The vibration of my phone pulled me back from my thoughts.

It was a message from Matteo.

The summit schedule had changed, and I was required to return immediately.

I had no interest in lingering among these people, so I turned, ready to leave with my men.

However, Lucca suddenly stepped forward, gripping my wrist and pinning me against the wall.

“Eliana, what exactly are you playing at?

“I had people searching for you for three years. I thought you were dead.

“How could you just disappear like that? I thought you…”

Bloodshot veins surfaced in his eyes, and his voice trembled slightly.

I turned my face away, yet he stubbornly lifted my chin, trying to move closer.

The scent that once captivated me now felt suffocating.

I didn’t move, but Leo’s hand had already settled on the grip of his gun.

Lucca’s motion froze midway.

We stood locked in confrontation until a soft female voice suddenly broke in.

“Darling, so this is where you are. I thought someone rude had kept you occupied.”

Victoria Balsamo approached gracefully.

She was the only daughter of the Balsamo family’s don and had married Lucca three years ago, becoming the donna of the Rossi family.

She wore an expensive gown, though faint lines now marked the corners of her eyes, and her figure had grown noticeably thinner.

I had once admired this woman for securing thirty percent of the Rossi family’s port interests through marriage and gaining control of two major laundering channels.

Now, however, it seemed the power and status she obtained from Lucca through that marriage had not granted her a life much better than mine.

Her gaze moved slowly between Lucca and me before she slipped her arm intimately through his, claiming her place beside him.

With deliberate ease, her other hand brushed the black diamond ring resting on her ring finger—the custom piece forged for the alliance between the two families.

It had been crafted from the Rossi family’s mineral stone using her family’s workmanship, entirely one of a kind.

She intentionally let the ring remain within my line of sight, her fingers lightly tracing its surface.

I stared at it.

There had been countless nights in the past when I had lain in Lucca’s arms, fantasizing about him placing a ring on my finger.

I had even secretly sketched designs, wondering if one day I might become the woman he would openly acknowledge.

During those three years at Lucca’s side, everyone knew I was his woman. Yet he had never granted me a clear identity in any formal setting.

I wore the expensive clothes he commissioned for me and attended countless occasions beside him. Still, I always remained an outsider.

The looks directed at me were always mixed with desire, caution, and disdain.

Even so, I believed I was different for him.

Until the night before that family negotiation.

I intercepted critical intelligence capable of destroying his greatest rival, and I wanted to give Lucca a surprise.

Before the negotiation began, Lucca summoned me, and we shared a drink.

I placed my hand over the back of his, feeling the pulse beneath his skin.

It was the closest I had ever been to him; the atmosphere so gentle that it felt almost unreal.

“Lucca, I obtained something that can eliminate the Balsamo family…”

Before I could finish, the meeting room doors opened.

His chief consigliere entered, his expression serious.

“Don Rossi, the family elders have arrived. We may begin.”

Lucca released my hand, adjusted his tie, and walked toward the head seat.

I remained where I was, my heart gradually turning cold.

“Ladies and gentlemen, today I will announce a decision concerning the family’s future.”

His gaze swept across the room before finally landing on my position.

My heart tightened abruptly.

Then Lucca extended his hand, not toward me, but toward the seat opposite.

“Victoria Balsamo. Our cooperation will usher in a new era.”

Seated across from me, Victoria rose in her red gown under the crowd’s complicated stares and walked to his side.

I stood in the shadows as the surrounding voices grew distant and the lights blurred, while Lucca’s words carved themselves into my mind, one syllable at a time.

“From this day forward, the Rossi family and the Balsamo family are joined in marriage.”

“An excellent decision, Don Rossi!”

“Congratulations!”

Deliberate applause erupted throughout the room.

When Victoria extended her hand, Lucca picked up the black diamond ring and placed it onto her finger. With the witness of everyone present, he lowered his head to kiss the back of her hand.

When I rushed out of the meeting room, a cold rain had already begun to fall.

Raindrops struck my face, and I could no longer tell whether what slid down my cheeks was rain or something else.

