Sienna's POV:
On the other end of the line, the Matriarch was silent for a long moment.
Julian's mother, a cold, calculating woman who had never truly accepted me, was utterly opposed to my marriage to Julian. But she understood the brutal rules of the criminal underworld better than anyone.
"You're being hasty, Sienna," she said, a hint of surprise in her voice. "You could have at least stayed at the estate until the heir was born."
I looked down at my flat, empty stomach.
I said nothing.
The baby wouldn't be born.
The Matriarch, always a shrewd strategist, seemed to understand.
"Without a child," she said, "the link between you and Julian is completely severed."
"That's exactly what I want," I murmured.
The line went dead with a short click.
As I turned, a maid carrying a large stack of clean towels rushed into the hallway.
Startled by my sudden appearance, she collided with the wall, her shoulder striking the ornate, gilded wedding portrait hanging there.
The heavy gold frame slid from its mount and crashed onto the marble floor.
The glass didn't shatter. A single white crack ran through the center, splitting Julian's smiling face in two.
I stared motionlessly at the seven-year-old photograph.
Julian was smiling in it, his arm wrapped protectively around my waist, his dark eyes filled with love.
Looking at his flawlessly handsome face, a memory surfaced, pushing everything else aside.
I remembered him kneeling on the freezing concrete floor of the family compound, beaten bloody by the syndicate's enforcers.
He had willingly endured such brutal punishment, openly defying his own Godfather, just to marry me, an outsider.
"Without the family, I can still conquer the underworld," he'd said, spitting out blood. "But without you, the empire in my chest is just an empty shell."
He loved me then. At least, he had.
I had believed our love could conquer reality.
Another memory surfaced, cold and sharp.
It was the first time the Matriarch had shown me the photos.
Pictures of Julian with a blonde woman, intimate and explicit.
I refused to believe my dark prince had betrayed me.
So, with a pitying sneer, she'd dragged me to the underground VIP room of a mob-run club.
Through the tinted glass, I saw Julian sitting on a leather sofa, surrounded by his capos.
"Sienna is pure and innocent," he boasted, drawing slowly and arrogantly on a cigar. "She's the only pure thing in my life."
Before I could be moved by his words.
The next second, he pulled a half-naked woman onto his lap.
Grinning at his cheering men, he slid his hand up her bare thigh.
"But why limit yourself?" he laughed. "I love her, but I don't love only her."
Standing outside the VIP room, my illusion shattered in an instant.
Later that night, Julian returned to the estate.
Seeing my red-rimmed eyes, he feigned concern and reached for my face.
I pushed his hand away.
I handed him the first set of divorce papers the Matriarch had prepared.
Julian looked at the legal documents, then up at me, smirking.
He openly admitted to the affairs.
He invoked the twisted double standard of the mafia with sickening confidence.
"Physical release means nothing, Sienna," he'd argued, his tone infuriatingly gentle. "It's just business, stress relief. Coming back to your bed every night is proof of my loyalty to you."
He'd dismissively batted the papers from my hand.
He'd strutted upstairs to shower, confident that a weak civilian like me would eventually learn to shut up and play the role of the obedient mafia wife.
I snapped back to the present.
The terrified maid was babbling apologies, clumsily sweeping up the broken glass.
"Forget it," I told her, my voice dead, hollow.
I turned away from the ruined portrait, just as I had turned away from our marriage.
When Julian returned to the master bedroom in the dead of night, he expected to find me waiting.
Instead, he found my diamond wedding ring and syndicate keys on his nightstand. The officially signed divorce decree was already in the Matriarch's hands.
All my things were gone from the closet.
For the first time in his life, a chilling wave of panic washed over him.
