Chapter 3

My hands froze, feeling like a heavy fist had just slammed right into my chest.

Seeing me fall silent, Edoardo's arrogant confidence settled back in. He walked over and patted my head, like he was comforting a pet.

"There's my good girl. Look, you know the venue now, right? Just Lake Como instead of Sicily. It's still Italy, just like you wanted. Nothing's stopping you from booking the flights.

"Anyway, the bachelor party starts tonight. Ambra and I are already late."

He took Ambra by the hand, and the two of them walked out the door, side by side.

Ambra turned back to face me, the innocent, aggrieved look gone from her face, replaced by a triumphant smirk in her gorgeous eyes.

"See you at the wedding, Valentina."

SLAM.

The heavy door shut right in my face, plunging the villa back into silence.

The cake, which had already been teetering on the edge of the table, was shaken loose by the loud slam and fell to the floor, becoming a sticky mess of shattered pieces.

Those miserable, broken fragments were just like the three of us, shattered beyond repair.

I lost all track of time, until my phone buzzed with a message from Ambra. I opened it to find a video clip.

Inside a dimly lit private lounge, the mood was sultry and intimate.

A crystal glass of red wine was being passed around the room. By the time it reached Ambra, only a splash remained at the bottom. She pressed her lips to the rim, her face flushed as she leaned close to Edoardo.

Edoardo was slouched lazily on the sofa. The next second, he took the glass away, leaned down, and drank the drop of wine lingering on her lips.

The lounge instantly erupted into wild cheers.

"Wow! Did you all see that? Edoardo never does that kind of thing!"

" I knew there was something going on between you two!"

Edoardo's buddy blew a sharp whistle.

"Look at them, what a perfect match! Mark my words, you'll end up together sooner or later."

Edoardo's cousin chimed in effortlessly. "Oh, come on, don't act so shocked. Everyone here saw this coming ages ago!"

Their words brought the atmosphere in the room to a fever pitch, and sent my heart plummeting to rock bottom.

Edoardo's buddy—the one I'd helped apply to university—had once sworn that if Edoardo ever mistreated me, he'd take my side and cut Edoardo off without a second thought. And Edoardo's cousin—the one whose honor I'd defended when I beat up the man at her company who'd played her—had sobbed in my arms that I was the only family she truly recognized.

And now they were toasting to another woman taking my place, laughing along with the rest of the room. These were people I'd once believed I was on good terms with, but who had clearly never truly respected me.

Suddenly, someone brought up my name.

"Though there's one thing I can't figure out. You're the underboss, Edoardo, and almost certainly the future Don. Valentina's just an ordinary girl. No money, no family background, and no leverage to help you in business. Why did you choose her?"

Edoardo slowly swirled the cigar between his fingers, the rising smoke obscuring most of his face.

"It doesn't matter who I marry," he said carelessly. "She's just passable, that's all."

The video snapped off.

I never imagined that seven years of devotion would boil down to a single, indifferent sentence.

Edoardo and I met in college during a tech competition co-hosted by a private foundation. The grand prize happened to be just enough to cover half of my mother's next phase of medical treatment, so I entered.

We went head-to-head in the finals, and I won.

Afterward, Ambra introduced us, telling me that he had remembered my name from the moment he first laid eyes on me. Only then did I learn that the handsome man standing across from me belonged to the family behind the foundation, an emerging mob dynasty in America, the Marino family.

Edoardo seemed set on me from the start, launching a relentless pursuit.

At the time, I worked day shifts at a diner and a bookstore, followed by a second job at a bar at night to raise enough money for my mother's next treatment, I went months without a single full night of sleep.

When Edoardo found out, he had my mother transferred to a high-end private care facility strictly reserved for members of the Marino syndicate.

I was deeply grateful, but it wasn't enough to make me trust him completely. He was a golden boy born with a silver spoon; I was just an ordinary girl. Our paths were never meant to cross, and after all, my mother had been swept off her feet by my father in much the same way.

One night, I was cornered on my way home by a few local street gang members.

Edoardo rushed in like a madman to save me. By the time the gang was beaten back, he collapsed on the ground with a fractured thigh bone, his shirt soaked in blood.

As we waited for the ambulance, tears streamed down my face, and I asked him the same question. "Why did you choose me?"

He reached out with everything he had, holding tight to my wrist.

"Because you're Valentina."

Once we made our relationship official, he even knelt by my mother's hospital bed and swore to her, "Mrs. Russo, I'll protect you and Valentina forever."

Back then, he was still the man I thought I could rely on for the rest of my life.

But now, that man was long gone.