Chapter 1

Raffaello angrily threw his phone at my face, screaming, "I told you already! Sofia's lower back has been bothering her. Every afternoon, I go over to give her a massage. What the hell is wrong with you, calling me ninety-nine times?!"

A sharp pain exploded across my cheek, but my heart hurt more.

As the undisputed boss of New Wark City's largest mafia family, Raffaello had bent all his rules for Sofia, all because she casually whined about 'being tired.'

He had learned how to be a masseur from the best doctors, just so he could head to her daily to ease the strain on her left by piano practice.

Raffaello irritatedly loosened his collar, and I immediately noticed a fresh hickey on his neck. There were love scratches on his collarbone as well.

That afternoon, I had trouble breathing once more. The doctor told me that my life was in danger and that I should contact my family.

I called Raffaello 99 times, but not once did he pick up.

I waited for him until midnight when he returned home. Not a single sentence of concern. Only a torrent of abuse was hurled at me, as if interrupting his devotion to Sofia was a crime.

I tried hard to hold back the tears that welled up in my eyes, not letting them fall. I explained aggrievedly, "I was unwell today. The doctor told me to–"

Before I could finish my sentence, Raffaello coldly interrupted me, "Don't use your body as an excuse. You used to be an extreme sports junkie. Since when were you so fragile? You using this kind of trick to get my attention just disgusts me."

The suffocating pressure returned. I watched him leave, unable to argue back.

I recalled when we first got married.

With reddened eyes and a tearful gaze, he promised me in front of our entire family in the church, "Grace, I will love and pamper you forever. If I ever mistreat you after marriage, you can leave me. You can punish me by never letting me see you again."

Not long after his vows, I sacrificed myself to be captured by the rival families to draw the assassins away from him. They kidnapped me and injected a virus into my body, which destroyed my vocal cords.

After that, when our son, Lorenzo, wandered into our family-owned chemical plant out of curiosity, I had to drag him out myself, inhaling toxic dust until my lungs burned beyond repair.

That was how I was diagnosed with severe asthma.

The first time I had an asthma attack, Raffaello had me help with Sofia's piano recital. He got me to move a nearly 400-kilogram grand piano together with several men onto the stage.

The intense movement made me gasp for air. I fell in front of him, begging him to take me to the hospital, yet he said, "I never knew you had asthma. Stop pretending, Grace. I know you just don't want to help Sofia, so you faked an illness to get out of this!"

Not long after, I passed out backstage. It was the janitor who happened to stumble upon me who took me to the hospital.

The second time I had an asthma attack, Sofia falsely accused me of sabotaging the piano that she had gifted to Lorenzo. She said I had inserted razor blades in between the piano keys.

She hugged Lorenzo tightly, sobbing as she accused me in front of Raffaello, "I know Grace has always disliked me. I'll leave! But Lorenzo is her son. How could she do that? She's evil!"

That time, Raffaello got really mad. He locked me up in the family's punishment chamber, making me kneel on a floor covered in broken blades.

My legs were torn to pieces as blood pooled beneath me.

I fell to the ground, barely able to breathe. Like a dog about to die, I begged him to let me out.

He still insisted on locking me up for 24 hours. It was not until I passed out that he agreed to let me go.

The clock rang, dragging me back to the present. I looked at the time and realized that it was Lorenzo's bedtime.

I casually dealt with the injury on my head before heading to warm up a glass of milk. I brought it to the piano room.

The moment I entered, he stopped what he was doing and backed away from me. "I don't dare to drink the milk that you have heated. Who knows if you've poisoned it?"

The previous incident had traumatized him. Even after we found out that it was the piano manufacturer that accidentally left the razor blades in, the tension between my son and me remained.

"What are you still standing there for? Get out! Daddy told me once that you even stole Sofia's scores. I don't want to stay with a thief!"

I could not stand my own son looking at me with contempt. I left and closed the door gently behind me.

I leaned against the wall and gasped for air. My lungs started to hurt again.

I always knew that my husband and son hated me.

When Raffaello was ambushed and left bleeding in an abandoned factory, he never knew I lured the enemies away so his men could find him alive. He only knew that I was not there to care for him when he was recovering in the hospital.

When Lorenzo collapsed in the chemical plant, unconscious and dying, he never knew I was the one who carried him out. He only knew that I wasn't there to soothe him when he woke up in shock at the hospital.

Those days when they needed me the most, it was Sofia who was with them.

Still, I was badly hurt as well. I was also recovering in the hospital. Thanks to Sofia's lies, however, they believed that I was out with other men.

When I returned home, covered with injuries, Raffaello pointed at me and yelled, "You thought that I'd die in that ambush, didn't you? That was why you abandoned your son and me to go out with other men. Now that you've been dumped, covered in injuries, you crawl back to me?"

I did not tell them that I was the one who sacrificed my life to save them both, that I was also recovering from injuries, because I did not want them to feel guilty.

I just did not expect that that would be the reason why they hated me. They used that to hurt me over and over again.

I poured the milk into the sink. When I walked past the piano room once more, I heard Lorenzo burying himself in Raffello's arms, crying, "Daddy, tomorrow is the school's family day. Can we bring Sofia with us? I don't want to go with the other woman. I hate her. Sofia should be my mother!"

My heart shattered. Tears instantly fell.

I did not finish hearing what was said as I fled from the scene right away.