Chapter 2

Adriana "Ria" Rossi POV:

The engagement ring on my finger felt like a foreign object, a five-carat manacle. It was a flawless diamond, a perfect symbol of the Moretti Family's power-cold, brilliant, and impossibly heavy. It was a public declaration that I was Salvatore's property.

I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were raw, the skin beneath them bruised with exhaustion. I didn't recognize the woman staring back at me. She looked haunted, broken.

My fingers were swollen from crying. I tried to pull the ring off, but it wouldn't budge. It was stuck, a permanent fixture. A brand.

A wave of nausea washed over me. I ran cold water over my hands, the chill seeping into my bones. I twisted the ring, pulling hard, my skin protesting. It slid over my knuckle with a final, painful scrape, leaving a red, indented mark behind.

I held it in my palm. It felt obscene, a blood diamond paid for with my mother's life. My first instinct was to smash it with a hammer, to shatter the perfect facets into dust.

But that was too emotional. Too reactive.

Instead, I walked into my mother's bedroom and placed the ring on her nightstand, next to a worn copy of her favorite book. It was a down payment. An installment for the life they had stolen.

The next two days were a blur of methodical, numbing tasks. There was no room for grief. Grief was a luxury I couldn't afford.

I started with my mother's closet. The scent of her perfume-lavender and vanilla-hit me like a physical blow. It was the smell of every hug, every bedtime story, every moment of unconditional love.

A strangled sob escaped my lips. I let it out, just one, a raw, ugly sound that tore through the silence. Then I clamped down on it. There would be time for that later. Maybe.

I sorted her belongings into three piles. Keep. Donate. Burn.

The keep pile was small: a framed photo of us at the beach when I was five, her handwritten recipe book, and a soft, faded cashmere sweater that still smelled of her. I wrapped them carefully in tissue paper and placed them in a box labeled 'Elena'.

I moved on to the photo albums. My fingers froze on a picture from last Christmas. My mother, Salvatore, Sofia, and me, all smiling for the camera in front of the massive Moretti Christmas tree. We looked like a family. A perfect, happy lie.

My mother's smile was genuine. Mine was hopeful. Salvatore's was practiced. And Sofia's... Sofia's was predatory. I could see it now. The way her hand rested a little too high on Salvatore's arm. The way her eyes held a triumphant glint that I had mistaken for friendship.

It was a lie. All of it.

With cold, precise movements, I took a pair of scissors from my mother's sewing kit. I didn't rip the photo. Ripping was messy, emotional. I cut. I carefully sliced along the edges of Salvatore and Sofia, excising them from the memory.

Their smiling faces dropped into the burn pile. I tucked the trimmed photo of just my mother and me into the 'Elena' box.

My phone buzzed. It was a notification from Instagram. Sofia had posted a new picture. It was her, standing alone on the balcony of their Aspen chalet, a glass of champagne in her hand. The caption was a single word: `Unforgettable.`

I stared at it, looking at her smug, perfect face. I viewed it again. And again. The pain I expected to feel wasn't there. Instead, a strange calm settled over me. This wasn't a new betrayal. It was just the final confirmation of a very old one. I had been blind for five years, and now I could see.

That cold clarity was a compass needle, pointing me north. Away from here.

I went back to my mother's nightstand. The diamond ring mocked me from its place beside the book. It wasn't a payment. It was an insult.

I picked it up, walked to the bathroom, and flushed it down the toilet without a second thought. I watched the water swirl, carrying five years of my life and a quarter of a million dollars down into the sewer.