Chapter 1

After my seventh miscarriage, the Family physician handed down a death sentence.

If I lost another child, I would die on his table.

To save my own life, I spoke the word divorce to Dominic Falcone for the first time. In this world they call it breaking the bloodline pact, a mortal insult, and I knew the cost of the word even as it left my mouth.

That cold, disgusted face of his cracked for a moment, and he agreed with a sneer.

The next day I woke locked inside the estate greenhouse, the glass sealed and the heat climbing past a hundred and forty degrees.

"Adriana Rizzo, what makes you think you have any right to ask me for a divorce?!"

"Playing hard to get again? Fine. I'll give you exactly what you want!"

Dominic held Gemma Bruno close against him, his eyes brimming with pure hatred.

I beat frantically at the scorching glass.

"Dominic, your condition is flaring up again!"

"Go take your medicine, now!"

Three years ago, when we loved each other most, Dominic protected me. Before the throne, before the soldiers who now straightened whenever he entered a room, there had only been us.

He took a severe head injury in the crash and developed a disorder of consciousness.

Inside his mind, love and hate were reversed.

The deeper the love, the more violent the hatred.

Fighting through the pain, I spoke of how we once loved each other.

Dominic only turned the temperature higher, cold as ever.

Every pore of my skin felt like it was roasting.

I collapsed in a pool of blood, and suddenly the physician's words came back to me.

The Don's disorder of consciousness would certainly heal within three years.

Now three years had passed, plus one more week.

Why hadn't his mind recovered?

——

The doubt spun in my head for only a few seconds.

Then a burning that sank into my bones stripped away every last thread of thought.

Beyond the glass, the disgust on Dominic's face only deepened. Not one of the enforcers along the wall moved. In this Family, when the Don passed a sentence, no man breathed a word.

"You make me sick!"

"Every time I think of being loved by a woman like you, it makes me sick beyond words!"

The cold words spilled from his mouth.

Dominic turned the greenhouse hotter again.

Even the breath in my nose carried the smell of scorching.

In my daze, I remembered the first time I told Dominic 【I love you】.

The thrill, the excitement on his face.

"Adriana says she loves me!"

"I want to tell everyone, Adriana loves Dominic!"

That jubilant, cheering voice still echoed in my ears.

I forced my eyes open, only to hear Gemma's soft, panting moans beside me.

"Dominic, not here…"

"What's there to be afraid of?!"

"I love you, everyone knows it, what is there to hide?"

Through my blurred vision, Dominic pinned Gemma down and kissed her hard. She let her fingers drift to the pendant at her throat, and her small laugh came a half-beat too soon, the way it always did.

Looking at the love overflowing from his eyes, my heart clenched until I couldn't breathe.

Curled up on the floor, I felt the blood between my legs had almost dried.

Beyond the glass, Dominic's voice came again.

"Adriana, did the baby miscarry?"

That sudden line dragged me back three years.

After the crash, I'd nursed the comatose Dominic day and night without sleep, until I fainted at his bedside.

When I woke again, I discovered I was pregnant.

Overjoyed, I hurried back to the room, ready to tell the unconscious Dominic the good news.

I pushed open the door and saw Gemma riding him, her body rising and falling.

Dominic, just awakened, wore that same deep love in his eyes.

He cradled Gemma carefully with the hand that still wore the wedding band he'd sworn to me.

That day, I screamed as I tore Gemma off of him.

My eyes went hollow, and I wiped at the marks they'd left, out of my mind.

As if in a dream, I forced a smile to my lips.

"Dominic, I'm pregnant."

"Our baby, didn't you already pick out a name for it?"

I asked in a hoarse voice.

But Dominic kicked me away in disgust.

"Get away! Don't touch me!"

"Who told a disgusting woman like you to get pregnant with my child?!"

"Go get rid of it, now!"

Those same words came back to my ears again.

I froze, my fingers twisting the thin band three times around a finger I was never allowed to bare it, my throat already scalded past the point of speaking.