Lucca’s faint laughter, delivered through an encrypted line to the head of the Balsamo family, continued to echo in my ears like the cold muzzle of a gun pressed directly against my heart.

“Eliana? She was the sharpest blade in my hand, but now I have a stronger alliance.

“Trading her and the lives of those subordinates you hate most for your trust is a very worthwhile deal.”

I sat in the muddy water of an alley, my mind completely blank.

After an unknown stretch of time, a pair of polished leather shoes stopped in front of me.

He stood beneath a black umbrella, impeccably dressed. His composed elegance formed a world entirely separate from my disheveled state in the mud.

“Lucca, why did you do this?”

He looked down at me from above, his eyes filled with unyielding indifference.

“Eliana, don’t be naïve. We were never walking the same path.

“Today it’s Victoria. Tomorrow, it could be someone else. But that person was never going to be you.”

I suddenly laughed, my whole body trembling.

“But Lucca, I obtained evidence that could destroy them.”

Even then, I still held onto a faint trace of hope, wanting to prove my value. I had hoped he might reconsider for the sake of everything that once existed between us.

However, his expression turned instantly cold.

“Eliana, I didn’t expect you to understand the rules so poorly.

“You think you can use something like this to threaten me and change my decision?”

He crouched down, gripping my chin, his voice heavy with warning.

“Eliana, take your men and clear out the warehouse in the west district. Handle everything cleanly.

“Otherwise…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but I understood perfectly what it meant.

I resisted stubbornly through the entire night until Lucca finally lost all patience.

The next day, he sent me the operational route to the warehouse.

On one side were the few loyal men I had left; on the other was the death order he had given that I could not refuse.

He was forcing me to offer my men’s lives as the final sacrifice for his political marriage.

In the end, I still led my men there.

At the designated location, we were met with an ambush backed by firepower several times greater than ours.

My loyalty and love were buried together with the men who fell, swallowed by the flames of that inferno.

When I reported the mission’s failure to Lucca, he finally responded to my communication.

His voice carried no emotion as he said, “Understood. Be cleaner next time.”

From that day on, I became quieter and more efficient, and he seemed satisfied with this newfound obedience.

I began quietly liquidating every asset he had given me, secretly preparing an escape route for myself and my surviving men.

Just as I was about to slip beyond his control, his engagement ceremony with Victoria shook the entire city.

It should have had nothing to do with me, yet Victoria personally named me to attend and offer my blessings.

The incident happened at that very moment.

The massive screen that was meant to display the story of their relationship suddenly began playing intimate footage of Lucca and me instead.

In the video, my face flushed as my arms wrapped around his neck.

“Lucca, do you love me?”

Victoria’s shocked cry and sobbing echoed through the hall.

Every guest present turned to look at me with horror and disgust.

I didn’t understand why that video had appeared there either.

Lucca said nothing, only watching me with cold eyes.

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t…”

Just as I stood on the verge of freedom, Victoria used a borrowed blade to turn everyone against me.

“Eliana, what fantasy are you still clinging to?”

“You think filthy tricks like this can scare Victoria away? How pathetic.

“If you want me to spare them, then confess before all the families that you leaked the footage deliberately to sabotage the alliance.”

I had no choice.

Later on, I thought countless times if, given another chance, seventeen-year-old Eliana would never have followed that man out of the storage room.

I kneeled before representatives of every family, humiliating myself as I confessed to ambition and betrayal.

However, my surrender did not buy my men their lives.

That very night, after my confession, they were secretly executed as traitors.

“Eliana, who do you think you are?!”

Victoria’s sharp voice dragged me back to the present.

I lifted my head and met Lucca’s gaze.

His expression was complicated.

“Eliana, you weren’t like this before. Are you still angry with me?”

Victoria shot me a venomous glare and deliberately raised her voice.

“Today’s summit will decide the balance of power for the next decade. When did trash like you get the nerve to come here and cause trouble?

“Guards, drag this madwoman out!”

The next second, a steady, cold voice sounded from behind me.

“Let’s see who dares lay a hand on my fiancée.”