Chapter 2

Lucius hung up immediately, terrified I'd say no.

Then, another encrypted text popped up: "Rhea, please don't make a scene right now. I'm just giving Sienna a title. I postponed our wedding because I wanted to give you a bigger ceremony at the right time."

The right time? I had heard that lie for eight years. I stayed by his side, watching him go from a hunted stray dog to the most feared Don in Palermo. I waited nearly three thousand nights. I waited for him to slide that ruby ring onto my finger before the priest. I waited for him to put my name beside his in front of all Sicily.

And in the end, he gave that place to someone else.

Lucius, I'm done waiting for you. We were never from the same world anyway.

He deleted the message a second later. He was probably scared Sienna would see his promises to me. I stared at the "Message Deleted" notification and scoffed, typing a single word back: "Fine."

But before it could even send, a bright red exclamation mark flashed on my screen. To keep his precious "bride" happy, he had already locked me out of his core channel and wiped my access codes.

Perfect.

I logged into the family's internal terminal and posted my resignation notice. I sent one order to every informant under my command: The wedding is off. I am stepping down permanently.

The underworld went wild. old Council members bombarded my secure line: "Rhea, are you insane? Lucius hasn't secured his position yet. His enemies are circling. If you drop his defense lines now, you're handing his head to the traitors on a silver platter."

I didn't reply. Lucius chose someone else to protect him. From now on, his blood and chaos were no longer my problems.

Right after I shut down my access, Sienna's private email arrived. Attached was a photo of the fresh, ink-scented marriage contract.

She rubbed it in my face: "Thanks for stepping aside, Rhea. Lucius wanted to avoid trouble, so he took me to meet the elders last night. My name is officially in the family registry now."

Then, my phone buzzed again. It was my mother.

"Rhea, have you lost your mind? On this island, a woman's shelf life is shorter than fresh seafood! The seat beside him is right there, and you're just walking away?" Her screech cut through my ears. "Lucius runs Palermo now! Even if you have to kneel in the ashes and stitch up corpses to stay by his side, you hold onto that spot!"

She was a widow from a dead, wiped-out family. Her only survival skill was clinging to men with power. She screamed into the receiver from her moldy apartment in Palermo, frantic with the fear of losing her status.

I listened to her desperate, greedy breathing and laughed softly. "What if he is the one who put my ring on another woman's hand?"

The line went dead silent for a few seconds. Then, she shrieked: "Then it's because you're always so cold! You smell like death. Of course he wanted someone softer! Men want a bride they can take up the cathedral aisle, not a machine that patches bullet holes! Go beg him! Don't waste eight years without taking anything from that family!"

A title? For eight years, Lucius told me that once he cleared out his enemies, he'd give me a real home. But the moment he reached the top, he decided a partner who dragged him out of the mud didn't belong in the front pews of the church.

For eight years, I slept in bulletproof cars. I patched his wounds on abandoned docks. I even got rid of an "unborn problem" myself just to keep his reputation clean before the Council. All because he said the timing wasn't right, that he didn't want a child born into the smoke of Sicily.

I loved him, so I swallowed the pain and turned myself into his sharpest blade. And tonight, he wanted to give Sienna a title. My heart broke, but for the first time in my life, I felt completely free.