Chapter 2

The night Dominic was ambushed by the rival family, I was stationed on the outer perimeter to provide tactical support.

We had agreed on a strict thirty-minute timeline. He was to lead his men inside while I secured the escape route.

But forty minutes passed, and the comms went dead.

He had altered the operational plan without signaling me.

Left completely in the dark, I fell right into the rival family’s trap. I fought brutally to protect the briefcase, enduring their relentless humiliation without ever breathing a word of the encryption key.

At death’s door, I even threw myself into a raging fire just to ensure his safety.

Only later did I discover that the briefcase I carried was entirely empty.

If Dominic had just told me the truth, I could have ditched the decoy and escaped.

But he chose silence.

I remembered violently gripping his lapels, crying and demanding to know why.

Gritting his teeth, his voice choked with emotion as he replied, “Sienna, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t risk them intercepting the real ledger. I had no other choice.

“I swear I’ll find the best surgeons in the world to fix you.”

He held me tightly, raining down an endless stream of apologies.

Once the dust settled from the turf war, he tore the world apart looking for specialized doctors to treat me and completely annihilated that rival family for revenge.

So, I believed him.

Until three years ago, when I walked up to the executive boardroom to deliver some files.

I overheard his conversation with his consigliere.

“I can’t bring myself to look at Sienna. She looks too much like Elena.

“Forget it. Dismiss the surgeon. As long as Sienna keeps that scar on her forehead, I won’t constantly see Elena when I look at her.”

My wrists trembled, and my heart shattered into pieces.

I realized everything I had sacrificed was a joke. Dominic was entirely cold-hearted, and my loyalty had amounted to nothing more than a pathetic self-delusion.

I never confronted him about what I heard, and Dominic never brought it up again.

Now, another phone call cut through the heavy silence of the bedroom.

He answered it, then turned to me. “Elena is in bad shape. The doctors are running out of options. I need to go see her.”

“Go ahead,” I replied flatly. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

My voice was entirely hollow. I was done listening to justifications.

Dominic had once loved Elena with a terrifying depth; it was only natural for him to do whatever it took for her.

Why should I bother standing in his way?

I turned back and continued packing my suitcase.

Seeing my movements, his eyes turned incredibly dark. Abandoning his plans to leave, he stepped toward me with a deep frown. As if completely provoked, he violently grabbed my wrist.

“Sienna, why are you still trying to leave?!

“What the hell did I even do to make you hate me this much?”

His grip tightened, forcing tears of pain to well up in my eyes. Before I could answer, he threw me roughly onto the bed, leaving me entirely numb.

Dominic slammed the door behind him as he stormed out. My tears spilled onto the back of my hand, carrying a bitter wave of grievance.

I wiped my face, finished packing, and immediately drove back to the Vance family estate.

The moment I stepped through the door, my parents intercepted me.

Taking my suitcase, my mother spoke. “Elena insists on being alone at the hospital and refused our company. It’s better if Dominic goes; they can look after each other.

“It’s good that you’re staying here for a while anyway. Give your sister some time to sort through her thoughts. She’s been sheltered her whole life, and God knows how much she suffered out there these past few years.”

My father chimed in, “Sienna, you need to be more understanding of her.”

My hands clenched into tight fists as my chest turned cold.

Their words felt like a direct indictment of me, as if I were the one at fault. Yet Elena was the architect of her own ruin.

Eight years ago, she chose to abandon everything and run away with that painter.

Dominic had gone on a rampage looking for her, nearly slaughtering our entire family in the process. They seemed to have forgotten all of it.

I let out a cold laugh. “She brought all that suffering on herself. Did either of you ever stop to think about what I went through?

“You’re still doing it—blindly favoring her without condition.”

It had always been this way. When I was only eight years old, I was packed off to a strict boarding school to fend for myself, while my sister attended the school right next door but was chauffeured back and forth every single night.

My father’s excuse was simply that Elena preferred sleeping at home.

She basked in their undivided affection and aggressively guarded it.

During my rare visits home, she would confiscate my hair clips and toys. She even went out of her way to destroy the birthday gifts my mother secretly bought for me.

Whenever I tried to demand a shred of fairness in this house, my parents met me with physical abuse and harsh rebukes, calling me ungrateful and petty for keeping score against my own sister.

Emboldened by their enabling, Elena’s torment only grew worse. She knew that no matter what she did to me, our parents would never blame her.

And I was the one who took a beating every single time.

Eventually, I stopped coming home altogether. I took up part-time jobs and rented a dilapidated shack in the slums, finding a sense of peace in the quiet struggle.

Until the day my sister ran away.

That was when my parents tracked me down at my rundown rental.

Looking back, they had never treated me like their own blood.

My mother took my hand, her expression completely defensive. “Sienna, how can you say that? If your sister hadn’t run away, how else would you have ever clawed your way into becoming the Donna of the Cross family?”

I froze in absolute disbelief.

I had stepped into that substitute marriage solely to save the Vance family from total annihilation. Yet now, they phrased it as though I owed my entire status to their generosity.

Meanwhile, Elena—the one who had brought a death sentence to their doorstep—was completely absolved of guilt.

And I was expected to play the bigger person.

In their minds, the throne next to the Don had always belonged to my sister. To them, I was nothing but a thief who had stolen her life.