Chapter 3

In the dead of night, I dragged my heavy suitcases down the deserted, freezing streets. Sicily offered no sanctuary for me, and I had no reason to stay. My baby was gone, and my relationship was in ashes. Remaining here would only prolong the agony.

With nowhere left to go, I spent the rest of the night shivering on a cold wooden bench in a lonely public park.

The next morning, I walked straight into the office and handed in my resignation.

My supervisor looked completely blindsided.

"Quitting? Did Mr. Moretti approve this? Oh, by the way, since you're leaving mid-month, your current bonus won't amount to much. I'll have the remaining balance wired to the secondary account on file, then."

I frowned, completely lost. What secondary account? Since when did I have an accrued bonus? And why on earth would Dante need to approve my resignation from a regular corporate job?

Noticing my blank stare, my supervisor grew equally confused.

"Aren't you and Mr. Moretti together? It was Mr. Moretti himself who explicitly instructed HR to split your paycheck. Your base salary went into your main account, while all your bonuses and raises were routed to a separate, locked account. He told us you wanted a secret savings fund. Honestly, I thought it was incredibly admirable how frugal you remained despite dating someone of his stature."

The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.

For five years, I had been surviving entirely on my starting, entry-level wage. Every single time I requested a raise, I was rejected. I genuinely thought I wasn't qualified for a promotion or a pay bump, that my skills just weren't good enough. The brutal truth was that Dante was silently siphoning my hard-earned money into a hidden account.

I marched straight to the finance department to demand my historical pay stubs. There, under the recent bonus column, was a glaring entry for exactly $1,000.

Just last week, I was short by that exact amount. Because I couldn't produce that $1,000 in time, the hospital delayed the operation, and my baby died.

The ultimate irony was that the total sum of my withheld bonuses and raises over the last five years was more than enough to cover the surgery fee tenfold.

I had been so incredibly stupid. I was so consumed by the fear of losing my job and my basic livelihood that I kept my head down, completely blind to how Dante was playing me for a fool. To prove I wasn't a gold-digger, I never touched a dime of his money, while he secretly robbed me of my own sweat and blood.

I had stayed in this deceitful trap for five long years.

Clutching the pay stubs, I turned around to hunt Dante down, only to find him swaggering onto the office floor, flanked by his usual entourage.

"Elena, we had a minor disagreement and you immediately resort to moving out and quitting your job?" He scoffed, looking down at me. "I see your temper is getting completely out of hand. How can my family ever accept you if you act so reckless?"

Standing right behind him, Nadia wore an expression of pure satisfaction. She stepped forward with a sickeningly fake pout.

"Elena, you are completely ungrateful, aren't you? You’ve been living off Dante’s dime, staying in an apartment he provided for you. Without Dante, do you honestly think you could even survive a single day in this city?"

Her words made me furious. I gripped the pay stubs tightly, ready to slap her with the facts, but Dante cut me off before I could speak.

"Nadia’s right. If it weren't for me over these past five years, you would have starved to death on the streets. I’ll overlook your little tantrum today. Go home with me. I won't even deduct today's absence from your paycheck."