight.

He glared down at me, harsh and aggressive.

"There's no need to watch that."

"Regardless of what's on it, the heiress of the Bendall family can do no wrong."

"You used to understand our family's priorities better than anyone, Laurel."

"Now you're being petty and angry."

"You disappoint me."

I tilted my head back, taking in his handsome, unfeeling face.

All my affection for him evaporated; I felt numb.

I had no power to challenge him.

To cover up Mia's crime and protect the marriage alliance between the two families, Darien was using his authority to discard me without a second thought.

The truth meant nothing.

Maintaining his power was all that mattered.

Mia took a deep breath and dropped to her knees in front of me.

Her eyes were red, and she started sobbing.

"Laurel, please, let this go."

"Aren't we best friends?"

"I wanted a family."

Watching her fabricated display, I lost the desire to say another word.

Darien pulled her up off the floor and into his arms.

The situation felt absurd.

My adoptive mother and the husband I'd once trusted were standing like shields in front of a liar to protect her.

What more could Mia want?

Mia sobbed, her body shaking.

"I lived in poverty for so long while you controlled the mafia family that was rightfully mine."

"I hated you for it!"

"If you despise me this much, I'll leave now."

"I'll go back to the slums of Naples and never bother you again!"

Darien lost whatever remaining sympathy he had for me.

His voice went flat.

"Take Laurel to the lowest ranks of the Naples mafia."

"Make her experience every hardship Mia endured."

I asked, feeling calm.

"Mia, is this what you want?"

"Are you willing to ruin your reputation to leave me with nothing?"

Mia tensed and looked away.

Then, I let go of our ten-year friendship.

And I stopped caring about Darien.

The next three days were physical agony.

Guards dragged me down to the family's lowest-level smuggling dock.

I'd gone from being the privileged wife of the godfather to crouching in a warehouse that reeked of fish guts and contraband leather.

I scrubbed bloodstains with my bare hands and polished smuggled shoes, pair by pair, until the stench made me gag.

On the second day, they shoved me into a chaotic underground casino to work as a low-level dealer, keeping me on my feet for over ten hours.

My severe abdominal wound still hadn't healed.

My legs swelled until they felt like lead, and the blood seeping through my bandages smelled like rotting flesh.

During all that, Darien called to mock me, and Natalie phoned to scream at me for being unrepentant.

I clenched my jaw and stayed silent.

By the third day, my legs gave out.

I couldn't stand.

Only then did Darien order his men to dump me in the slum apartment where Mia used to live.

The damp, rickety wooden shack sat perched on the edge of a cliffside dock.

A freezing sea breeze whipped through the cracks, carrying the stench of mildew, and inside that cramped space, the pain became overwhelming.

It was a sick kind of irony.

I was the one who had pulled her out of this place and done everything in my power to support her, only for it to lead to my own ruin.

I was wiping dried blood off my face when my encrypted phone lit up.

It was a message from an unknown IP address:

"Laurel, I am your biological mother."

Tears welled in my eyes.

I didn't ask why it took her so long to find me.

I typed a single reply:

"Bring a boat to the bottom of the cliff."

"I want to go home."

Then, a deafening rumble shook the ground outside the door.

It wasn't construction machinery—it was Darien's massive convoy.

He had come to see the results of his punishment.

A heavy armored vehicle smashed through half of the shack's wall.

Biting wind and the roar of crashing waves flooded the room.

I backed up to the shattered, exposed window, standing over the deep, turbulent water below.

My phone started ringing.

It was Darien.

I answered.

Darien stepped out of the lead Maybach.

He looked at me across forty feet of debris, his voice dripping with his usual entitled condescension.

"Laurel, are you done being angry?"

"I handled everything back home."

"Natalie agreed to let you stay with the family."

"Mia and her children won't threaten your position."

"Behave, stand there, and let me take you home."

He thought he could crush my pride, toss me some minor concession, and I'd fall to my knees in gratitude.

I stared at his arrogant expression, which he was trying to mask with affection.

Without a second of hesitation, I stepped onto the window ledge and leaned back.

Darien's eyes widened in panic as he broke into a sprint toward me.

"Laurel!"

The phone slipped from my fingers, the screen still showing the active call.

Over the sound of his desperate shouting, I let myself fall without resistance, plunging down into the cold, churning water below.