Chapter 1

For eight years, I was the ghost in Lorenzo Valenti's empire. By day, I was his executive assistant, the engine of his criminal enterprise. By night, I was the most submissive bird in his gilded cage, and the nameless body in his bed.

I loved him with a devotion that bordered on madness, a foolish flame I'd nurtured since I was a scholarship student pulled into his orbit. I believed my quiet love could one day melt the ice around his heart. I was wrong.

The day his unforgettable first love, Isabella, returned, the man I knew vanished. The rare smiles once reserved for me were now all for her. My presence by his side was erased, replaced by hers. Even when she framed me, he believed her without hesitation.

He chose her, again and again.

I submitted my resignation. He signed it without looking.

He thought I'd crawl back, broken and begging.

He was wrong.

While he was busy playing house with his "cuore mio", I was quietly packing away my life, preparing to vanish from his world forever.

...

(Amelia's POV)

"Miss Evans, your termination papers have been signed by Mr. Valenti." The personnel director's voice crackled through the phone, laced with an unfamiliar hesitance. "But it seems he didn't realize it was your file he was approving. It was in a stack with several others. Should I... bring it to his specific attention?"

"No," I said, my voice unnaturally calm, belying the frantic beat of my heart against my ribs. "Don't mention it. Let it be."

"But Miss Evans," the director persisted, his tone dipping into something perilously close to pity, "you've been Mr. Valenti's personal assistant for four years. He's never been more efficient. He relies on you for everything. Are you absolutely certain about this resignation?"

A bitter, thin smile touched my lips. In the Valenti family, loyalty was a currency that depreciated overnight.

"No one is indispensable," I recited the line I had prepared, the lie smooth and practiced.

"My graduate studies are complete, and my family needs me back home. There are... matters to attend to. Since Mr. Valenti approved it, I'll follow the procedure. One month for the handover. That's all."

I ended the call before his misplaced loyalty could weaken my resolve.

Seven years ago, I, Amelia Evans, a scholarship student from a sleepy, struggling town, was admitted to a prestigious university. There, I'd met Sofia Valenti, a whirlwind of confidence and reckless energy, the beloved daughter of the most powerful crime family in the city.

Against all odds, we became inseparable. My world was one of textbooks, part-time waitressing, and student loans. Hers was one of discreet bodyguards, black credit cards, and unspoken, terrifying power.

Yet, we found common ground in late-night study sessions, shared greasy pizzas, and dreams that, on the surface, seemed worlds apart.

Slowly, carefully, she pulled me into her orbit. I met her father, a man with a chilling presence, his eyes holding the cold weight of a lifetime in the underworld. I met her mother, elegant and distant as a winter moon. And I met her older brother, Lorenzo.

Lorenzo Valenti. He was devastatingly handsome, with an aura of danger that made others wary, yet to me, he was unexpectedly gentle. My innocent, provincial heart, utterly unprepared for such a storm, was lost to him completely.

I buried the feeling deep, a secret, shameful treasure. I told no one, not even Sofia.

After graduation, Sofia was packed off to Europe for further studies, a Valenti tradition. I stayed in the city, sent out my resumes, and through a combination of my own merits and, I suspected, Sofia's quiet nudging, I was offered the position of Personal Executive Assistant to Lorenzo Valenti himself.

On the surface, it was a career-making opportunity. In my heart, it was a chance to be near him, to breathe the same air.

The "incident" happened six months in. A negotiation with a rival faction turned violent. Lorenzo was ambushed and dosed with a powerful, disorienting substance. I found him in his private study, sweating, his pupils dilated, his legendary control utterly shattered. I reached for my phone to call the family doctor, my hands trembling.

He moved with startling speed, pinning me against the cold, hard concrete wall. His kisses were desperate and hungry, his hands tearing at my clothes with a raw, frantic need.

One night of tangled limbs, heated skin, and whispered confusion—a night that shattered my quiet world.

I woke at dawn to find him already awake, sitting in a leather armchair by the window, a cigarette between his fingers. He turned as I stirred, his gaze clear and analytical now, devoid of the previous night's fever.

His first question, delivered with brutal, surgical clarity, was, "You're in love with me?"

My mouth fell open, a denial ready on my tongue, my cheeks burning with a mortifying blush. But he cut me off, his voice flat and final.

"You flush every time I enter a room. You memorize my coffee order, my schedule, my every petty aversion without ever being told. You sought out this job, this 'specific' position, the moment you left university..." He leaned forward slightly, his eyes boring into mine, missing nothing. "Do not insult my intelligence by pretending it's all a coincidence."

