Chapter 1

When my fiancé lets his new assistant put my name on the family purge list, he tells me it was only a joke. He expects me to apologize, come home, and keep standing beside him while everyone watches another woman take my place. So I let the order go through. I leave his family, his city, and the future he thought I would never dare abandon.

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Serena Carraro.

My name sits quietly at the very top of the purge list, followed by a line of glaring status alerts.

Pending Council Approval.

I stare at it for a full ten seconds before I finally drag my gaze to the far right.

Recommended by: Luca Valenti.

I pick up my phone and call him directly.

He answers almost at once. The pounding beat of an underground bar crashes through the receiver, loud enough to make my head ache.

“What is it?” His voice is flat.

I keep my voice low. “Did you sign off on the purge list?”

For two seconds, there is only silence.

Then he lets out a soft laugh.

“You saw that?”

My fingers tighten around the phone. “I asked you if you signed it.”

“Elena submitted the exit request for you.” He says it as if he is talking about something perfectly ordinary. “She was just playing around. Trying to lighten the mood.”

I look at the approval status on the screen, and my chest sinks lower with every beat.

“A purge order has already entered Council review, and you call that playing around?”

“Serena, don’t make this bigger than it is.” Impatience has already crept into his tone. “Just go to the Council yourself and tell them to withdraw it. That’s all.”

“And what if I hadn’t found it?” I ask. “She overstepped her authority and submitted a purge request. I have every right to have Internal Oversight investigate her.”

Luca’s voice goes cold at once.

“Serena, when did you become this cruel?”

“It was just a joke. Do you really need to send Elena to Internal Oversight over this? There has to be a limit to jealousy. Can’t you be a little more generous?”

By the end, anger has sharpened his voice.

“How many times do I have to explain this to you? She’s new to the family. She has no foundation in New York. What’s wrong with me looking after her a little?”

“And let me make one thing clear. I gave her that access. I approved it. If you want someone investigated, tell them to come investigate me.”

Then he hangs up.

I stand there, unable to say a word.

It feels as if every ounce of strength has been drained from my body.

From the day my father sent me into the Valenti family to the day I became Luca’s fiancée, Luca and I have known each other for four years.

We have been together for three.

He is the Don of the Valenti family.

And once, I truly believed he was the man I would spend my life with.

I remember the first mission I ever went on with him.

An enemy family had trapped me in an abandoned warehouse.

Luca was the one who broke through the doors with his men. He draped his coat over my shoulders and said in a low voice, “Don’t be afraid. From this day on, you’re under my protection.”

Even now, I still remember the warmth of his palm.

Then I remember last winter.

I took a bullet for him by the Hudson River. When I woke up, he was sitting beside my hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot from staying awake all night.

He said that once things settled down, we would finally hold the wedding.

Everyone said we were the best-matched pair in the Valenti family.

We had even already chosen the date for the family baptism at the church.

Everything should have fallen naturally into place.

But now, I stare at the screen in front of me.

All I have to do is click Withdraw, and the purge request will be canceled.

But Luca’s careless words keep echoing in my mind.

Just a joke.

An indescribable exhaustion spreads through my chest.

Suddenly, I no longer want to fight.

A moment later, someone stops at the study door.

I look up.

It is Elena.

She is wearing an expensive black mini dress, a stack of freshly organized meeting files held against her chest. She smiles at me sweetly.

“Miss Serena.”

Her voice is soft, almost convincingly innocent.

“I just came from Mr. Luca’s office. He didn’t seem to be in a very good mood. He said he wanted to go to a private club tonight for a few drinks.”

“I only came to ask if I may go with him.”

She says it directly.

Her wording is so careful I can’t find a single fault in it.

But the smugness in her eyes still fails to hide.

For the past six months, she has always been like this.

In front of others, she is obedient and quiet, like a delicate canary waiting to be protected.

Behind closed doors, she always manages to step exactly into my place, then asks me with that innocent face whether I mind.

I look at her in silence, my emotions churning beneath the surface.

When exactly did Luca start to change?

Why is he protecting a woman he used to look down on?

At first, Luca had little patience for Elena.

He said she was timid, clumsy, and so unsteady that she could mess up even the simplest handover documents. Sooner or later, he said, the family would eliminate her.

Then one day, they went to Chicago together for negotiations and were ambushed on the way back.

I heard Luca’s old wound reopened, and the doctor traveling with them was trapped inside the lockdown zone.

Elena braved the storm and searched the empty streets for most of the night, finally bringing back hemostatic medicine, a suture kit, and fever injections for him.

After that night, Luca’s attitude toward her changed.

Later, the two of them grew closer by the day.

Elena began calling him “sir.”

Luca also tacitly allowed her to come and go from his office as she pleased.

Inside the family, they laughed and talked together, close and inseparable.

Eventually, everyone in the Valenti family knew.

Luca had a new little assistant by his side, one who knew better than anyone how to take care of him.

In private, some people even joked that Elena was there to take a knife for him when trouble came, and warm his bed when it didn’t.

Every time I heard something like that, my face would darken.

But Luca never cared.

