I’m the best art forger and intel specialist in Chicago. And I fell for the man who owned it all, Don Vincenzo Russo.

For ten years, I was his secret, his weapon, and his woman. I built his empire from the shadows.

I thought I’d get a ring.

After all, every night he was in this city, he was buried inside me, taking his pleasure.

He’d whisper that I was his, that no one else felt this good.

But this time, after he was finished with me, he announced he was marrying the Russian Bratva princess, Katerina Petrov.

That’s when I knew.

I wasn’t his woman. I was just a body.

For an alliance, for her, he sacrificed me.

He left me to die.

So I destroyed every piece of the life he gave me.

I made one call to my father in Italy. And then, I vanished.

But when the Don who owned Chicago couldn't find his favorite toy… he went insane.

I was Don Vincenzo’s secret for ten years. I was waiting for a ring. Instead, after fucking me, he told me he was marrying someone else. That's when I knew I was just a body for him to use.

An hour ago.

For the thousandth time, he fucked me, wild and furious.

I came apart under him, my nails digging into his shoulders.

“Yes… like that…”

I gasped, feeling every one of his thrusts deep inside me.

He kissed me hard, harder than ever before.

When it was over, I curled up in his arms, tracing the scars on his chest with my finger.

His voice cut through the dark. “Tomorrow night, you’re coming to the family dinner.”

I looked up at him, my heart pounding.

I’d slept with him for a decade. He’d never let me near a family dinner.

“Vincenzo,” I sat up, my voice trembling. “Is this it? Are you finally making me yours?”

He raised an eyebrow, giving me a sideways glance.

“Official?” He blew a smoke ring, his tone sharp. “What’s to make official? The dinner is to welcome my fiancée. Katerina Petrov, the Russian Bratva princess.”

Every word hit me like a sledgehammer.

My heart stopped. My mind went blank. “You’re getting married? Then what the hell am I?”

The smirk on Vincenzo’s face died. He leaned in close.

“Don’t tell me, Chiara,” he purred, a finger tilting my chin up. “You didn’t really think you could be the lady of the Russo family, did you?”

I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing.

"Her. When did you decide?"

"Six months ago." He got up and walked to the bathroom, without a single glance back at the wreckage he’d made of my face. "It's for the alliance. For the family."

Six months ago.

I remembered all his business trips to Europe.

Every time he came back, I was waiting for him in bed.

And on those trips, he was getting engaged to another woman.

I followed him into the bathroom. The mirror showed my pale face, my body covered in his marks.

An hour ago, they were trophies. Now, they were just marks of shame.

"Do you love her?"

"Love?" He turned on the shower, steam quickly fogging the mirror. "Chiara, I thought you were smarter than that. This is business. Not a fairytale."

He stepped out of the shower, water dripping down his perfect body.

Ten minutes ago, that body drove me wild.

Now, it just made me sick.

"Katerina is young, beautiful, and useful. She brings the entire Eastern Bloc with her." He grabbed a towel. His eyes swept over my naked body. "And you… you have other uses."

Other uses.

A warm body in his bed. A loyal weapon.

I just stood there, feeling his cum run down my leg. I had never felt so dirty.

When I pulled myself together and walked back out, Vincenzo was already in a suit, sitting on the sofa, on the phone.

“The Fabergé egg. Make sure it’s the ‘Winter Egg.’ It's Katerina’s favorite. The flowers have to be lilies of the valley, flown in from Russia. She loves the scent. And get a dozen haute couture gowns ready for her to try on. All white. She says it’s the color of angels.”

Hearing that, my heart seized up.

I couldn't help but look. And I saw it. A smile on his face I had never seen before. It was almost… sweet.

The pain I’d just managed to push down came flooding back.

Clatter.

My phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor.

Vincenzo turned at the sound, still smiling. “All clean? Good. See yourself out. I’ll take care of the bill.”

He grabbed his coat to leave, but stopped at the door and looked back at me, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Chiara, you’ve always been my best weapon. So lose that kicked-puppy look, Chiara. It makes you look pathetic. Like you’re reaching for something you could never have.”

