Chapter 2

After Elliot hung up, I leaned against the cold metal wall and slowly slid down to the floor.

Five years. I'd been trying to pretend nothing had happened, but this safe was the cruelest evidence, forcing me to stop deceiving myself.

Five years ago, the celebration banquet at Naples Harbor. The air smelled of cigars, expensive champagne, and money washed clean of blood.

I'd just eliminated the last and most threatening family elder standing in Adrian's path to power. The hem of my dress still bore barely noticeable traces of gunpowder.

Adrian was at the center of the crowd. He raised his glass to me, his eyes carrying what I'd misread as admiration and intimacy.

We'd secretly married a week earlier, in a small chapel with just a priest and the two of us. He said it was to protect me. "Enemies will target my wife, but they won't notice a capable subordinate."

I believed him. I'd even found the secrecy romantic—our shared, dangerous bond.

Then he walked onto the temporary stage and clinked his champagne glass. The entire hall fell silent.

"Tonight, we celebrate not just a business victory," his voice traveled through the microphone across the hall, impossibly tender. "But the most important acquisition of my life."

My heartbeat skipped. I thought he was going to announce our marriage. I even unconsciously straightened my back, fingers tightening on my skirt.

His gaze passed over me and landed somewhere not far behind me.

There stood Olivia, my "good friend," the family's newly appointed art consultant, wearing a pure white dress like an innocent lily.

"Olivia," he called her name, the tenderness in his voice freezing all the blood in my body instantly. "You are the only peace in my chaotic world, a grace I never dared hope for."

He walked down from the stage, went straight to her, and knelt on one knee. A velvet box opened in his hand, the diamond's brilliance stabbing painfully at my eyes.

"Marry me, Olivia. Let me legitimately protect you for the rest of our lives."

The entire harbor erupted in thunderous cheers, whistles, and applause. Olivia covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide, tears streaming down instantly.

She nodded frantically, extending her finger for Adrian to slip on the ring. They embraced and kissed amid everyone's blessings. Flashbulbs lit up like a sea of light.

The sea wind was strong, yet I felt unable to breathe.

Everyone's eyes swept back and forth between me and that radiant couple like searchlights. Surprise, pity, mockery... I stood there like a stripped clown on display.

I could even hear two women nearby whispering: "Look at Keira's face... Hasn't she always followed Adrian around? I thought..." "Shh, don't say it, how pitiful..."

The party continued its revelry around me, but I couldn't hear anything clearly anymore.

I don't know how I left the dock, how I got back to what Adrian and I called "home." That simple silver wedding band dug painfully into my finger.

For the next three days, I didn't leave the house. Phone turned off. Until the fourth evening, when the doorbell rang frantically, and Adrian's hoarse, anxious voice came from outside.

"Keira! Open the door! Please open the door! I know you're in there!"

I opened the door. He stood outside, unshaven, eyes bloodshot, holding a bouquet of slightly wilted white roses. He looked terrible.

"Keira," he pushed inside, grabbing my shoulders with frightening strength. "Listen to me. That proposal, it was fake. All an act."

I looked at him numbly, saying nothing.

"Olivia's uncle controls a maritime route we desperately need. That old fox only cares about his precious niece. I had to show him my 'sincerity,' show him Olivia's status in our family." He spoke rapidly, his gaze searching my face urgently for a reaction. "It was just a business strategy, Keira. Olivia and I agreed, just acting. You're my wife, my only legal wife. You know how many people want to bring me down right now. I can't make you public, that would get you killed! This performance was to protect you, understand?"

Tears streamed down his face. He looked so pained, so genuine.

"Forgive me, Keira. I made a terrible mistake, but my love for you is real. Only you. Olivia and I are nothing, I swear."

Just then, Olivia appeared at the door too. Her eyes were swollen like peaches. She rushed in and grabbed my hand, sobbing breathlessly.

"Keira, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She choked out. "It's all my fault! I shouldn't have agreed to his stupid charade! Seeing you hurt breaks my heart! You can hit me, scold me, but don't blame Adrian. He did it for the family, for all our safety! Please don't leave him, he can't live without you!"

The two of them, one painfully repentant, one crying rivers, surrounded me, bombarding my already crumbling will with high-sounding reasons like "unavoidable circumstances" and "to protect you."

My heart shattered into pieces, but pathetically, from those ruins, a trace of humble hope still emerged. Maybe... it really was force of circumstances? Maybe he really had unspeakable reasons?

I chose to believe. Or rather, I chose to cowardly grasp that straw called "circumstances," escaping the complete collapse of my world.

Olivia "heartbrokenly" went abroad again to "heal." Adrian was doubly "good" to me. He gave me more "trust"—assigning me the family's most dangerous, dirtiest tasks.

He said: "Keira, only you can handle this. Olivia is too clean, she can't be tainted by these things. I protect her, just like I'm desperately hiding and protecting you. You're both too important to me, just in different ways."

So I became his sharpest blade and his hardest shield.

In an Eastern European deal, a bullet headed toward Olivia's direction. Adrian shouted through the communicator: "Keira, shield her!" I lunged over, my shoulder blade pierced, while Olivia just screamed in fear.

Adrian held me afterward, voice choking: "Thank you for protecting her. I can't lose her, just like I can't lose you. You understand?"

At a dock warehouse, we were ambushed. Adrian immediately pushed Olivia behind absolute cover, then shouted at me: "Keira, draw fire! Go toward the left corridor!"

I did as told, leaving a deep knife scar on my abdomen. Olivia bandaged me afterward, tears streaming: "Keira, you always save us. What would we do without you?"

Every time I bled, it earned his gratitude and her tears.

Every time, I was told it was for the "greater good," for this "family."

I actually grew accustomed to this positioning. I was the shadow, the weapon, the dirty barrier ensuring they could stand in the sunlight.

Until today, until I opened that safe with my own hands and read those cold, calculating words.

The armory's cold air made me shudder violently, fully awakening from a five-year nightmare.

There was no business strategy, no unavoidable circumstances. Only deliberate exploitation, and a cruel five-year scam targeting me alone.