Chapter 1

I spent six years helping the down-and-out mafia boss Ethan Chase build his empire from nothing.

Everyone around me urged me to push for marriage, but he always said to wait---wait until everything was more stable.

Then, the night before my birthday, I saw him talking to an old wooden box with a tenderness I'd never heard before.

"My wife, I made it through another year. Now I have everything, but I've spent less time with you."

"Don't worry. Once everything settles down, I'll make it all up to you."

My heart ached.

That box was a keepsake from his mother. He said he would keep the most important thing in his life inside it.

I thought that after all these years of taking bullets for him and risking my life, he finally felt he owed me something, so he'd bought me an expensive birthday gift.

After he returned to the bedroom, I tiptoed to the study and opened the wooden box.

Inside was only a yellowed wedding invitation. The groom's name was Ethan Chase, and the bride's name was Sophia Hayes.

Beneath the invitation was a birth certificate.

A boy, six years old.

Fighting back tears, I reached for a document at the very bottom.

It was a deed of gift transferring all his assets, signed with his handwriting.

"To my only child in this life, Eric Chase."

I felt like I'd been struck by lightning, frozen in place, unable to move.

So all those times he made me lose our children---it was because he already had one.

And the wife in his heart wasn't me. There had been someone else all along.