Chapter 2

The sudden slap, and the unspeakable curses that followed, left me aching and mortified.

Every woman in the salon watched with open delight, drinking in this trashy melodrama of a wife tearing into a rival's kept woman. This was Vitale soil, a legitimate front the Family owned three streets over, and not one of them thought to wonder why an old woman would be dragged bleeding across its marble.

"She actually looked so refined."

"Who'd have thought, at her age, still out there seducing another woman's man, doing something this shameless. Just goes to show, the bigger the pond, the stranger the fish."

Their chatter kept landing in my ears.

Fighting through the pain in my face, I forced myself to explain. "Adriana, you've got it all wrong. I'm Lorenzo's—"

But Adriana gave me no chance to speak.

She fisted her hand in my hair and shoved me to the floor, and several of her friends swarmed in, punching and kicking me.

The pain was so fierce it left my whole body numb.

Adriana hit and cursed at the same time. "You filthy slut. I'll teach you to seduce my man, and you've still got the nerve to say you're not Lorenzo's kept woman."

"If you're not his woman, then how would you know my name?"

"Ha. I never thought you'd hide yourself away this carefully."

"Let me tell you, a hen is a hen. It'll never fly up to the branch and become a phoenix. Don't you ever dream of fighting me for my man. Once I've married into the Vitale name, I'll sell you off to a house where a thousand men can bed you and ten thousand can ride you!"

Listening to curses that vile, I kept trying to explain. "Adriana, I really am not Lorenzo's woman. If you don't believe me, you can call Lorenzo and ask."

Lorenzo had once shown me photos and videos of himself with Adriana.

In those pictures, Adriana had come across as a gentle, considerate, well-bred girl, the kind of promised bride a bloodline alliance was built on.

But now I realized I'd been wrong.

I never imagined Adriana could be this vicious and cruel. She wouldn't give me the slightest chance to explain. She wrenched my hair loose and yanked at it like a madwoman, and the tearing agony ripped scream after scream out of me.

"Ha. Lorenzo? Listen to how sweetly you say his name. Trash is trash, and here you are still talking back."

Adriana's face went dark. When a lie was laid at her feet she laughed too quickly, and her fingers grazed her collarbone before she caught herself. "Hmph. Stubborn to the last. You cheap women who make yourselves other people's kept whores, you'll never admit what you are, not even on your deathbed!"

"In a little while I'm going to drag you to the sit-down feast and ask Lorenzo myself, did you please him better, or did I?"

"With me around, you can forget marrying into this Family for the rest of your life. At most you're used goods, something Lorenzo kicked aside once he got bored of you."

Adriana's shrill cursing kept scraping at my nerves.

I truly didn't dare imagine, with a woman like Adriana, if my son really sealed the alliance with her someday, what would happen to the bloodline his father had bled for.

Before all this, I'd been so full of hope. I'd even had the estate deeded and waiting for after the alliance was blessed.

"Hmph, beat this cheap thing to death!"

"Strip her clothes off. Today I want to see whether this filthy piece has any shame left at all."

Adriana's friends had a savage glint in their eyes.

They stared at me, unblinking.

Four or five of them dragged me across the floor by the hair, while Adriana teamed up with another woman to rip at the buttons of my evening dress.

In moments I was covered in blood, half exposed.

Every one of them watched me with gloating eyes, as if by now it no longer mattered whether I was a kept woman or not.

The sight of me being humiliated and beaten had become a fine show in their eyes, one they cheered on under their breath.

I clutched desperately at my chest.

But two fists were no match for eight hands. I was no match for them at all.

The savage pain nearly made me faint, and in my daze I even saw Adriana pull out her phone and start snapping photos of me.

"Trash, just wait until you're ruined and disgraced."

And just as my last layer of covering was about to be torn away by Adriana's friends—

I screamed it out. "Adriana, I'm Lorenzo's mother!"