Chapter 2

I watched as Matteo walked into the convenience store and began picking out tampons with practiced ease.

Sofia suddenly stepped closer to me and said in a tone laced with provocation, "Ms. Russo, you'll never understand the bond between Matteo and me. He understands what my dancing truly means, and I understand the burdens he carries.

"All you have is money, whereas what Matteo and I share on a spiritual level is something you could never reach."

She held her head high smugly. "We started from different places. I don't have a mafia father as you do, nor a powerful family to back me up. But my heart is sincere and burning with passion. When Matteo married you back then, it was only because you forced and manipulated him into it.

"The person he truly loves has never been you. If we had met just a few years earlier, there would've been no place for you in his life. And he wouldn't be like he is now—seemingly radiant on the outside, yet lonely and hopeless within."

Matteo lonely and hopeless?

When I first met Matteo at 18, he was working five different jobs and perpetually run-down from the grueling hours.

But he would barely get his hands on his earnings before his gambler of a father would snatch them away. The staggering gambling debts also fell, one after another, onto his shoulders.

It was precisely at this time that I first met Matteo.

Dressed in rags and gaunt to the bone, he was begging a restaurant owner for work in the bitter cold of winter. For some reason, I followed him after he was turned away, all the way to the shelter under the bridge.

As I watched him sit in the corner and at his beautiful but hollow, lifeless eyes, I felt a pang of heartache for the first time. I didn't understand what pity was. I only knew how much I loved those eyes of his, and that everything he lacked, I happened to have in abundance.

And so, just like that, I pulled him out of the gutter.

I forced him to accept my kindness, to look up and meet my gaze, and to return to school and finish the education he had been compelled to abandon.

Later, everyone in the Verdian mafia circles knew I had coerced a down-and-out man from the lowest rungs of society to marry me.

It wasn't until I personally molded Matteo into a formidable legend within those same circles that the narrative shifted, and people began to envy my good fortune once more.

Yet, no one knew that every bit of feeling I invested had nothing to do with luck.

"He's his own person, a man who stands tall in his own right—not your accessory."

Soffia's incessant chatter kept buzzing in my ears, and my hand began to itch uncontrollably again.

But when I saw Matteo hurrying back and Sofia deliberately trying to provoke me, I changed my mind in an instant.

"Yeah, you're right. He's indeed a man, but he is my man—not yours. If you want him to be yours, you'll have to ask for my permission first. And more importantly, you'll have to ask him whether he's willing to betray his family and become an outcast all for your sake."