Everyone called me a shameless bitch, while Magnus was hailed as the Don who upheld his family's honor in the face of betrayal. Lori was celebrated as the legendary woman who had captured the Don's true love.
His supporters sent me countless death threats, threw dead rats at the manor gates, and spray-painted the walls with obscene graffiti in screaming red paint.
During this time, Magnus escorted Lori to Europe's most exclusive casinos and private galas, pointedly visiting every city where I'd once dreamed of seeing art exhibitions with him.
But even then, I couldn't bring myself to give up on the years of love we had shared.
After all, besides my father, he was the only one in this world who had ever loved me, the only one who had ever treasured me.
When I was eighteen, my father, a disgraced politician, took his own life amid a swirling scandal.
A month later, at what should have been my coming-of-age party, the bank seized the home I grew up in.
The Gallo family descended like vultures to pick apart my family's last assets before tossing me out onto the street.
The Chicago winter that year was bone-chillingly cold.
Just as I was about to freeze to death in some forgotten alley, it was Magnus who scoured the entire city in his black Bentley to find me and bring me into his world.
He wrapped me tightly in an expensive cashmere blanket, his voice laced with anger and pain.
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"Isabella, I want you to remember something: even if the whole world abandons you, I, Magnus Moretti, will always want you!"
From then on, Magnus took me under his wing, using all his power to shelter me.
He enrolled me at the University of Chicago. In a place teeming with the elite and powerful, the daughter of a disgraced official was an anomaly. Everyone was just waiting for me to become a laughingstock.
But at a university ceremony celebrating a massive donation, Magnus declared in front of everyone:
"Isabella is mine. Anyone who touches her makes an enemy of the entire Moretti family."
To help me escape the shadows of my past, he showered me with luxury. Michelin-starred chefs flew in the freshest ingredients for me every day.
The moment Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week concluded, the latest custom gowns would be waiting in my closet.
Once, after a visit to the Louvre, I casually mentioned how I wished I had a studio with a view. He then built me a massive glass conservatory on the priceless shoreline of Lake Michigan.
Magnus's devotion to me became the talk of Chicago.
He spoiled me until I was so delicate, so naive, that I even developed a willfulness I never thought I'd possess again.
Whenever I woke from nightmares of my father's death, crying that he, too, might one day abandon me, he would promise me again and again, his voice a low, tobacco-scented rumble:
"Don't ever be afraid, Bella. I'd have to be in hell to stop loving you."
How could I ever let go of a man like that?
So after he and Lori returned from Monaco, I began to swallow my pride and desperately try to win him back.
I brought him the blood test results, but no matter how I explained, Magnus refused to believe me, convinced it was just evidence I'd paid a doctor to fake.
Helpless, I tried to win him back with the art supplies he had given me, the only photograph he had ever taken, the small mementos that held our secret memories.
But for every memento I showed him, he burned another.
Eventually, I even put on the black silk dress he once loved and clumsily danced for him, hoping my nominal husband would stay in my room for just one night.
Magnus did stop. For the first time since the wedding, he approached me.
But just as his lips were about to touch mine, he pinched my chin, a cruel smirk twisting his lips.
"Isabella, are you really this cheap?"
"Too bad I'm particular about cleanliness. I don't touch anything filthy."
The next day, he appeared with Lori at a private poker game for the heads of Chicago's most powerful families. He threw a file containing my most private information onto the table as his bet.
When his bodyguards dragged me into the room, my eyes landed on the file immediately.
Magnus watched the color drain from my face, relishing my horror with a cruel laugh.
"Do you like it, my dear wife? A gift for our first wedding anniversary."
The room filled with jeers as countless slimy gazes crawled over my body.
Lori leaned languidly against Magnus's chest, her eyes triumphant as she flaunted the rare black diamond on her finger.
"Our dear Bella has always been so artistic. Magnus, this gift is perfect for her."
"But since you got with me, it seems you haven't touched her, have you? For someone like our Bella, who looks so pure but is so fiery inside, it's no wonder she'd get so desperate."
"I'm not a petty woman. She is your wife in name only. Why don't you find some time to satisfy her, Magnus? Otherwise, with how rough you are with me every night, my body can barely take it."
At her words, the look Magnus shot me was one of pure disgust.
"Touch her? I'd be afraid of dirtying my hands."
He turned and kissed Lori's forehead affectionately.
"Good girl. I only want someone as clean and pure as you. With my winnings from this game, I'll buy you that Scottish castle. How does that sound?"
Watching the two of them, so hopelessly in love, I closed my eyes. Tears streamed down my face as a profound despair finally consumed me.
My voice was low and deliberate. "Magnus, let me go."
Hearing my words, Magnus shot me a sideways glance and burst out laughing.
"Isabella, what right do you have to talk about leaving?"
He stood up, leaning down to admire my pained expression, and roughly wiped away the tears on my face with the thumb of the hand that wore his family signet ring.
"You haven't forgotten what I said, have you? I want you to suffer for the rest of your life. We're just getting started, Isabella."
"As long as I say no, you are the property of the Moretti family for the rest of your life!"
And so, to punish my defiance, Magnus moved Lori into the manor.
He desecrated every space I cherished. My art studio, my study, my piano room—each morning I would find them littered with their used wine glasses and Lori's discarded lace underwear.
Insomnia took hold.
