Chapter 1

The night I got into Cambridge University, we were supposed to celebrate.

Instead, I ended up in Gilbert’s bed—my older brother from next door, the man I had secretly loved for years.

The mafia kingpin of the Veronatri.

We used protection. It didn’t matter.

I still got pregnant.

In my past life, I relied on our child to marry him as I wished, but I was also forever barred from Cambridge University.

Gilbert cornered me on our wedding night, his breath shallow, eyes wild—

“You drugged me, didn’t you?”

“Admit it. There’s no other reason I would’ve wanted you like that.”

“You’re shameless, Julian. You will never touch me again in this lifetime!”

From then on, he used every means possible to humiliate me.

He even secretly transplanted our daughter’s heart into his first love’s daughter.

While he and his first love celebrated the success of the surgery, I clutched my daughter’s ashes and died on the way to the cemetery.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to that night of utter absurdity.

This time, I didn’t cry, I didn’t beg—

I just walked away, and he went mad trying to find me.

...

Seeing the man lying next to me, my heart stopped.

My whole body aches as if it has been run over by a car, and the mess on the floor reminded me that I had been reborn.

While Gilbert was still asleep, I tiptoed to put on my clothes, preparing to jump out the window and run away.

“What are you doing!”

Suddenly, a voice from behind startled me so much that my legs went weak and I fell.

When Gilbert rushed to the window, shirtless, I was already limping away.

Even if I didn’t leave through the front door, I was still photographed by paparazzi.

Especially my dress, torn to shreds by him, sparked heated gossip among enthusiastic netizens.

The only difference was that this life’s trending topic on Facebook wasn’t ‘Veronatri Don’s scandalous night with the girl next door.’

Instead, it was ‘Bold woman seduces the mafia kingpin—then disappears without a trace.’

I grimaced at the image of him stretching out his hand, frustrated, powerless.

I jumped out the window to escape, not wanting to have any relation with him.

Shouldn’t he be throwing a grand celebration?

Why did he look like he’d lost something precious?

Everyone is speculating, what kind of woman could have slept with Gilbert and made him so unforgettable...

I don’t know which of their eyes saw Gilbert being reluctant to part with me.

All I know is that Gilbert must hate me to death.

Rubbing my swollen ankle, I quickly deleted the tens of thousands of Facebook posts where I secretly admired him.

In my past life, I couldn’t bear to delete them.

I gave my Facebook and secret admiration diary to Gilbert as a surprise on our wedding night.

He only glanced at it before mocking me relentlessly:

“From a young age, you’ve been coveting your brother who’s seven years older than you, Julian, you really have no shame!”

At that time, I argued righteously:

“You have no blood relation to me, so what if you’re seven years older? Some people marry even though they’re seventeen years apart, right?”

He was so angered by my shameless attitude that he slammed the door and left.

Others mock me for an orphan marrying into the Veronatri, so what?

In the end, I’m still not loved.

But I don’t care at all.

Marrying Gilbert, and carrying our child, is something I never dared to dream of.

As my belly grows bigger, I believe this child will ease our relationship.

After all, the child carries our shared blood and is our common crystallization.

I also believe that as long as I never give up, one day he will truly like me and acknowledge this warm home.

But from the day of our wedding, he has brought different women home every day.

Gilbert clearly despises those promiscuous women, yet he forces me to serve them.

Those women are absolutely submissive to the supreme Gilbert, always knowing how to humiliate me to please him, their mafia kingpin.

They make me kneel on the ground and bark like a dog, lick spilled milk off the floor, dance humiliatingly with my pregnant belly...

Only because everyone knows my weakness is the child in my womb.

“Julian, you know what? I have a thousand ways to make the bastard in your womb die silently.”

“I advise you to be obedient, maybe if I’m in a good mood, I’ll take a look at the child after it’s born.”

Gilbert’s tone was cold and ruthless.

I even considered aborting the child and letting us both release.

But no matter how much I beat my belly, intentionally fell from high places, or even deliberately rolled down the stairs while hiking, the child stubbornly stayed in my belly.

Even these women Gilbert brought back specifically to torture me tried many times to harm my unborn child, but they all failed to abort it.

Each time, I was covered in wretched wounds, but the child was unharmed.

The worst time, I bled for half a day.

The Madre of the Veronatri, Gilbert’s mother, made a big fuss and brought in hundreds of doctors, afraid that something might happen to the child in my womb.

In the end, the doctors all congratulated me, saying that the child was developing exceptionally well!

At that moment, I suddenly felt relieved.

Even if Gilbert doesn’t love our child, I can give the baby all the love.

I’ll just pretend that I borrowed Gilbert’s sperm.

But who would have thought that my daughter, who endured so much suffering in my womb and remained safe, would eventually be killed by her father Gilbert.

Thinking of this, I quickly deleted Facebook, burned my diary, and all traces of having loved him are gone.

As for the daughter in my womb, I don’t want to burden her with suffering anymore.

I’ll just let her not appear in the first place.

I was about to go out to buy birth control pills when the doorbell rang.