Chapter 2

Ava Miller POV

Pain is a shapeshifter.

At first, it is sharp, blinding-a physical blow to the chest. Then, it settles into a dull, throbbing ache in the marrow of your bones. But after a few days, if you stop fighting it, it calcifies. It becomes fuel.

I stopped crying the morning after I left the villa. I resumed my routine with military precision. I sat with the elders. I nodded dutifully when they preached patience. But under the mahogany table, my hands were clenched so tight my knuckles turned into white peaks.

I stopped being a victim and became a watcher.

I couldn't leave the estate without a security detail, but money is a universal language, and old soldiers love to reminisce. I sought out the ones who had served my father-the old guard who found Ethan too reckless, too modern.

a few envelopes of cash, a few polite inquiries about their grandchildren, and the dam broke.

"He's at the club every night," the head gardener told me, his shears snapping shut on a rose stem. The fallen petals looked like blood splatters against the manicured green. "With her."

"Chloe Vance," I said, testing the name on my tongue like a poison. "Who is she?"

"Nobody. A model. Or she was. Now? She's the Don's shadow."

Leo came to give updates to the family council. I sat in the corner, pouring tea like a piece of expensive, decorative furniture.

"He is recovering," Leo lied, his eyes shifting away from mine to study the carpet. "His memory is patchy. He needs time."

He didn't mention Chloe. He didn't mention that Ethan was hemorrhaging thousands on jewelry for her while my engagement ring sat in a velvet box upstairs, gathering dust.

The humiliation wasn't private anymore. It was a spectator sport.

Ethan started parading her at events. Not the high-table Cosa Nostra meetings, but the gallery openings, the charity dinners-the places where the press prowled.

I saw the photos on social media. Chloe wearing a dress I had designed for myself. Chloe clinging to his arm. Chloe smiling like a cat who had just swallowed the canary and the cage.

The breaking point was the Children's Hospital Gala. It was mandatory for the family. I had to go. I had to pretend the empire wasn't crumbling around me.

I wore black. A simple, architectural gown that screamed mourning, though no one else knew who had died.

When I walked in, the room went airless. Then, the whispers started, sounding like the rustle of dry leaves.

Ethan was there. He was laughing at something a senator said, looking devastatingly handsome and entirely unbothered. Chloe was draped over him in red silk, looking like a fresh, gaping wound.

She saw me. Her smile widened, predatory and sharp. She whispered something to Ethan, and he glanced at me. His eyes were a void. He looked away without a flicker of recognition.

Chloe detached herself and walked over to me, holding a flute of champagne.

"Ava," she said, her voice pitched loud enough for the nearby tables to eavesdrop. "I didn't think you'd show. Ethan said you were... fragile."

"I am fine," I said, my voice steel.

"Are you?" She tilted her head, feigning sympathy. "He says you're like a ghost haunting a house that's already been sold. It's sad, really. Holding onto a promise made by a boy who doesn't exist anymore."

I looked her dead in the eye. "Enjoy the house, Chloe. Just remember, it's built on a foundation of bodies. Eventually, the floor rots."

Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second before returning, sharper than before. "At least I'm in the house. You're on the lawn."

I turned on my heel before I threw my drink in her face. I found a quiet corner near the bar, trying to regulate my breathing.

A shadow slid next to me. It was Mr. Rodriguez, Maya's father. He was the family's oldest consigliere, a man who valued loyalty above breath.

"Principessa," he said quietly. "You look beautiful."

"I look like a widow, Mr. Rodriguez."

He swirled his scotch, watching the amber liquid coat the glass. "Sometimes, death is a mercy. But financial death... that is messy."

I looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"The accounts," he murmured, keeping his gaze straight ahead, lips barely moving. "Since the accident. Large transfers. Shell companies. Ethan is moving money. Fast. And sloppy."

He slipped a cocktail napkin into my hand. "Maya sends her love. She says you should call her."

I retreated to the bathroom and unfolded the napkin. A phone number.

The next day, I demanded a meeting. I told Leo I would burn the estate to the ground if he didn't arrange it.

I met Ethan in his office. He sat behind the massive oak desk that used to belong to his father. He didn't stand when I entered.

"Make it quick, Ava."

"I know about the money," I lied. I didn't know the details, but I knew enough to bluff. "I know about the transfers."

Ethan's pen stopped moving. The scratch of nib against paper ceased. He looked up. For a second, the mask slipped. I saw danger. I saw the predator I had agreed to marry.

"You're delusional," he said flatly.

"Am I? Or are you stealing from the family you claim to lead?"

He stood up and walked around the desk. He loomed over me, using his height to intimidate, sucking the oxygen out of the room. "You are tired, Ava. You need a vacation."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes, you are," he said softly, his voice a velvet threat. "The villa in Tuscany. It's lovely this time of year. You leave on Friday. Indefinitely."

"That's exile," I spat.

"It's protection," he countered. "From yourself. Don't push me, Ava. I am the Don. My word is law."

"Your word is a lie."

He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my skin hard enough to bruise. "If you weren't a Miller, you'd be dead for speaking to me like that."

He released me with a shove toward the door. "Get out."

I left the office, shaking. But not from fear. From clarity.

He wasn't amnesiac. He was a monster. And he was scared.

I called the number on the napkin. Maya picked up on the first ring.

"I was waiting for you," she said.

"I need out," I said.

"I know. Meet me at the old diner on 4th. Wear a hoodie."

Maya was usually a shark in a pencil skirt, but today she was in jeans and a baseball cap. She slid a manila folder across the sticky table.

"My dad found something else," she whispered, leaning in. "Before the crash. Ethan's phone records. He was calling a number in the Cayman Islands. A lot. And... he was calling a hitman."

My stomach dropped through the floor. "For who?"

Maya looked at me with profound pity. "Ava. Who is the only person standing between him and total control of the combined territories?"

Me.

"He didn't lose his memory," I realized, the horror turning my blood to ice. "He's trying to void the marriage contract without starting a war. He wants me gone."

"We need a plan," Maya said urgently. "If you go to Tuscany, you never come back."

"I'm not going to Tuscany."

"Then you need to disappear."

We spent the next two hours plotting. Fake IDs. Offshore accounts. A new life.

I went back to the mansion, feeling like a spy in enemy territory. Every shadow felt like a threat.

Ethan's father, the old Don, called me to his study that night. He looked frail, a lion whose teeth had fallen out.

"I am sorry, Ava," he wheezed. "My son... he is headstrong."

"He is cruel," I corrected.

The old man sighed, a rattle in his chest. "He is the future. We must support the future."

Even he wouldn't save me.

I went to my room and opened Instagram. Chloe had posted a new photo. It was her and Ethan in bed. He was asleep, his arm thrown over his eyes. She was smiling at the camera, triumphant.

Caption: My Don. My World.

I stared at the screen until the pixels burned into my retinas.

I wasn't sad anymore. I was done.

I walked to the mirror. The girl looking back wasn't a Principessa anymore. She was a soldier who had just been drafted into a war she didn't start.

"Okay, Ethan," I whispered to the empty room, my reflection staring back with cold, hard eyes. "You want me gone? I'll go."

"But I'm taking the matches with me."