Surprisingly, it didn't take long for Frank to answer.

"Frank, I'm about to be discharged from the hospital. Thank you for looking after me all this time. I've decided to leave and never bother you again."

I was so nervous that my words came out in a single breath.

I heard a sigh on Frank's line, followed by him saying impatiently, "I was busy and couldn't visit you, that's all."

"I'm not trying to find fault with you, Frank. I'm just saying, since you don't need me anymore—"

"What the hell, Selena? Did you hear something you shouldn't have?" Frank cut me off icily.

It was the first time he'd spoken to me so brusquely, his tone so harsh that it sent a chill skittering down my spine.

He'd been so gentle and loving with me once upon a time that I'd forgotten about the wariness and bloodlust that came with his mafia background.

"Frank, I… I'm just a nobody. I swear I'll disappear from your world. From now on, I'll have nothing to do with you."

I scrambled to defend myself, but it seemed to make him angrier. "Where did you learn this trick, anyway? You'd better stay where you are. Don't you dare leave!"

I was so stunned that I couldn't move.

I snapped out of my daze after the call ended. I wasn't embroiled in any ordinary family dispute, but a mafia family scandal. I could very well be killed off to maintain secrecy.

At the thought of that, I rushed to find my mom, who'd completed her chemotherapy. After that, I called my younger sister, who'd successfully quit drugs. We agreed on a meeting place.

The three of us fled to the train station, my heels blistering and bleeding from the running. I dared not dawdle for even a moment.

We opened the door to the waiting room. It was unusually quiet here. All inbound trains were delayed, as indicated by the red letters on the screen in the center. The waiting room had been cleared out.

Frank sat on the bench in the middle with his legs crossed. Behind him were his men, standing in two straight lines.

When he saw us, he rose to his feet and came toward me. He reached out and forcefully pulled me to him, his icy lips finding my ear.

"Our family's got a reputation to uphold. If word of what you know gets out, it'll affect our stocks on Bonaventure Street. You must return with me, Selena."

I stared at the gun in Frank's hand and suppressed the growing fear in my heart. "My mom and sister know nothing. Let them leave, and I'll go back with you."

But a low laugh escaped him. He spread his arms and turned to face my mom. "Sophia, Selena here got into a fight with me and wants to leave me. She plans to take you both with her. Talk to her for me."

It was as if my mom, who'd complained the entire way here, finally got to take center stage. She delivered an angry slap across my face. "I knew there was more to this last-minute baloney holiday! You bitch—have you forgotten your place?

"Mr. Luccasio could've asked you to wipe his butt forever, and it'd still be a job above your station!"

The slap left an intense ringing in my ear. It reminded me of when I was 12 and my father had slipped his hand under my dress. My mom had admonished me then the same way she did now.

She never stood up for me when I needed it the most, nor did she ask the important questions. As far as she was concerned, I was always in the wrong, even if I was the reason she got to live a life of privilege now.

"Yeah, Selena. My celebrity crush just agreed to go out with me. Try not to get on Mr. Luccasio's bad side, okay?"

My younger sister, Ariana Romano, came up to me and tugged on my arm pleadingly. She used to look so unkempt, but now, she was dolled up like a socialite.

I stared at Ariana in disbelief. I'd protected and stood by her since she was a child, only for her to take Frank's side over mine.

If her hooligan boyfriend hadn't gotten her into drugs, she wouldn't have exhausted our family's money and taken out predatory loans to fund her addiction. Consequently, I wouldn't have run out of college funds and nearly ended up being forced into prostitution.

My mother and Ariana were terrified of losing the privileged life they enjoyed now. Neither of them cared about what I was going through, even though I'd just recovered from severe injuries.

And yet, I was scrambling to come up with an escape plan for them because they were my only family.

Frank hadn't been laughing at my attempt to flee, but at how blind I was not to realize where my mother's and Ariana's interests lay.

As my mom and Ariana apologized profusely to Frank, I remained expressionless and let his men take me into custody.

Frank took me back to his high-end apartment on the upper-east side of the city.

We'd only just stepped through the front door when he took off his tie and bound my wrists with it. He then frog-marched me into the bedroom.

But I didn't give up on explaining my way out of this. "Frank, what will it take for you to believe me? I promise I won't tell—"

The next second, I felt the hard slant of his lips on mine as he pulled me into a demanding kiss. My brain short-circuited as every fiber of my being became revulsed by the contact.

I bit down hard on his lip until the taste of blood bloomed in my mouth. Only then did Frank release me.

