Dante and I had rented this forty-square-meter apartment right after we started dating.

After graduation, I wanted a better-paying job, but on my tight budget, I could only afford a tiny, suffocating room deep in the industrial slums. Dante hated it.

He complained the neighborhood was a dump and the commute was too long. He flat out said the awful environment ruined his mood whenever he wanted to have sex, so he insisted we move in together.

To pay my half of the rent in this expensive city, I worked a brutal second job, sacrificing all my sleep and free time. Now, he was turning our five years together into a cheap scam, acting like I was the one ripping him off.

"Dante... after five years, what did you actually take me for?"

My tears fell out of pure self-pity. Five years of my youth, completely wasted on a monster.

Seeing my tears, the hand holding the phone in my face twitched, and he slowly pulled it back. "I was just joking. At worst, we can just..."

Before he could finish, Nadia chimed in with a theatrical sigh of disdain.

"And she still claims she isn't a gold-digger. Dante, if it weren't for you, could a girl like her ever live here? You should definitely end the lease next month. Or at least make her sign a promissory note. That’s only fair."

If it weren't for the law, I would have slapped them both raw. But I knew if I did, they would probably extort me for damages.

Five years. I was done playing their twisted games.

"I’m not signing anything. If you want money, sue me. Let’s see if a judge actually rules in your favor," I said coldly. "And I’m leaving tonight. Miss Nadia, since you want to crash here so badly, make sure you pay Dante your share. Otherwise, you’re the parasite."

The moment I turned to leave, Dante lunged forward and locked his grip around my wrist. His arrogant smirk vanished, replaced by a dark, controlling anger.

"Elena, cut the crap. Nadia and I were just messing around," he growled. "Think carefully. If you walk out that door, you will lose me forever."

I realized then how horribly wrong I had been.

I shouldn't have let his sweet talk sway me when I first discovered he was a billionaire mafia heir. And I shouldn't have bought into his garbage philosophy about a 'pure relationship' every time he implicitly accused me of being after his money.

I had foolishly clung to the memories of him staying up all night to take care of me when I had a high fever, gently holding me to soothe my pain. We had genuinely loved each other once. But our love could never survive being treated like a criminal investigation.

"Dante, let’s break up."

The moment the words left my mouth, his anger dissolved into a flash of genuine panic.

"Stop messing around," he stammered. "Are you really throwing away our relationship over this? You’re about to marry me and finally get my family's approval."

He had been on his pedestal for so long that he genuinely believed loving me was an act of charity.

I looked at him, my expression completely dead. "I’m not throwing a tantrum. Since you spent every waking hour convinced I was a parasite scheming for your blood money, go find a woman who actually qualifies to enter your precious family."

I ripped my wrist from his grip, turned on my heel, and went into the bedroom to pack.

A minute later, a furious roar echoed through the apartment. "Elena! You will regret this!"

I ignored him, unfazed by the sound of the front door slamming as he stormed out with Nadia.

I had endured five years of a love where I was treated like a thief. When I was at my absolute lowest, begging for just a grand to save the child in my womb, he chose to look away, all just to run his ridiculous test. That was our first child, but he didn't even know, let alone care.

At that exact moment, my love for him, and the family I thought we were building, died completely.

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."

The clearer I saw Dante's true colors, the more I realized how blind I had been during those five long years.

Around us, the other office employees began whispering and pointing at me. Seeing that Dante did absolutely nothing to shut them down, their voices grew bolder and louder.

"Mr. Moretti hid his mafia background just so Elena wouldn't feel insecure. He even ordered all of us to keep his identity a secret. That shows how deeply he cared about her."

"She’s been living in his apartment, and she still has the nerve to throw a fit at him?"

"A nobody trying to gold-dig her way into a mafia family... she needs to look in a mirror. Without Mr. Moretti, she’s absolutely nothing."

The more the crowd gossiped, the more smug Dante's expression became. Nadia kept fueling the fire, piling fabricated accusations onto my head.

"Elena, didn't you fake a car accident just to exploit his kindness and scam him for cash? You love playing the victim even when you're hunting for money."

Her words were like cold water hitting boiling oil. The office erupted. Everyone stared at me with pure disgust, hurling vicious insults one after another.

I looked at Dante. He maintained a perfectly detached, indifferent facade, as if Nadia was merely giving voice to the deep grievances he had suffered.

My lips curled into a grim smile. Before I could speak, Dante reached out and grabbed me, putting on a grand display of playing the peacemaker.

"Alright, alright, let’s drop it. What’s done is done, and I’m not hurting for a few bucks anyway. I didn't lend you the money because I saw right through your lies. I did it to break your bad habits so my family could finally accept you."

The moment Dante spoke, the entire office grew righteously indignant, completely convinced I was an ungrateful monster.

"Exactly! Mr. Moretti is the heir to a powerful mafia clan. If you want cash, just ask! Faking an accident to extort money... that’s completely subhuman."

"A parasite like her deserves to be dumped. She should be blacklisted from the entire city."

I looked at the colleagues who used to be on great terms with me, now eagerly stepping up to trample me down. Then I thought about Dante’s twisted manipulations. Suddenly, trying to defend myself felt entirely pointless. Even if I threw the historical pay stubs directly into his face right now, he and Nadia would just spin some other delusional narrative to keep humiliating me.

Silently, I slipped the pay stubs back into my pocket. I raised my eyes and gave Dante a cold smile.

"We’ve been together for five years, Dante. Why don't you sit down and calculate every single dollar you claim to have spent on me?"

I looked him dead in the eye. "If you can't prove a single penny was actually spent on my behalf, then you better return the tens of thousands of dollars you stole from my account. Otherwise, you and your entire corporate front can expect a massive lawsuit from my lawyers."

A relationship he claimed had to remain entirely untainted by money had, in reality, been completely corrupted by financial theft from day one. This powerful mafia prince, whom everyone viewed as an extravagant spender, had actually been living off the funds I was desperately scraping together.

Dante fell into a tense, frantic silence, a flash of pure panic darting through his eyes. He couldn't recall a single instance where he had actually spent money on me. For a man who insisted on splitting the bill for a pack of convenience store condoms, there was no record to pull.

He opened his mouth to salvage the situation, but I was done listening.

As I turned to walk away, Nadia suddenly lunged forward and shoved me hard from behind. Losing my balance, I crashed heavily onto the floor.

"Elena, stop trying to distort the facts! How could Dante ever owe a parasite like you any money?" she screamed, glaring down at me. "You dare slander his name? Aren't you afraid we'll have you thrown in a cage for extortion?"

"Get on your knees and apologize to Dante right now!"

Nadia genuinely believed she still held leverage over me. But the current me no longer had a single vulnerability left in this world.

Right at that moment, my direct manager happened to pass by. Seeing Dante surrounded by the crowd, she squeezed through the onlookers, holding a physical file in her hands.

"Mr. Moretti, Elena checked out of the hospital early without proper rest after her miscarriage surgery because she couldn't afford to stay. The hospital just called to warn us that she skipped her follow-up exam, and her physical condition is in critical danger."

The manager sighed and shook her head as she looked at Dante. "Also, regarding Elena’s emergency application to advance $1,000 from her salary last week, you ordered me to deny it. It's a real tragedy. She was missing exactly that amount to get the emergency surgery in time to save her baby."