He would only take my hand and smile.

“Don’t listen to their nonsense. I only see Elena as a subordinate who needs looking after.”

“Serena, you know that. The one I love is you.”

But now?

Can he still promise that the one he loves is me?

I look at Elena, but before I can answer, hurried footsteps sound from the end of the corridor.

Clearly, this is the moment she has been waiting for.

But when she speaks, her voice is soft, wounded.

“Miss Serena, did I do something wrong again?”

Luca strides toward us.

“Elena, what are you doing here? I told you to wait downstairs.”

Elena’s shoulders shrink in slightly, and she hugs the files tighter against her chest.

“I was just afraid Miss Serena might misunderstand.”

“You said you were taking me to the private club tonight. I didn’t know whether I should say yes, so I came to ask her first.”

The coldness in Luca’s expression softens almost instantly.

“Since when do I need her permission to take someone out?”

Elena bites her lip and says nothing.

With her head lowered, she looks as if I have cornered her with nowhere left to go.

Luca turns to me, and there is already no patience left in his voice.

“Hasn’t Elena shown you enough respect? She even came to ask before going out with me.”

“And you? You can’t even let go of a joke.”

I look at him, and suddenly, the whole thing feels absurd.

In his mouth, the fact that I was nearly removed from the Valenti family, nearly stripped of my authority, my connections, and every protection I had built for myself, is nothing more than a joke that should be brushed aside.

And if I refuse to accept it with a smile, then I am the unreasonable one.

I let out a low laugh.

“Respect?”

“In the past six months, how many times has she interfered with my accounts in your name? Did you not see that?”

“She sits in your car in front of everyone. She walks in and out of your office. She fixes your tie for you. Now she even wants to follow you to your private parties.”

I lift my eyes to his.

“And you call that respect?”

“Luca, do you really not know what she wants?”

“Or have you known all along that she likes you, and simply never bothered to stop her?”

The color drains from Elena’s face.

The next second, her eyes turn red.

“Mr. Luca, I didn’t...”

Her voice trembles with perfect timing.

“I only wanted to help take a little of the burden off your shoulders. If Miss Serena minds this much, I’ll just keep my distance from you from now on.”

Luca’s face turns completely cold.

“Enough.”

He steps in front of Elena, shielding her with his body, as if I am the threat in the room.

“Serena, when did you learn to slander people like this?”

Something heavy presses against my chest.

The way he protects her is too natural.

So natural it feels as if he has done it a thousand times before.

Luca looks at me and suddenly lets out a low laugh.

There is no warmth in it at all.

“Serena, if you insist on thinking so badly of her, then nothing I say will matter.”

He looks at me, his voice as cold as a sentence being handed down.

“If you can’t even tolerate one assistant by my side, then maybe the Valenti family engagement really does need to be reconsidered.”

My chest tightens, slowly and painfully.

I never imagined there would come a day when Luca would put our engagement on the negotiating table.

As if it is nothing more than a partnership agreement he can withdraw at any time.

He says it needs to be reconsidered.

Is that a warning?

Or has he already decided, for Elena’s sake, that I am the one who should be pushed out?

I stand there and look at him in silence.

For a brief second, Luca’s eyes waver.

But only for a second.

Soon, he turns his face away and refuses to look at me.

I know he remembers too.

He remembers the nights we dragged each other out of gunfire.

He remembers the day he placed the engagement ring on my finger in front of both our families’ elders.

He remembers telling me that the only Donna of the Valenti family would ever be me.

But now?

Now he has turned that ring into leverage to force me to lower my head.

The man in front of me is no longer the man who once stood between me and danger.

All his patience, his trust, and his favoritism have already gone to Elena.

“You climbed up from the bottom too. You should know better than anyone how hard it is for a woman to gain a foothold in this family.”

Luca looks at me, his voice so cold it feels unfamiliar.

“Back then, you were falsely accused of leaking intelligence too. The Council almost drove you out.”

“You know exactly what it feels like to be targeted. So why are you making things so hard for Elena now?”

“Thankfully, she’s soft-hearted enough not to hold this against you.”

“Apologize to her, and this matter ends here.”

I look at Luca.

Then I look at Elena, hiding behind him.

And all at once, every desire I have to argue disappears.

I withdraw my gaze and say calmly,

“I won’t apologize.”

The last trace of warmth sinks out of Luca’s eyes.

“Are you really going to let things get this ugly?”

For some reason, I almost want to laugh.

I am the one whose name was submitted for purge.

I am the one whose authority was violated.

I am the one being forced by my fiancé to bow my head to the person who started all of this.

And yet in his eyes, I am the one refusing to let it end.

Softly, I say,

“Luca, I will never apologize to her.”

His jaw tightens, as if I have finally used up the last of his patience.

“Fine.”

“Then keep clinging to that pride of yours.”

With that, he turns to Elena.

“Let’s go.”

Elena immediately lowers her head and follows him.

When she passes by me, her steps pause for the briefest moment.

On that pale, tear-streaked face, a faint smile appears.

Just for an instant.

So light it is almost as if it was never there at all.