He dissected my pathetic, obvious infatuation piece by piece, laying each piece of evidence bare until my face was on fire, consumed by a mixture of shaming exposure and devastating hope.

In the heavy, judgmental silence that followed, he didn't reach for his jacket. He reached for his wallet. He slid a single, black, titanium card across the polished surface of the table between us.

"Last night was a mistake. A chemical error. There is someone else for me. I cannot return your feelings, and I will not offer you commitment." He stated it as an unchangeable fact, a verdict. "Sofia mentioned your family's... financial situation. The money in that account is enough to ensure you never have to worry again. Take it. Consider last night forgotten."

I was stunned into silence, my mind reeling. Then I remembered—in the heat of the night, when his defenses were obliterated, he had whispered a name against my skin, over and over. "Isabella."

From Sofia's frustrated, wine-fueled rants, I knew Isabella was Lorenzo's unforgettable first love, his untouchable white lotus. He loved her with a devotion that bordered on obsession.

Even after she had left the country for "art studies," even with the persistent, ugly rumors of her entanglement with wealthy European playboys, he had sworn he would wait for her.

He was a monument to a love no one else could comprehend.

Sofia had once sighed, sloshing cheap wine in my cramped dorm room, "My family, we're known for our cold hearts. It's how we've survived for generations. How did we end up with my brother, this fucking romantic? Waiting all these years, saying anyone else would be a compromise, and he's not willing to settle."

Hearing those words echo in my mind, standing naked and utterly vulnerable before him, a strange, reckless courage surged through me. As he turned to leave, I found my voice.

"I don't want your money." The words were a trembling whisper. I swallowed, forcing strength into them. "I want you to give me a chance. Mr. Valenti, please. Be with me. Try it. If she doesn't come back, or if... if she does, but you find that your feelings for her have changed... on that day, I will leave. I promise you. I will walk away and never look back."

He paused, his hand on the doorknob. He looked back at me, and for a few fleeting seconds, his gaze softened, a flicker of something unreadable, almost moved, crossing his features.

Then, it was gone, shuttered behind a wall of impenetrable ice. He uttered a dismissive, almost bored, "Suit yourself," and walked out, leaving me standing there, alone with the black card and the shattered pieces of my dignity.

And so, my life became a neatly divided lie. I was his impeccably professional assistant by day, and his private, secret companion by night.

His office desk, the plush interior of his armored Maybach, against this very window with the city sprawled at our feet... we left traces of our recklessness everywhere.

He never spoke of love, but I was the only woman by his side at every banquet; when other women tried to catch his eye, he let me handle them; expensive luxuries were gifted to me without a second thought.

Everyone assumed I would be his future wife. In moments of passionate abandon, when he cried out my name, even I began to believe he would claim me as his own one day.

Four years slipped by. No one in the family or the business suspected the truth. They saw a fiercely loyal and capable aide. And I, the greatest fool of all, found a way to convince myself that the secret moments, the intensity of his focus on me in the dark, meant something. That I was chipping away at the ice.

Until his birthday, just a week ago. I had planned a small, intimate dinner. His favorite wine, a rare vintage. A ridiculously expensive watch I'd scrimped and saved for over months. I wanted to create a perfect night, to pretend, for just a few hours, that we were a normal couple, that I was more than a secret.

I waited until the candles burned down to stubs. The food congealed on the plates. The champagne in the flute lost its fizz. He never came. As the clock ticked past midnight, a notification lit up my phone—a post from Lorenzo Valenti, who viewed social media as a trivial weakness.

A single, devastating sentence: "The best birthday gift is a second chance."

Beneath it was a photograph. Lorenzo and Isabella, locked in an intimate embrace, his hand gently brushing her hair away as they gazed into each other's eyes, illuminated by a shower of brilliantly colored fireworks that must have cost a fortune. She was back.

The blood drained from my face so fast the room spun. A crushing weight settled on my chest, a vise of pure, physical pain that made it impossible to breathe.

Clutching at the last, pathetic shred of hope—that it was a mistake, a manipulated image, anything—my trembling fingers dialed his number.

Isabella answered. Her voice was light, melodic, and laced with a proprietary sweetness that felt like a physical blow. "Hello?" A pause. "Hello? Who is this?" When my throat remained locked shut, she called out, her voice dripping with faux innocence, "Lorenzo, darling? Your phone is ringing. It's someone named... Amelia? She isn't saying anything."

A moment later, his voice, low, indifferent, and slightly muffled by the speaker, carved itself into my memory. "No one important. Don't worry about it, 'cuore mio'. Go back to sleep."

No one important.

The phone slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the marble floor. In that moment, I knew.

The curtain had fallen. The lease was up. My role in his life was over. It was time to exit the stage.