Chapter 3

The glow of the phone screen was a neon brand against my skin. I sat in the shadows of my car, staring at the photo Rosaline had just flaunted to the world.

The caption—“The greenest flag ever!”—was a jagged insult. Those hands, scarred from brass knuckles and stained with the grease of semi-automatics, were now kneading her skin with a reverence they once reserved only for me.

I scrolled through the comments, each one a nail in the coffin of my past life.

“OMG! The hand that sends people to hell is giving someone a foot massage.”

“Is this our mafia lord’s new Queen? Finally, a woman with some fire!”

“Match made in heaven. The previous one was too soft for the underworld. Out with the old.”

A cold, hollow laugh escaped me. They called me "soft" because I was the one who stitched Jayden’s wounds in the dark so his men wouldn’t see him bleed. I was the one who balanced the ledgers that kept the Commission off his back.

I remembered three years ago, when a rival family sent a hit squad to our dinner. Jayden hadn't ducked for cover; he had flipped the table, shielding me with his own body while emptying a clip into the rafters. Afterward, he had wiped the blood off my cheek with a trembling hand, whispering that I was the only thing in this world worth keeping pure.

Then came Rosaline.

Slowly, the "purity" he wanted for me turned into an exile. She started handling the sensitive documents. She started riding shotgun in the armored SUV. She became the face at his side during the sit-downs, while I became a ghost haunting the halls of his estate. He didn't want to keep me safe; he wanted to keep me sidelined.

Gradually, I became the name no one remembered.

I walked into the house, the heavy marble silence feeling like a tomb. My hand instinctively pressed against my stomach. Pregnant.

I was carrying the heir to the most powerful weapon-running company in the Tri-State area—a company that, as of ten minutes ago, no longer had any weapons to sell.

There wasn't much time when Jayden would realize his golden days were over, along with me. But by then, I would have my baby protected. He won't be part of the bloody war that was coming next.

I marched into the nursery—we prepared this together a long time ago.

It was a hidden room, reinforced with steel and lined with the finest silks. We had built it in secret, a sanctuary for the "Little Prince or Princess" of the Outfit. On the wall hung a shadowbox containing the first pair of tiny leather boots Jayden had bought, alongside a hundred more, each one the first piece auctioned from the most luxurious brands.

He wanted to surprise our baby with a wardrobe in which each dress and piece of footwear we had collected together from the famous designers of the whole world.

But, all a waste! My baby was not going to wear them or even look at them.

With a low snarl, I grabbed a kerosene oil container and sprinkled it everywhere. I grabbed the custom-made silk blanket embroidered with the family crest and put it into the fire first, watching the symbol of Jayden’s lineage curl and blacken in the heat.

"What the hell is this sacrilege?!"

The door hit the wall with the force of a gunshot. Jayden stood there, his eyes bloodshot, his silk tie loosened like a noose. He looked at the wreckage of the room—the room he had called his "only legacy."

He lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders with hands that smelled of Rosaline’s perfume and expensive gin.

"Victoria, stop! This is the sanctum!" he roared, his voice vibrating with the raw authority of a Don. "Why are you destroying our child's room?”

“There is no child, Jayden!” I said, looking firmly into his eyes.

Ever since Rosaline arrived, Jayden was too busy to share a bed with me. He would often come late at night and leave early in the morning.

If not for that one day when he was drunk and actually slept with me, I wouldn't have been pregnant.

“Do you remember the last time you came on time, Jayden?” I asked, “How is our child supposed to come into this world when you haven't even touched me for a year?”

But he shoved me aside. His focus was only on the silks that were slowly turning into ashes.

“How could you do this, Victoria!” He cried, grabbing the fire extinguisher to put out the fire, “We built this together! These were the rare collections we have collected, every single piece.”