Chapter 1

After three days of the silent treatment, my fiancé, the Capo of the Moretti family, took his assistant, Bella, on an island vacation.

He expected me to be driven mad with jealousy, just as I always had been. But when he returned to Valmont a month later, he found a different woman.

He made me give up my corner office. I didn't fight him. I just packed my things and handed it over.

To prop Bella up, he discredited me in front of a key partner at the annual family meeting, just so she could shine. I didn't try to prove my innocence. I just accepted the family's reprimand and took my punishment.

When Lucas wanted to put Bella in charge of the family's most profitable business, I didn't even get angry. I handed over all the necessary documents without a fight, letting him redistribute power as he saw fit.

Bella was smug.

"See? What did I tell you?"

"A woman like her just needs a firm hand. One trip to the island and she's terrified of losing you. Look how obedient she is now."

Lucas bought it, praising Bella for her insight.

In a move he'd never made before, he promised me a wedding so grand it would become a legend in the Valmont underworld.

But he seemed to have forgotten the dissolution agreement he signed, the one I slipped him right before he got into the car for their vacation.

I had already severed all ties with him.

I was leaving, but he had no idea.

...

"Elara, what took you so long? I've been waiting forever for you."

" I hear everyone praising you for working so fast and well. Since you're so efficient, just do me a favor and take some of this off my hands. You're already working on this stuff anyway, it'll be super easy for you."

Bella slammed a pile of disorganized folders onto my desk.

I didn't even look up, calmly taking them. "Alright."

But Bella wasn't finished. In that same cloying voice, she added,

"Oh, by the way, Lucas and I are going to a private card game with the Genovese family later. Just leave the files in the Capo's office when you're done. And remember to clean up the wine glasses in his study before you leave."

With that, she turned and walked away, the confident click of her heels echoing in the hall.

The family guards outside looked at me with pity, but no one dared to offer a word of comfort.

Everyone in Valmont's underworld knew that Lucas Moretti, the family's cold-hearted Capo, was my fiancé. But he blatantly favored his assistant, Bella.

He not only broke family rules by letting Bella sit in on confidential meetings, but he even handed her our most profitable territory. The same territory I'd braved a hail of bullets to secure for us.

When I challenged him, Lucas hypocritically held a vote with the family elders. He thought his power would intimidate them into silence.

But in the end, the elders all voted for me. Bella received a single, lonely vote: his.

However, Lucas pulled out photos from a previous summit showing me politely toasting these elders, using them to claim we were colluding privately.

He voided all their votes, meaning only Bella's single vote passed.

That night, Lucas prepared a romantic candlelit dinner and presented me with an expensive gift to apologize.

He held me tenderly, claiming he was only protecting Bella from being ostracized by the old guard and that he had to establish his authority.

Back then, like a fool, I believed him. Thinking about it now is laughable.

Bella couldn't even count.

A blind man could see it was shameless favoritism, not protection. He was just the only one who wouldn't admit it.

A sound from upstairs made me look up. Lucas's tall, lean figure appeared at the top of the staircase.

He gave a brief glance in my direction, then turned and left without a backward look. He had changed into a tailored suit, and I could faintly smell the scent of his cedar cologne even from here.

Lucas never wore cologne, but this bottle was a gift from Bella.

I knew he was doing it on purpose.

For the past five years, this was his favorite game to play.

It all started when I found the encrypted texts between him and Bella. Simple goodnights that felt like a betrayal. I couldn't stop myself from confronting him.

Lucas thought I was being unreasonable. "Since you're so suspicious, I'll just keep her by my side so you can watch all you want." Using that excuse, he made Bella his personal assistant.

The more I suffered, the more he flaunted his favoritism.

He took Bella to major family dinners, and at our own gatherings, he would cut her steak and wipe her mouth right in front of me.

If I fell back in line, he would take me to bed. Afterward, he would kiss the marks on my skin and whisper that I was the only one he loved.

For a while, I even wondered if I was the problem, if I wasn't playing by the rules or being open-minded enough.

