Chapter 1

Two years later, I graduated from university behind Victor Medici's back. On the day I was about to graduate, I saw Victor, who was supposed to be in Mexico negotiating an arms deal, standing there kissing a woman. I recognized her instantly. It was Sophia, my closest friend. She was wearing her graduation gown, her face glowing with happiness.

Then, in the next moment, Victor took a delicate velvet box from the family’s consigliere. He opened it and revealed a brooch set with a massive sapphire. The brooch was called ‘The Heart of Sicily.’ Only the Don’s wife had the right to wear it.

Right there, he personally pinned it onto Sophia’s graduation gown. I froze, but in my mind, three cold years in prison flashed by. Every single week, without fail, Victor had come to visit me. Separated by thick glass, he would hold the phone and say “I love you” to me over and over again. He wrote to me every day. The letters piled up so high they nearly filled the space under my bed. Every page was filled with his love.

All of those letters had to be checked by the prison. Once, I even joked with him, “Don’t you ever feel embarrassed?”

He looked at me seriously and said, “No one can stop a man from expressing his love to a woman. Not even God.”

Those vows still echoed in my ears, but the man who made them had changed.

I walked to the parking lot without a trace of emotion. I found Victor’s car and unlocked it with a spare key. Then, without hesitation, I installed a tiny listening device beneath the steering wheel, hidden from sight. After that, I returned to my own car and put on my headphones.

Soon enough, a voice came through. It was Victor’s underboss, Leonardo.

“Don Medici, are you really going to make Miss Sophia your Donna?”

Victor stayed silent for a moment. Then he let out a quiet and barely audible acknowledgement.

“Maybe I shouldn’t ask…” Leonardo hesitated, but continued anyway, “But… didn’t you register your marriage with Ms. Rachel in Las Vegas?”

Victor’s voice was calm, almost distant. “The officiant that night wasn’t legally qualified. The marriage documents are invalid. Rachel went to prison for me for three years. I can never repay that debt. I love her.”

He sighed and then added, his voice heavy, “But as the Don of the Medici family, my wife cannot be someone who has been to prison. The family cannot bear that kind of humiliation.”

He chuckled and made a cheeky remark, “A stained coat isn’t something a respectable man can wear out.”

My heart was crushed. So those three years in prison weren’t a badge of honor as he claimed. They were a stain I could never wash away.

After a long silence, Leonardo spoke again. “Don Medici, do you love Miss Sophia?”

Victor chose his words carefully, as if weighing every single one.

“Sophia, she’s like the sun, innocent and bright. I won’t deny that I’ve fallen in love with her, too, but you need to understand. These two kinds of love are different.”

His voice dropped lower, almost like a confession.

“Rachel is like a scar over my heart, and Sophia is like the coat that covers that scar. Even though I’ve chosen Sophia as that coat…” His tone turned strangely intense and almost obsessive. “Rachel will be the one closest to my heart.”

So that was what I was to him. He loved me, but he needed Sophia to decorate his role as Don.

My fingers went cold. Still on my phone screen was the photo he secretly took of me on our wedding day. In the picture, I was holding a bouquet of blue flowers, leaning against his shoulder, smiling like an idiot.

“Seven days from now, I’ll be marrying Sophia. She’ll become the family’s Donna.”

Victor’s voice came through again.

“Before that, don’t let Rachel find out about Sophia.”

I took off my headphones, my face expressionless.

At that moment, my phone lit up with two messages. One was from Sophia. It came with a close-up selfie of her wearing The Heart of Sicily brooch.

[Rachel! I’ve finally found my soulmate!]

The other was from Victor.

[Baby, wait for me at home. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.]

Reading his message was hard.

I was just about to reply when suddenly, a group chat invitation popped up on my screen.