Chapter 2

"Alright, I'll go take a shower. Wait for me, okay?"

I watched as Adrian walked happily toward the bathroom, the smile on my face slowly fading away.

Sorry, Adrian. This would be the last time I waited for you.

When she returned, fresh from the shower, she found me already deep in sleep. She muttered something under her breath, then, as always, wrapped her arms around my waist and drifted off beside me.

What had once been a position that filled me with warmth now felt stifling, even suffocating.

The next morning, before we were fully awake, a hard knock at the bedroom door startled us both. In this house, no one knocked like that unless they carried the Marchetti name and knew the door would open.

Adrian frowned, then, with a tenderness I didn't deserve, she tucked the blanket around me and went to answer it.

Outside, Dante Marchetti pushed past her, his eyes immediately locking on me. His expression twisted with both fury and pain, the look of a made man who wanted to draw and couldn't.

He gritted his teeth, glaring at Adrian with barely contained resentment before letting out a cold snort and turning to leave. Below his ear, the muscle in his jaw jumped once, silent and ugly.

"Brother?"

Adrian lifted her foot, eager to chase after Dante, but then her eyes softened and she pulled it back. She turned to me, her gaze filled with something unreadable.

"Darling, my brother's probably upset. You should rest a little longer. I'll go check on him."

Before I could say a word, she was already rushing out, a little too eager to leave.

With all the commotion, sleep was a distant thought. I rose, made breakfast, and tidied the kitchen, the movements almost mechanical.

When I headed downstairs with the trash, a thought crossed my mind. I took the service stairwell instead, wanting a little air away from the soldiers who watched the front hall, something to clear my head.

But the moment my fingers grazed the door handle, Dante's voice stopped me. His words were heavy, laden with frustration.

"Adrian, you're such a liar. Just yesterday, you told me you've stayed pure for me, and now today you're sharing a bed with him?"

Adrian's sigh was soft, almost like a laugh tinged with helplessness.

"Brother, don't be ridiculous. Rocco and I are married under the Don's own seal. If we slept in separate rooms, the whole Family would talk."

"But believe me, I've never let him touch me. We only sleep beside each other," she added, her voice laced with a false sense of innocence.

Dante let out a cold, dismissive snort. "I don't care. Even lying beside each other is unacceptable. I'm not happy about it."

Adrian's voice trembled as she responded, "Alright, alright. Then what do you want me to do, hmm?"

His response was sharp, his tone possessive. "I want Adrian to stay with me for a whole month. You only sleep next to your brother."

Adrian hesitated, her lips parting with a soft "hmm" before his aggressive, demanding kisses pulled her under his control.

"Come on, say it. Yes or no? If you don't agree, I'll kiss your lips until they're swollen."

"Okay, okay, I'll figure something out. Don't be so rough; your sister still has to show her face in front of people, you know."

The tension in the room tightened and, unable to bear their lovey-dovey exchange any longer, I released the door handle and retreated in silence to the elevator.

Upstairs, Adrian was already sitting at the dining table, eating the breakfast I had made. She glanced up when I entered, her face filled with guilt.

"Darling, there's a run out of territory. The contact is really difficult, and Bruno and the others can't handle it. I have to go; it might take a month." As she spoke, she pressed her thumbnail into the pad of her ring finger, leaving a small crescent I had never learned to read until now.

I froze for a moment, taken aback by her excuse.

In the first year of our marriage, she had gone on a three-day run out of territory. I ended up in a hospital bed with a gastric bleed, left alone, with no one at my side.

When she came back and found out, she immediately swore to the whole Family that she'd never leave on another run. She would rather hand off every out-of-territory contact than be away from me for a single day.

That was the moment she earned her name as the Family's own picture of pure, devoted love.

Now, with her true love back under this roof, it was no surprise she had conveniently forgotten all those things she once pretended to care about.

I nodded at her, the weight of it settling over me. "Then I'll pack your luggage."

As I opened the suitcase that hadn't seen daylight in a long time, a sketch slipped out.

I picked it up. It was the draft of the ring I was wearing at that very moment. Inside the setting of the diamond, two letters were hidden: DA.

The man who designed that ring? Dante.

A chill ran through me. My thumb found the band on my finger and turned it a half-turn before I could stop it, and my hands wouldn't stop shaking.