2

Chapter 2

By the time the car delivered me back to the estate, night had fallen.

The iron gates closed slowly, familiar security systems disengaging layer by layer. I walked inside and the lights automatically illuminated, the entire house quiet as a meticulously maintained fortress.

This was where I'd lived for five years.

This was also where I'd personally helped design the security lines, escape routes, and backup weapon armories.

I removed my coat without calling for the house staff.

I didn't need them watching me pack.

I went to the study first.

The safe opened with a soft metallic sound, like a brief sigh. Inside were some old things—worthless in monetary terms, but they shouldn't remain here.

The first gun.

This was Vincenzo's first real piece. Not a standard-issue family weapon, but one I'd bought with my first "clean money." He'd been so nervous that day his palms were sweating. I stood behind him, teaching him how to load the magazine, how to chamber a round.

That gun was never used again.

Because he no longer needed anyone to teach him how to kill.

I placed it in the box.

Next were the ledgers. The earliest pages bore my handwriting, recording transactions that hadn't yet seen daylight, territory routes marked in pencil with his scrawled annotations beside them.

Back then we'd sit at a small table, staying up until dawn working through a five-hundred-thousand-dollar deal.

Now, five hundred thousand wasn't enough to make one woman happy.

I closed the ledger.

In the dressing room, I didn't take much.

The designer gowns, jewelry, the ceremonial heirloom necklace his mother had given me during our wedding—the one that signified my position as the Godfather's wife—I left them all. Those things belonged to "Signora Castellano," not to me.

I only took a few casual outfits and an old watch.

He'd bought it for me the first time we'd really gained our footing. Not expensive, but it was the first time after money came in that he didn't immediately think about expansion, weapons, or family alliances.

That day he'd told me: "There'll be better ones later."

There were, eventually.

Just never for me.

I sat on the sofa. My phone lit up.

Instagram notification.

Isabella's account.

I opened it.

A gold signet ring filled the entire screen—heavy, ornate, with the Castellano family crest engraved deeply into the surface. The kind of ring that marked a woman as untouchable, as belonging to the Don himself. In our world, this wasn't just jewelry—it was a declaration of protection, of ownership, of status. The caption was brief—

"The feeling of being protected."

The location showed a mansion outside the city.

I recognized that house. Vincenzo had "acquired" it two years ago; nobody mentioned anymore which river the previous owner was buried in.

I knew what that ring cost, but more importantly, I knew what it meant. It was the same design as the one his mother wore. The same one I'd been given at our wedding, the one that now sat in my jewelry box upstairs.

He'd given Isabella the symbol of a Don's wife.

3.2 million euros for the custom piece.

I closed my phone without looking further.

Today was our wedding anniversary.

The fifth year, yet he seemed to have forgotten.

I made myself osso buco—the traditional Milanese dish my Sicilian grandmother had taught me. The veal simmered slowly, the rich aroma of bone marrow and wine filling the kitchen. As I stirred the risotto, I heard sounds from the entrance.

Vincenzo was back.

He changed his shoes, walked into the kitchen, glanced at the stove.

"Anniversary dinner?" His tone was casual, like he was making a harmless joke.

I plated the osso buco without answering, the saffron risotto golden beside it.

He placed a small box on the table, pushing it toward me.

"For you," he said. "Anniversary gift."

I glanced at him, then opened it anyway.

A bracelet.

A thin gold chain with a single small charm—delicate, pretty, expensive enough—if you were giving it to a mistress, not a wife.

I closed the box.

"Let's go out to eat," he said. "I made a reservation."

I looked up at him.

"Isabella's ring is very beautiful," I said.

His expression froze for an instant, then quickly recovered.

"She was frightened," he said. "She needed reassurance."

"So you gave her the family signet ring—the symbol of the Don's wife—but on our anniversary you give your actual wife this delicate little bracelet?" I held up the box, unable to stop myself from laughing.

"Aria, I'm tired. I barely managed to clean up the mess and carved out time to come back and have dinner with you. Don't make me regret it."

Suddenly, his phone rang.

He answered, listened for a few seconds, his gaze falling on me.

I spoke before he could.

"Go ahead," I said. "Do what you need to do."

He was visibly stunned.

This was the first time I hadn't objected, hadn't argued when this happened.

He came over and embraced me.

"I'll make it up to you," he said, his tone solemn, like he was promising a business deal.

I didn't respond.

After he left, the house grew quiet again.

I took the bracelet out of the box and looked at it.

The gold glinted once under the light, then seemed cheap and hollow.

I walked to the trash can and dropped it in.

No hesitation.

I didn't need this expired thing.

And I certainly didn't need evidence that he'd "remembered."