Chapter 1

"You changed the time of the exchange at the port without authorization?"

"Yes."

"You failed to verify the intelligence, and four of our people were badly hurt. That was your doing too?"

"Yes."

The man behind the long table turned to the last page.

"And the shipment the police seized because you exposed the route? Do you admit to that too?"

I knelt in the middle of the hall and nodded.

"I admit it."

The captains around the table erupted the second I said it.

"The Don trusted her with everything, and she keeps making these basic mistakes!"

"If this keeps up, who's going to want to work under her?"

I didn't explain.

A second later, the man behind me brought the whip down hard across my back.

Old wounds that had barely closed split open again. Blood soaked through my shirt.

At the 99th stroke, I couldn't hold myself up anymore. I collapsed onto the floor.

Nobody in that room felt sorry for me.

The people who used to trust me looked at me now with nothing but disappointment and contempt.

One pair of dress shoes after another moved out of sight. Finally, a pair of high heels stopped in front of me.

Angela, the Donna of the Castellano family, planted her heel on my back.

I forced my head up and looked at her through red-rimmed eyes.

She didn't care. She ground her heel into my spine.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Something bothering you?"

My fingertips dug into the floorboards. "What do you think?" I ground out through clenched teeth.

"Being upset won't help you."

Angela crouched down slowly and patted my face.

"Whatever they do to you, Victor will always side with me.

"As long as he protects me, there's nothing you can do to me. Ever."

I laughed, then bit down on her finger as hard as I could.

"Ah!"

Angela jerked her hand back in pain. I spat out a mouthful of blood and gave her a contemptuous look.

"Angela, you had better pray he protects you for the rest of your life."

She grabbed the whip beside her and raised it. Just then, Victor called from outside the door. "Carina!"

Angela's expression changed. She dropped the whip at once.

By the time Victor came through the door, she was holding up her bitten finger for him to see.

"Victor, you're here.

"I tried to help Carina up, but she still blames me. She wouldn't let me touch her. She bit me!"

Concern flashed in Victor's eyes as he looked at her fingertip.

Then he saw me lying facedown on the floor, barely able to move. He said nothing about the bite.

He pressed his handkerchief into Angela's palm, then bent down and picked me up.

"How did it get this bad?"

The concern in his voice was almost laughable.

Once, he couldn't bear to see so much as a scrape on me.

Now every drop of blood I shed was on his orders.

Victor carried me back to my room and tried to dress the wounds himself.

Before he could touch me, I took the ointment from his hand. "You have a wife," I said coolly. "From now on, I'll do this myself."

Victor's face went cold.

"Carina, you've always known why Angela and I married."

"I know."

"Then what are you still upset about?"

I lowered my head and rubbed the ointment onto my wrist.

"She's the Donna—your lawful wife. It's better if we keep some distance."

Victor stared at me for a long time, then let out a cold laugh.

"If I actually loved her, why would I have come for you first in that explosion?"

My hands stilled.

This again.

Victor lifted my chin and made me look at him.

"Carina, if that doesn't prove who I love, what exactly do you want me to do?"

I held up my swollen wrist and said, "Is this what you call proof?"

Victor had no answer. He looked away, his patience wearing thin.

"Because I came for you first, Angela didn't get treatment in time. Now she can never have a child.

"People in this family have been talking about her ever since.

"And if the captains find out she's botched several jobs in a row, who's ever going to accept her as Donna?"

He walked over to the bed and lit a cigarette in frustration.

"Carina, we owe her this.

"You are alive because of her. What's the big deal about taking the blame for a few small mistakes?"

I stared at him for a few seconds before repeating quietly, "Small mistakes?"

I remembered every time they'd dragged me into the punishment room.

Hundreds of lash marks, 11 days locked up, six public punishments, and more humiliation than I could count.

I didn't know what to say to him.

"Never mind. Go."

"Carina."

"I'm tired."

I turned my back on him. I didn't want to say one more word.

Victor said nothing more. He finished his cigarette in silence and crushed it out.

The door opened. From outside, I heard him give an order. "Give her the best treatment we have. I don't want a single scar left."

And a moment later, "Nobody is to know what Angela did.

"Carina confessed to it, so keep your mouths shut."

Bang.

The door slammed shut behind him.

I lay under the blankets, staring at the marks on my wrist. Some had faded more than others.

He'd always given me the best treatment available. But even the best medicine couldn't erase every scar.

Just as nothing could erase what had happened.

That night I took a notebook out of the bottom of my nightstand.

It listed every offense I'd taken the blame for over the past three years.

Everything from disposing of an important prisoner without authorization to losing a key to one of the Castellano warehouses.

And every time, Victor would tell me, "This is the last time."

Yet here I was.

I read it for a long time, then turned to a blank page and wrote: [The last time.]

This time he wasn't the one saying it.

I was.

Victor kept saying I would have died if he hadn't come for me first. Fine. I'd treat this life as one Angela had bought for me.

I'd take the blame for her one last time.

After that, my debt to her would be paid in full.

When that day came, I'd die in front of them all.

And leave this family for good.