Chapter 4

The five years I'd spent tangled up with Rocco felt like a drunken haze from which I couldn't escape.

Returning to the empty villa, my heart felt like it had been hollowed out, each breath a sharp, tearing pain.

That was the first time I'd ever turned on him, acted like the Thorne heiress I was born to be.

But did I win? It didn't feel like it.

My phone vibrated violently in my palm, the screen flashing with the name of Rocco's shrewd Consigliere.

I declined the call. He called again.

The fifth time, I answered.

"Rosalie! Thank God you answered."

His voice was rushed, laced with an obvious attempt to placate me.

"Listen, Rocco already dealt with that Capo who didn't know his place. One leg, shattered. No one will ever dare use that title for anyone else again."

"Rocco picked up the ring himself. No one is allowed to touch it. He pulled his gun on Vivian when she tried to grab it, and warned the whole room."

"He cares about you, Rosalie. He really does."

Does he really care about me?

A bitter smile touched my lips. I didn't want to cry, but my eyes were stinging again.

If this was his way of caring, why did he have to wait until my dignity was trampled into the dirt before offering a shred of defense?

"Rosalie, you have to believe me. Vivian is just the Don's adoptive sister. There's nothing between them. You're the one he loves..."

"I don't want to hear it right now. I just want to be alone."

After hanging up, the suffocating emptiness washed over me again.

Just then, the screen lit up with a text from an unknown number: a surveillance video.

The setting was a VIP lounge behind the banquet hall.

Vivian was half-reclined on a sofa. It seemed she had sprained her ankle.

And the newly crowned Don, the King of the South, was kneeling on one knee before her, holding a pair of red high heels, carefully putting them on her feet.

His expression was so focused he didn't even notice the blatant camera recording him.

"It hurts... Rocco, you scared me to death when you fired that gun," Vivian's voice was syrupy sweet.

She playfully pushed his shoulder, flinching slightly as she moved her swollen ankle. "I tripped trying to get away from you."

Rocco kept his head down, his voice soft. "I lost control for a moment. It won't happen again. I'm sorry."

"This time... you were more obedient than Rosalie."

The video ended.

The phone slipped from my fingers, landing on the carpet with a muffled thud.

How absurd. Just moments ago, when his Consigliere was swearing his loyalty, a part of me had actually held onto hope.

And in the next second, he shattered every last one of my illusions, kneeling at another woman's feet.

What does it feel like to completely lose hope? It must be this. The feeling of blood turning to ice in your veins.

I stood and walked into the bedroom we had shared for five years.

I opened the safe, pulled open the drawers.

One by one, I took out the relics I had once treasured.

The first self-defense dagger Rocco gave me, from a time when he couldn't afford a gun.

The medal he'd pinned on my chest with red-rimmed eyes after I took a bullet for him.

And the blueprints we had sketched late into the night, our grand plans for a Southmi business empire.

I threw them all into the fireplace.

A blue flame shot up from the lighter, instantly igniting the papers.

The firelight flickered across my face, burning away the meek, pathetic, neutered version of myself I had become for love.

Burn it all to ash.

After it was done, I picked up the handbag I had already packed.

Inside was only a passport and a few fake IDs I had prepared long ago.

I turned and strode out of the villa.

The Southmi night air was still humid, but all I felt was a thrilling sense of freedom.

A black, armored Maybach was already waiting quietly by the roadside. Beside the open door, two men in bespoke suits stood ramrod straight.

Seeing me, they bowed a respectful ninety degrees and held the door.

"Principessa," one of them said. "Mr. Gravano's private jet is waiting on the tarmac."

I nodded and slipped into the back seat.

The moment the door closed, the world that revolved around Rocco was shut out completely.

The black car headed for the airport, for the North, for the loud and brazen life I was always meant to live.

Meanwhile, Rocco dropped Vivian off at her home, his mind in turmoil.

The woman was a handful even with a sprained ankle, but his thoughts were consumed by the look of absolute finality in Rosalie's eyes as she threw the ring down.

That ferocity was a goddamn thrill, but it also filled him with a strange sense of panic.

His Consigliere approached, looking troubled. "Don, about Rosalie, I can't get through to her. Maybe you should go back and smooth things over? This time, you really hurt her."

Rocco irritably stubbed out his cigar on the leather seat. "Smooth what over? You can't spoil women. The more you appease them, the more they act up."

"With her personality, she can't survive without me. She'll come around in a couple of days."

"It's not the first time you've seen this happen."

Every time, Rosalie would be over her anger within twenty-four hours and call him, cautiously trying to make peace.

He knew she couldn't leave him.

But even as he said it, he told the driver to turn around and head back to the villa.

He pushed open the door to a dead silence.

And the last wisp of smoke curling up from the ashes in the fireplace.

All of their shared memories, burned and warped beyond recognition.

A sledgehammer slammed into his chest. A suffocating, wild panic seized him by the throat.

Just then, his Consigliere's phone call came through, frantic.

"Rocco! Something big just happened! Urgent intel from the North!"

The usually calm Consigliere's voice was shaking. "The Thorne family just announced that their heiress, who's been missing for five years, the 'Thorn Principessa' Rosalie Thorne, has returned..."

"Rocco, I've seen the pictures. The woman in the photos... looks just like her."

"Rosalie... did she leave you?"