On the way to the auction, Valentina sat beside me in the car.

"Alessia, Salvatore said you're like a corpse in bed. He only married you for your pretty face. But after seven years, even that gets boring," she said, voice dripping with mockery. "He needs a woman like me. Someone who actually knows how to keep a man interested."

I closed my eyes. I was too tired to entertain her chatter. My thoughts were focused on the escape plan three days from now.

Right after breakfast, my high school senior, Luca Bellini, messaged me.

Everything was in place. As long as I could board the ferry, Nicola and I would finally be free.

When the car reached a highway on the outskirts of the city, another vehicle suddenly rammed straight into us. The car instantly lost control and slammed into the roadside guardrail.

Then, a storm of gunfire erupted.

I instinctively covered my lower abdomen with my hand as the force of the crash threw my body forward.

In the chaos, Valentina suddenly shoved me hard. I was completely unprepared and was pushed out of the car.

"Salvatore told you to protect me! Distract them!" she screamed.

Before I could react, a bullet grazed my shoulder. Blood poured out, and a wave of pain flooded my body.

Inside the car, Valentina was completely unharmed. Still, she clutched her face and screamed louder than I did.

After two gunshots rang out, she fainted on the spot.

Salvatore and his men arrived right on time. Within seconds, they had the situation under control.

Salvatore rushed toward us like a madman and yanked the car door wide open. When he saw the unconscious Valentina, his voice trembled. "Tina!"

Meanwhile, I was lying right at his feet. Blood had already soaked most of my clothes.

He anxiously picked Valentina up and walked straight past me. He had passed by me three times without sparing me a glance. It was as if I were nothing more than a piece of garbage in the way.

"Take Tina to the hospital! Now!" he roared at the bodyguards.

One of them hesitated before speaking. "Don Falcone, Donna Falcone is still bleeding…"

Salvatore paused for a beat. I thought that he might turn around and look at me.

Even just once.

Instead, all I got was his cold voice. "She's tough. She won't die. She can get a cab home."

With that, he left.

I wasn’t even worth as much as a dog. Even a dog would get some concern from its owner when it got hurt.

With the last bit of strength I had left, I forced myself up from the ground and began moving forward, one step at a time.

I don't know how long I walked, but I eventually found a small private clinic by the roadside.

The doctor was an elderly woman. She froze when she saw me covered in blood.

"Miss, what happened to you?"

"A gunshot wound. Please help me remove the bullet fragment," I said calmly. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

"You'll need anesthesia. It'll hurt badly if you don't."

I shook my head and clutched my abdomen. "I can't take anesthesia. I'm pregnant."

The woman stared at me. Her eyes were filled with shock. Removing a bullet without anesthesia was basically torture.

I bit down hard on a towel. Cold sweat soaked through my back. As the doctor searched through my flesh with tweezers, my whole body trembled with pain.

Soon, she pulled out the bloodied fragments.

She dressed my wound, then sighed. "Miss, you should have your husband pick you up. You need rest. You can't keep pushing yourself."

Husband?

A smile tugged at the corners of my lips.

"My husband's dead."

While I was recovering alone after the surgery, my phone buzzed.

It was a message from Valentina. She had sent me a photo.

In the picture, Salvatore was personally feeding her a spoonful of stew. "Salvatore said he's really worried about you. But I can't have him leave me so you'll have to take care of your wound yourself."

I felt nothing despite staring at their intimacy.

After deleting the message, I called Luca.

"Luca, it's me."

"Alessia, everything's set," he replied in a calm voice. "I'll pick Nicola up at 9:00 am the day after tomorrow. We'll meet up and then board the ferry."

"Okay."

His confirmation lifted the last weight in my chest.

Over the past seven years, I had taken knives and bullets for Salvatore. I had even nearly died in an explosion while saving him.

I didn't regret it. If I had to do it again, I would.

With the seven-year contract about to expire, I could finally breathe the air of freedom.

Just after I hung up, another call came in. It was Salvatore.

I hesitated for a moment, but still answered.

"Alessia! Where the hell are you? Why haven't you gotten back here yet?"

When I got hurt back then, he would at least pretend to care about me. Now, he didn't even bother pretending and just barked orders.

"With you gone, who's going to prepare Valentina's dinner? Who's going to handle the famiglia's files? Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused me?" he said matter-of-factly.

I hung up on him. The world instantly fell silent.