“I know you inside and out. I know what you’re thinking with just one look. Don’t you think that’s a little… predictable? If we were actually together, it’d be so damn boring.”

His voice faded with his footsteps, but the words echoed in my head.

I sat on the cold bed. I started to laugh. And then the laughter turned to tears.

I sat there until late, then went back to my own studio.

I walked to the safe and put in the code.

Inside was a gold Desert Eagle. The grip was engraved with my initials. A “gift” from Vincenzo for my eighteenth birthday.

There were also the jewels, the paintings, the antiques he’d given me over the years.

Tonight, I threw them all into the incinerator, one by one.

“Miss, all this good stuff… you’re really getting rid of it?” my assistant asked, his eyes full of regret as he watched the flames.

I nodded slowly. My voice was quiet.

“I don’t want them anymore.”

Not just them. This relationship, this man… I didn’t want any of it.

I dialed an encrypted number.

“Papa. It’s me.”

“Chiara? You finally decided to call.”

“In seven days, I want the name Chiara Rossi to disappear from Chicago. Forever.”

I turned off my phone.

Seventeen encrypted messages from Vincenzo. I didn't answer a single one.

At two in the afternoon, the door to my studio was kicked open.

Marco, Vincenzo’s right-hand man, stormed in with four of his goons.

“Miss Chiara,” Marco’s voice was polite, but his hand was already on the butt of his gun. “The Boss wants to see you.”

I didn’t look up. I kept working on the painting in front of me. “Tell your boss I’m busy.”

“I’m afraid this isn’t a request.”

I put down my brush and stood up. “So you’re dragging me back by force?”

Marco didn’t deny it. “The Boss’s orders. Don’t make this ugly.”

Twenty minutes later, the car stopped in front of the Russo family estate.

This used to be my home. Now, it was just a cage.

I was “escorted” to my old art studio.

The moment the door opened, I froze.

The room was empty.

All my paintings, my easels, my paints, our only photo together…

Every trace of me was gone. Cleaned out.

In its place was opulent, Russian-style decor.

And hanging in the center of the wall was a huge oil painting.

It was Katerina, in a white dress, smiling like a saint.

“Like it? Katerina picked it out herself.”

Vincenzo’s voice came from behind me.

He was wearing a custom Brioni suit. Flawless.

Katerina was clinging to his side, blonde hair, blue eyes, an angel.

“Katerina,” Vincenzo said, his tone flat, “this is Chiara Rossi. The family’s most… useful asset.”

Katerina’s blue eyes flashed with innocence. Her voice was sweet. “It’s so nice to meet you. Vincenzo mentions you all the time. Says he doesn’t know who’d do all the family’s ‘dirty work’ if it weren’t for you. That must be so hard.”

She stressed the words “dirty work,” but her face was a mask of sympathy.

“It’s my honor to serve the family,” I replied, my face blank.

Vincenzo nodded, satisfied. He turned to Katerina. “Darling, let me introduce you to the uncles.”

He wrapped his arm around her and led her to the main hall. I followed like a shadow.

The family elders were already waiting.

One of them, Uncle Antonio, looked from me to Vincenzo and smiled. “Vincenzo, Chiara has been by your side for so many years. We all thought…”

Vincenzo cut him off, his voice cold.

“Uncle Antonio.” His face darkened. “Don’t say things that could be misunderstood.”

His eyes cut to me, his voice low, but carrying across the silent room.

“I would never dirty my hands with an underling.”

I lowered my eyes to hide the pain. I forced a smile. “Uncle Antonio, you’ve misunderstood. The Boss and I have always had a purely professional relationship.”

For a split second, Vincenzo’s expression froze. Then it was gone.

The tension in the hall vanished.

Katerina tightened her grip on Vincenzo’s arm and gave me a triumphant little smile.

Vincenzo walked past me. He started to raise his hand, like he always did, to pat my head.

But he stopped halfway. He fixed Katerina’s hair instead.

He leaned in, his voice a low growl only I could hear.

“Well done. Remember what you said tonight. Don’t disappoint me.”

The dinner began.

