Chapter 2

The next day, Victor went to handle family business as usual.

I was at home, organizing my closet for the season, looking for a coat. At the very bottom of his safe, in a hidden compartment, my fingers brushed against a box. It needed a fingerprint and a passcode.

It was Victor's private stash. He had warned me never to touch it.

But today, the system seemed broken. A red warning light flashed. The metal door was slightly ajar.

Driven by some unknown urge, I reached out and opened the lid.

There were no piles of diamonds. No hit lists. Just photos, carefully laminated.

I pulled one out. My breath caught in my throat.

In the photo, Chloe was in a red bikini, laughing wildly on the deck of a private yacht. Victor was hugging her waist tightly from behind, their faces pressed close together. The crazy obsession in his eyes was something I had never seen in our three years of marriage.

I flipped the photo over. A date was written on the back.

Five years ago.

To be exact, the same year Dominic cheated on me with Chloe.

I moved the photos aside. Underneath lay a thick psychiatric file.

[Patient: Victor Costello]

[Diagnosis: Severe Bipolar Disorder, with extreme violent and self-destructive tendencies]

[Trigger: Severe relationship trauma]

[Date: Five years ago]

Every clue slammed together into a terrifying web.

Five years ago, Victor wasn't a Don yet. So the greedy, vain Chloe dumped him and threw herself into Don Dominic's arms.

My fingers started shaking uncontrollably.

Suddenly, the electronic chime of the front door lock beeped. Victor was home early!

Breaking into a cold sweat, I shoved the files and photos back into the compartment and slammed the lid shut. Heavy footsteps were already on the second-floor hallway.

I crawled to the very back of the walk-in closet, hiding desperately behind rows of heavy couture gowns.

Victor strode into the bedroom. He grabbed a silenced pistol he had forgotten on the nightstand. Just then, his phone rang.

He answered. His voice was low, but laced with a cruel chill that reached my ears clearly.

"Dominic sent men to shoot up Chloe’s place? That coward." Victor checked his gun, his tone vicious. "Chop those rats' heads off. Hang them on the Russo family's front gates."

The person on the other end said something, and Victor sneered.

"Years ago, Chloe left me for Dominic because I wasn't in power yet. He took what was mine. Now I’m going to make him lose everything." His voice shook slightly with crazed hatred.

"I married Vivienne just to get back at Dominic! I want Dominic to watch as his ex-wife—the one who would have died for him—worships me and begs for me!"

"Chloe is pregnant now. I won't let her and the baby suffer with that piece of trash Dominic. When the time is right, I’ll wipe out the Russo family and take everything back."

My breath stopped.

My blood ran cold, and my limbs went completely numb.

Three years of patience. The blushing, tender romance in bed. The tears he kissed off my forehead during every egg retrieval for IVF.

All fake.

All part of a revenge trap he spun for a woman who betrayed him.

I thought I had escaped Dominic's hell and found a god to save me. In reality, I had just walked into a slaughterhouse built by a madman for another man.

I bit down hard on my hand. My teeth sank deep into my flesh, tasting heavy copper blood, just to choke back my tearing sobs.

Tears smashed against the cold floor.

My whole life was nothing but a complete joke.