Chapter 1

Vivian Moretti.

My name sits quietly at the very top of the purge list, followed by a line of glaring status alerts.

Pending Council Approval.

I stare at it for a full ten seconds before I finally drag my gaze to the far right.

Recommended by: Adrian Bellini.

I pick up my phone and call him directly.

He answers almost at once. The pounding beat of an underground bar crashes through the receiver, loud enough to make my head ache.

“What is it?” His voice is flat.

I keep my voice low. “Did you sign off on the purge list?”

For two seconds, there is only silence.

Then he lets out a soft laugh.

“You saw that?”

My fingers tighten around the phone. “I asked you if you signed it.”

“Celine submitted the exit request for you.” He says it as if he is talking about something perfectly ordinary. “She was just playing around. Trying to lighten the mood.”

I look at the approval status on the screen, and my chest sinks lower with every beat.

“A purge order has already entered Council review, and you call that playing around?”

“Vivian, don’t be so tense.” Impatience has already crept into his tone. “Just go to the Council yourself and tell them to withdraw it. That’s all.”

“And what if I hadn’t found it?” I ask. “She overstepped her authority and submitted a purge request. I have every right to have Internal Oversight investigate her.”

Adrian’s voice goes cold at once.

“Vivian, when did you become so vicious?”

“It was just a joke. Do you really need to send Celine to Internal Oversight over this? There has to be a limit to jealousy. Can’t you be a little more generous?”

By the end, anger has sharpened his voice.

“How many times do I have to explain this to you? She’s new to the family. She has no foundation in New York. What’s wrong with me looking after her a little?”

“And let me make one thing clear. I gave her that access. I approved it. If you want someone investigated, tell them to come investigate me.”

Then he hangs up.

I stand there, unable to say a word.

It feels as if every ounce of strength has been drained from my body.

From the day my father sent me into the Bellini family to the day I became Adrian’s fiancée, Adrian and I have known each other for four years.

We have been together for three.

He is the Don of the Bellini family.

And once, I truly believed he was the man I would spend my life with.

I remember the first mission I ever went on with him.

An enemy family had trapped me in an abandoned warehouse.

Adrian was the one who broke through the doors with his men. He draped his coat over my shoulders and said in a low voice, “Don’t be afraid. From this day on, you’re under my protection.”

Even now, I still remember the warmth of his palm.

Then I remember last winter.

I took a bullet for him by the Hudson River. When I woke up, he was sitting beside my hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot from staying awake all night.

He said that once things settled down, we would finally hold the wedding.

Everyone said we were the best-matched pair in the Bellini family.

We had even already chosen the date for the family baptism at the church.

Everything should have fallen naturally into place.

But now, I stare at the screen in front of me.

All I have to do is click Withdraw, and the purge request will be canceled.

But Adrian’s careless words keep echoing in my mind.

Just a joke.

An indescribable exhaustion spreads through my chest.

Suddenly, I no longer want to fight.

A moment later, someone stops at the study door.

I look up.

It is Celine.

She is wearing an expensive black mini dress, a stack of freshly organized meeting files held against her chest. She smiles at me sweetly.

“Miss Vivian.”

Her voice is soft, almost convincingly innocent.

“I just came from Mr. Adrian’s office. He didn’t seem to be in a very good mood. He said he wanted to go to a private club tonight for a few drinks.”

“I only came to ask if I may go with him.”

She says it directly.

Her wording is so careful I can’t find a single fault in it.

But the smugness in her eyes still fails to hide.

For the past six months, she has always been like this.

In front of others, she is obedient and quiet, like a delicate canary waiting to be protected.

Behind closed doors, she always manages to step exactly into my place, then asks me with that innocent face whether I mind.

I look at her in silence, my emotions churning beneath the surface.

When exactly did Adrian start to change?

Why is he protecting a woman he used to look down on?

At first, Adrian had little patience for Celine.

He said she was timid, clumsy, and so unsteady that she could mess up even the simplest handover documents. Sooner or later, he said, the family would eliminate her.

Then one day, they went to Chicago together for negotiations and were ambushed on the way back.

I heard Adrian’s old wound reopened, and the doctor traveling with them was trapped inside the lockdown zone.

Celine braved the storm and searched the empty streets for most of the night, finally bringing back hemostatic medicine, a suture kit, and fever injections for him.

After that night, Adrian’s attitude toward her changed.

Later, the two of them grew closer by the day.

Celine began calling him “sir.”

Adrian also tacitly allowed her to come and go from his office as she pleased.

Inside the family, they laughed and talked together, close and inseparable.

Eventually, everyone in the Bellini family knew.

Adrian had a new little assistant by his side, one who knew better than anyone how to take care of him.

In private, some people even joked that Celine was there to take a knife for him when trouble came, and warm his bed when it didn’t.

Every time I heard something like that, my face would darken.

But Adrian never cared.

He would only take my hand and smile.

“Don’t listen to their nonsense. I only see Celine as a subordinate who needs looking after.”

“Vivian, you know that. The one I love is you.”

But now?

Can he still promise that the one he loves is me?