I sat alone at the far end of the long table, watching Vincenzo and Katerina at the head, accepting everyone’s congratulations.

Vincenzo felt me looking. He turned and met my gaze.

He raised his glass to me. His eyes were cold, full of approval.

Like he was praising a well-trained hound.

I raised my glass back, a perfect smile on my lips.

I hope you’re still smiling in seven days, Vincenzo. When I’m gone for good.

The dinner ended.

“Chiara, you’re coming too,” Vincenzo’s voice called from the top of the stairs.

I looked up. He was helping Katerina into her coat, his movements gentle in a way they never were with me. It was like swallowing acid.

“Of course,” he looked at me, his eyes like ice. “You’re my best intel specialist. Time to get familiar with your new boss.”

The armored car was waiting outside.

I instinctively moved toward the front passenger seat. A single look from Vincenzo stopped me.

“In the back,” he said.

Katerina took his arm and slid into the spacious middle row.

I was stuffed into the corner of the back row. An afterthought.

The car pulled away into the Chicago night.

The first bullet shattered the windshield without warning.

“Get down!” Marco yelled, wrenching the steering wheel.

Gunfire erupted from all sides, bullets hammering the car like hail.

“Shit!” Vincenzo pulled his gun. “It’s the Torrino family!”

I drew my Glock and fired back through the rear window. Katerina screamed and curled up in Vincenzo’s arms. He returned fire while shielding her with his body.

“It’s okay, baby, I’m here.”

The back tires blew out. The car spun out of control, heading for a wall.

Then I saw him. A hitter in a side tunnel, raising an RPG to his shoulder.

“Rocket!” I screamed.

Time slowed down.

The rocket streaked toward us, trailing fire.

In that split second, Vincenzo made his choice.

He grabbed Katerina, pulling her under him, using his back as a shield.

Then, he lifted his foot.

And with all his strength, he kicked. Not at the enemy. At me.

His boot connected with the door beside me, and the force launched me from the car. I hit the asphalt and tumbled, the world a blur of pain and concrete.

“No—”

BOOM.

A fireball swallowed everything behind me.

The heatwave threw me against the tunnel wall.

Shards of glass and metal rained down, cutting my skin.

I felt the sharp pain of broken ribs. Warm blood ran from my forehead, blurring my vision.

My last conscious thought before the darkness took me: I saw him crawl from the wreckage, Katerina clutched safely in his arms.

His suit was torn, but his eyes were sharp.

He gently stroked her hair, murmuring to her, then ran with her toward safety.

He didn’t even glance back. He never looked back.

I lay on the cold ground, listening to the crackle of fire eating metal.

Then the darkness took me.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the family’s secret medical wing.

“You’re awake,” old Dr. Castellano said, checking my pupils. “You’re lucky. Marco dragged you back from the blast right before it went up.”

“Vincenzo?” My voice was a rasp.

“The Boss is with Miss Katerina,” the doctor said, pausing. “She was badly shaken.”

I let out a silent, bitter laugh. Shaken.

“Doctor, turn on the monitor.”

The screen on the wall flickered on, showing feeds from all over the estate. I switched to Katerina’s room.

She was in a white silk nightgown, propped weakly against the pillows.

Vincenzo was sitting on the edge of the bed, feeding her soup, spoon by spoon. His movements were so gentle, like he was handling a priceless treasure.

“I almost lost you,” his voice trembled with fear. “I can’t live without you, Katerina.”

“I know. You saved me,” she whispered, touching his face. “You’re my hero.”

Then, Vincenzo pulled a velvet box from his pocket.

My heart stopped beating.

He got down on one knee. He opened the box. Inside was a massive diamond ring.

I recognized it. The ring passed down to the matriarch of the Russo family.

“Marry me,” he said, looking up at her, his eyes full of devotion. “Not for the family. Not for the alliance. Just because… I love you.”

Katerina burst into happy tears. “Yes! Of course, I will!”

He slid the ring onto her finger and kissed her hand.

I stared at the screen until it dissolved into static.

So, he knew how to say the words.

He just never said them to me.