That peace lasted less than ten minutes.

Salvatore sent a video. It showed Nicola lying unconscious as a doctor slowly approached him with a syringe filled with an unknown liquid.

My heart clenched instantly.

"You've got some nerve hanging up on me! I'm giving you half an hour to get back here right now. If you don't, you'll regret it."

Nicola was my only weakness.

I forced myself to suppress the turmoil in my chest and told myself to endure it all just one last time. Soon, Nicola and I would be able to leave him.

Dragging my injured body, I returned home.

The front door was locked from the inside. I rang the doorbell, but no one came to open it.

I could faintly hear Valentina and Salvatore laughing inside the house.

"Do you think she's shivering outside right now?" Valentina asked. "Maybe we should let her in."

"Let her stay out there. It'll teach her a lesson."

"You're evil. I love it! Honestly, I'd really like to see if she'd freeze to death if we left her outside all night."

Salvatore sounded intrigued. "That's a great idea. Spread the word. Anyone who sheltered Alessia tonight is going against me."

Salvatore ruled the mafia with absolute authority. A single sentence from him could decide one's faith.

If he wanted me punished, no one in the area would dare help me.

Late that night, I was still wearing blood-soaked clothes. The wound on my shoulder had grown cold, and waves of pain pulsed through it.

Soon, the injury became infected, and a fever that wouldn't break set in.

As my mind blurred, memories of the past surfaced.

Shortly after Salvatore and I got married, he had given me a period of what looked like devotion while I was carrying his child.

Dishes had to be made with the finest ingredients. Fruit had to be flown in the same day.

Whenever I walked around the house, the housekeepers were always ready to roll out carpets beneath my feet.

He would gently stroke my belly like it was the most precious thing in the world.

But I knew better. All he ever saw was the child in my stomach. It was his bargaining chip that could help secure his position.

Before Nicola's accident, I had allowed myself to sink into that false warmth for a while. I had even tricked myself into believing we were like an ordinary married couple.

How foolish.

No matter how well-fed and beautifully groomed a canary was, it was still trapped in a cage. That so-called tenderness was nothing more than a pet owner baiting the bird to keep breeding. Once it stopped being obedient and lost its value, it would be left out in the cold.

There had never been any real love from the start. It had always been a clear transaction.

The final day of the contract happened to fall on the seventh anniversary of my marriage to Salvatore.

Early that morning, Valentina sent me a message to show off.

"Salvatore's throwing me a huge birthday party today. It's going to be in your bedroom. You'll come and give us your blessing, won't you?"

I stared at her taunting message before blocking her and deleting every way she had to contact me.

Luca called soon after. "Alessia, Nicola's on the ferry. He's safe for now."

The weight I had carried for seven long years finally lifted.

"Thank you for everything," I said.

"You don't have to thank me."

After I hung up, I felt lighter than I had in years.

I had just put my phone down when Salvatore slammed the door open.

"Since you're home now, stop playing dead," he warned. "It's Tina's birthday today. Go bake a cake and deliver it to the room we used when we first got married."

I looked at him coldly.

Without a word, I turned around, pulled out a document, and handed it to him. "Sure. As long as you sign this, I'll bake the cake."

Salvatore didn't even bother reading the paper. He signed it right away.

"Done. Now hurry up and get to work."

Just as he turned to leave, his movement slowed. He glanced back at me, studying my face.

Whenever I got upset, there was always hurt or accusation in my expression. But today, I was unusually calm. For some reason, that made him uneasy.

"What did you make me sign?" he asked.

"It's nothing important. Just the deed to a dock," I replied, lowering my eyes as I folded the document. "I'll go bake the cake now."

He watched me for a few seconds, clearly unsure what to think. In the end, he said nothing more and left.

I returned to my room.

Designer clothes and luxury bags filled the closet. They were all gifts from Salvatore, decorations meant to dress up his canary.

I didn't take a single one of them. Instead, I placed the freshly signed divorce agreement beside the prenuptial contract from seven years ago on Salvatore's bedside table.

Once I was done, I left through the back door.

Goodbye, Salvatore.

Goodbye to the absurd seven years of my youth.

At the docks, I wore a mask and boarded the ferry. Just as the ship was about to depart, the phone in my pocket suddenly started vibrating like crazy.

It was Salvatore.

I stared at his name on the screen before hanging up without the slightest hesitation. Then, I removed the SIM card and tossed it into a trash can.