I roughly wiped the drool and blood from the corner of my mouth, snapping furiously, "What the hell are you doing?"

Without answering, Frank tossed me onto the bed.

I couldn't fight back properly with my wrists bound, and my newly recovered calves had little to no strength in them.

Before I knew it, Frank hovered over me and roughly tore off my shirt, dipping his head to sweep the tip of his tongue over my mounds. His hand trailed southward of my body and began to tease me.

He was all too familiar with how to please my body. It didn't take long for primal desires to overwhelm the voice of reason in my head. As much as I resented his touch, I was so wet that I dampened the sheets beneath me.

"Why are you doing this to me when you already have Isabella?" I seethed.

"Shut up!" Frank growled.

"Does the sound of my voice turn you on even though I'm just a cheap double? Why don't you go to Isabella, then?"

Fuming, Frank flipped me over and entered me from behind. He clutched my waist, his fingers digging into my skin as he thrust into me like a maniac until I couldn't form a coherent sentence.

When he was done, he lay on me and gripped my chin, panting. "If you want to live, I suggest you stay on my good side."

With that, he got off me and wordlessly changed into a new suit.

I watched as he left indifferently. I understood how the mafia's mercy worked. Fate had secretly given it a price, and it took more than the unilateral departure of one party to even the scales.

My life and everything else I had to offer were unending collateral to Frank.

As I slowly collected my thoughts, I tumbled out of the large bed and crawled toward the bathroom.

I wanted to wash myself clean and rinse off the sticky seed Frank had expelled all over my inner thighs. I wanted to purge my soul after he'd tainted it.

But I'd yet to reach the bathroom when the apartment door swung open again. The intruder looked haggard, her makeup smudged around her eyes.

I knew she was Isabella the moment I saw her face, which strongly resembled mine.

"So this is where he's hiding you!" Isabella grabbed me by the hair and hauled me to the kitchen. Even as I struggled to break free, my wrists were bound, and I only succeeded in scratching her arm with my nails.

She pinned my head to the ground, then picked up a knife and slashed me across the face.

The sharp pain in my face was enough to raise goosebumps all over me. I screamed, but she only sliced deeper.

"I hate people who look like me!"

After she had ruined my face, Isabella dumped me into the trunk of her car and brought me to an abandoned warehouse.

She dragged me out of the car, and two drunken vagrants leered at me, their gaze fixed on the curve of my breasts peeking out from my top.

Isabella fished out a couple of banknotes and threw them at the vagrants. "Rough her up!"

Upon hearing this, the two vagrants, both decorated in disgusting sores, staggered toward me. The smell of waste on them alone was enough to make me retch.

"Lord, please! Let me go! I promise I'll never bother the two of you again!" I backed away as if my life depended on it, but Isabella's leg kept me from going further.

"Isabella, you're already married to my father. Can't I at least keep her as a plaything for my pent-up frustration?"

I heard Frank's angry voice, followed by two consecutive gunshots. The vagrants collapsed one after another.

Isabella immediately ran to Frank, crying as her fists rained on his sculpted chest. "You haven't been inside me since I returned. Are you truly concerned about my status, or have you already fallen in love with her?"

Frank took a deep breath, gripped Isabella's fists, and pulled her into his arms. "Babe, you know I'm just an adopted son.

"Until I've usurped the Don, I'll always be under pressure, and I can't make love to my stepmother in that state. As for her, she's just a temporary replacement for you!"

I fully understood the situation now—I was an outlet for Frank's pent-up lust and Isabella's anger.

Frank wasn't the light of my world. He didn't even think of me as a human, but a plaything caught in his and Isabella's twisted relationship.

He was the devil's right-hand man, an illusion of heaven. He tricked me into falling for him, then tainted my body and humiliated my soul!

"Once that old fart returns, I'll kill him in his sleep if you want," Isabella offered.

Frank cupped Isabella's face, nuzzling her face with his nose. "Let's wait a little longer. He did raise me, after all."

"At least prove to me, then, that I can still turn you on," Isabella purred.

They began to tease and get hot and heavy with each other while I watched.

Isabella got on her knees before Frank and undid his pants. Then, she dragged her tongue along his shaft.

They quickly lost themselves in the heated endeavor.

Neither of them realized that I'd already cut through the necktie that bound my wrists with a shard from a broken beer bottle on the ground. They didn't see me record their lewd display on my phone, either.

"Don Luccasio, the woman blowing your son is your pretty new wife." I wrote the text and sent it to the Don's personal number, which I'd glimpsed before.

Shortly after, the message was successfully sent.

This time, it was my turn to send them to hell!