Chapter 1

For fifteen years, I was Isabella Moretti, the perfect wife to the city's most powerful Don. We were a power couple, a carefully curated masterpiece of influence and affection. Our life was flawless.

That masterpiece shattered on our anniversary when a burner phone lit up with a picture of his assistant's hand on my husband's thigh.

Soon, I found his second phone and discovered the full scope of his betrayal. His mistress, Sofia, was pregnant. He lied to my face about "work emergencies" while she began a campaign of terror, sending me photos of them together, a grainy ultrasound, and a video of her parading in my silk robe, bragging about becoming the new Mrs. Moretti.

I was supposed to endure it in silence. That's the rule for a Don's wife. But all the pain hollowed out, leaving only a cold, chilling certainty.

He truly believed I was nothing without him. "Where would you go, Bella?" he'd once laughed, his voice dripping with condescension. "Everything you have, everything you are, is because of me. You wouldn't last a week."

He thought it was a game.

"I'll take that bet," he'd said.

So while he was away on a final "business trip" with her, I made my move. I liquidated our assets and hired movers to strip our mansion bare, erasing every trace of my existence. I walked out forever, but not before leaving two gifts on the empty mattress where we once slept: the signed divorce papers, and the melted, grotesque slug of gold that used to be my wedding ring.

Chapter 1

Isabella POV:

On my fifteenth wedding anniversary, a burner phone I didn't own lit up with a picture of another woman's hand on my husband's thigh.

For a moment, I just stared at it. The image was grainy, taken in the low light of a car's interior. But there was no mistaking that thigh. I knew the way the fabric of his custom-tailored trousers stretched over the muscle. I knew the expensive watch on his wrist, the one I'd given him for his fortieth birthday, its face catching the faint glow from the dashboard.

We were Giovanni and Isabella Moretti. The Don and his wife. A power couple that graced the covers of business magazines. He was the brilliant, ruthless head of the Moretti Family, a man who commanded legitimate corporations and the city's underworld with the same chilling authority. I was his anchor, his beautiful, serene wife. The perfect hostess. The silent partner. For fifteen years, our life had been a carefully curated masterpiece of power and affection.

I zoomed in on the photo. The woman's nails were long, painted a cheap, garish red. But it was the bracelet that made my breath catch. A simple leather cord with a single, distinctive shark tooth.

Sofia Marchetti.

Gio's administrative assistant.

A cold wave washed over me, so intense it felt like being plunged into a frozen lake. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I wanted to scream. I wanted to smash the phone against the wall, to shatter the image into a thousand pieces.

But I didn't.

A Moretti wife does not scream. She does not throw things. She endures. That was the first rule of *Omertà*, the code of silence, applied not just to business but to the home. You see nothing, you hear nothing, you say nothing.

Was it all a lie? The past fifteen years? Every "I love you," every shared smile across a crowded room, every time he called me his anchor in this chaotic world he commanded?

I stood up, my movements stiff, robotic. I walked out of the bedroom and down the hall to my small home office, the one space in this opulent mansion that was truly mine. I sat at my desk and pulled out a single sheet of paper from the locked bottom drawer.

A petition for change of name.

I filled it out with a steady hand.

Current Name: Isabella Moretti.

Proposed Name: Isabella Rossi.

My maiden name. A name that was mine before it was swallowed by his.

The clerk at the city records office looked at me with bored eyes the next morning. "Reason for the change?"

"Personal reasons," I said, my voice flat.

It would take six to eight weeks for the change to be legally finalized. Six to eight weeks to erase the Moretti name from my identity. Six to eight weeks to prepare my real response. This wasn't just about a divorce. This was a *vendetta*. A silent, calculated war.

That night, Gio came home late. He was a vision of power and success, his dark suit impeccable, his smile devastating. He held a velvet box in his hand.

"Happy anniversary, my love," he said, his voice a low rumble that used to make my skin tingle.

Now, it felt like a lie scraping against my ears. The words were hollow, a performance for an audience of one.

I opened the box. Inside was a diamond necklace, cold and heavy. A king's ransom. A payment.

I set it aside and went to the small furnace I used for my jewelry-making hobby in the basement. I took off my wedding band, the heavy gold symbol of our union, of the alliance between the Rossi and Moretti families. I dropped it into the crucible.

The heat was intense. I watched as the perfect circle, the symbol of forever, began to warp. It softened, lost its shape, and melted into a bubbling, formless puddle of gold.

When it cooled, it was no longer a ring. It was a grotesque, shapeless slug. An ugly monument to a beautiful lie.

I tucked the golden slug into a small silk pouch and put it in my purse. My gift to him.

He came into the bedroom later, smelling of expensive cologne and something else. Something cheap and floral. Her perfume. It clung to the collar of his shirt like a stain.

"You seem quiet tonight," he murmured, his hand reaching for my waist. A scratch, thin and red, ran along the back of his hand. Her nails.

My stomach churned. The revulsion was so strong, so visceral, it felt like poison in my veins. His touch felt like a violation.

I pulled away. "I think I ate some bad seafood at lunch. I don't feel well."

He frowned, his concern a perfect mask. "Seafood? But you love oysters."