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##Chapter 1

The champagne bottle slipped from my fingers.

Crystal shattered against marble as I stood frozen in the doorway of our private club, watching my husband of ten years thrust into another woman like she was his salvation.

"Vincenzo," I whispered.

He didn't hear me over Isabella Romano's breathless moans.

My surprise anniversary dinner lay forgotten in my trembling hands—truffle risotto from his favorite restaurant, wine from our honeymoon in Tuscany.

"How touching."

The ice-cold voice behind me belonged to Donatella Moretti, my mother-in-law.

The Black Obsidian Society's matriarch stepped out of the shadows like death herself, her silver hair gleaming under the chandeliers.

"Ten years of barren marriage," she continued, her voice cutting through me like a blade. "Isabella will give us what you never could."

Vincenzo finally noticed me, pulling away from Isabella with lazy satisfaction rather than shame.

"Cassandra." He straightened his tie. "This isn't what it looks like."

"Really?" My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. "Because it looks like you're fucking Alfonso Romano's goddaughter in our club."

Isabella smirked, pulling her dress down slowly. "Soon to be your replacement, darling."

The words hit like bullets to my chest.

"Isabella is carrying triplets," Donatella announced with the authority of a queen addressing peasants. "The Moretti heirs this family desperately needs."

My knees threatened to buckle, but I locked them in place.

Ten years of loyalty, of standing beside Vincenzo through gang wars and federal investigations, of being the perfect mafia wife.

"She'll make a much better Lady of the House," Donatella continued. "Fertile. Young. Compliant."

The room spun around me as the full scope of their betrayal crystallized.

This wasn't an affair—it was a coup.

"I see." I set down the destroyed dinner with steady hands. "How long has this been planned?"

"Since the pregnancy test came back positive," Vincenzo said without a trace of remorse. "Three months."

Three months of lies, of him touching me while thinking of her.

"Congratulations," I said softly.

Donatella's eyes narrowed suspiciously at my calm tone.

"You're taking this remarkably well, Cassandra."

I smiled—the same smile I'd worn through a hundred negotiations with rival families, the same smile that had earned me respect in a world where women were meant to be silent.

"What choice do I have?" I asked. "The family comes first."

But as I walked past them toward the elevator, something dark and deadly awakened in my chest.

They thought they'd broken me.

They had no idea they'd just unleashed hell.

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