But that all changed three days into his silent treatment, while I was burning with a fever from the sheer exhaustion of managing his heavy workload.

He ignored it, taking Bella on an island vacation. In that moment, something inside me died.

I finally saw the truth. He was just using my jealousy as a cover to openly flirt and maintain an ambiguous relationship with Bella.

Even if I had never seen those encrypted texts, Lucas would have found another excuse to get together with Bella.

When they came back from the island, they acted like nothing more than boss and subordinate, but I could smell her perfume on his clothes.

It didn't matter anymore.

Five years spent walking on a knife's edge had finally come to an end. I was tired of the game.

After typing the last number, I saved the processed accounts. I opened my phone and saw a few updates Bella had posted.

The photos were from an extremely private underground casino. Lucas was dominating the poker table, with a million dollars in chips stacked in front of him.

Bella was wearing a deep V-neck dress, her chest pressed against his arm.

The caption read: "My brave Capo is spoiling me rotten again tonight. Everyone's joking that I'm the most important person to him."

In the comments, many partners praised them as a perfect match, and those who didn't know our relationship asked when they could attend their wedding. Lucas replied with an ellipsis, and Bella posted a "playful" emoji.

No correction. Just like always.

The old me would have been trembling with jealousy, immediately making an encrypted call to confront him, only to be called an irrational, crazy woman.

But today, I sent him a message telling him the accounts were done, then placed the files in his office, cleaned up the glasses as requested, and drove home.

As soon as I got into the car, my phone rang.

"Elara, are the books done? I'm so sorry, I'll treat you to dinner some other time."

The moment I answered, Bella's cloying laugh came through the line.

Before I could speak, Lucas's deep voice cut in. "Don't waste your breath on her. She handed over the core business herself. Now it's her job to be your assistant and count the receipts."

"Capo, don't say that. Elara is your fiancée, after all. Go easy on her," Bella cooed. They flirted so casually you'd think they were the ones who were married.

I pulled my lips into a silent, humorless smile.

That secure phone held the lifeline of the entire Valmont mafia. He used to accuse me of crossing a line if I so much as glanced at it.

Now, he tossed it to Bella to flaunt like a toy. It had been decided long ago who mattered more.

But my heart was unnervingly calm, without a single ripple.

A betrayal I once thought would be excruciating now felt like nothing at all.

After chatting and laughing with Bella for a few moments, Lucas perhaps remembered I was still on the line and said perfunctorily, "I'll be back soon. Don't wait up for me, get some rest."

He hung up.

His "soon" always meant at least four or five hours. I used to wait up for him, restless and anxious.

But tonight, I simply started the car and drove back to my apartment.

Opening the door, I looked at the calendar on the wall.

Right before he left me with a raging fever from exhaustion to run off on an island vacation with Bella, I took advantage of his distraction. I slipped him the dissolution agreement, disguised as a medical liability waiver.

He only had eyes for Bella. He signed it without a second glance.

In three days, the agreement would take effect.

In three days, once the handover was complete, I could walk away from this quagmire with a clean slate.

I thought for a moment, then made a call to my former professor at the research institute in Serrania.

Because of Lucas's, I had given up my natural talent for economics, abandoning my in-depth academic research to handle his family's accounts.

My professor had tried desperately to stop me, but I had plunged ahead without a second thought.

Thinking about it now, I was hopelessly stupid back then. Men are fickle, but capital is constant.

When he answered, I told him my plan to return to research.

I expected a scolding, but instead, the professor just sighed heavily. He told me he had already found out about my situation in Valmont and had been saving a position for me.

"But this time, are you truly ready to sever all ties?"

I lowered my gaze, my voice firm. "Yes, Professor. The dissolution agreement is already handled."

"Dissolution agreement? What agreement?"

A cold voice cut through the air behind me.

My whole body went rigid. I turned. Lucas, who should have been at the casino, stood in the doorway of the safe house, a place he should never have been able to enter.