Ava Vitiello POV
Three months later, the humiliation still coated my tongue like ash.
It was inescapable. It lingered in the pitying glances of the doormen; it echoed in the sudden, suffocating silence that descended upon restaurants the moment I crossed the threshold.
The Jilted Princess.
I adjusted the strap of my black dress, smoothing the silk against my skin. I was at a charity auction for inner-city youth—a thinly veiled front for the Family’s money laundering operations. Attendance wasn't optional; it was a summons.
I stood near the bar, nursing a sparkling water, and surveyed the room with practiced indifference.
Then, the atmosphere shifted.
It wasn't a sound, but a change in air pressure—a ripple of unease that tore through the crowd like a warning shot.
I turned toward the entrance.
Liam walked in.
He looked haggard. His suit was off-the-rack and ill-fitting, hanging loosely on a frame where the stress of the last ninety days was etched deep into the corners of his eyes.
But he wasn't alone.
Sarah was clinging to his arm, encased in a red dress that was too tight, too short, and far too bright for the solemnity of the occasion. And holding Liam's other hand was the child. Chloe.
He had brought them here. To a Vitiello event.
The disrespect was breathtaking in its audacity.
The room went quiet. Hundreds of eyes darted between him and me like spectators at a gladiator match.
He saw me. A flicker of hesitation crossed his face before he squared his shoulders, forcing a bravado he clearly didn't feel. He walked toward me.
Sarah whispered something in his ear, casting a look at me that was a volatile cocktail of fear and triumph. She thought she had won. She thought because she had the ring and the man, she was the victor.
She didn't understand that she had won nothing but a walking corpse.
"Ava," Liam said when he reached me.
I didn't answer. I just looked at him, letting the silence stretch until it became a weapon.
"You should leave," he said, his voice pitched low. "You're making Sarah uncomfortable."
I laughed. It was a dry, sharp sound that lacked any humor.
"I'm making her uncomfortable?" I asked, arching a brow. "This is my event, Liam. My family paid for the very air you're breathing right now, and for the champagne you're about to drink."
Sarah stepped forward, clutching her counterfeit Chanel bag like a shield against my gaze.
"We have a right to be here," she said, her voice shrill and brittle. "Liam is a Made Man."
Not for long, I thought.
Leo, my cousin and a Capo in the family, materialized beside me like a shadow taking form.
He didn't look at Liam. He looked straight at Sarah.
"Who let the help in?" Leo asked, his tone bored.
Liam's face flushed a deep, humiliated red.
"Watch your mouth, Leo," Liam snapped. "She's my wife."
"Civil ceremony," Leo scoffed, dismissing the bond with a wave of his hand. "Doesn't count in the eyes of the Church. Doesn't count to us. You brought a whore and a bastard to a sit-down, Rossi. You're losing your mind."
The little girl, Chloe, looked up at me. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the tension she couldn't possibly comprehend.
"Bad lady," she whispered.
I froze.
Sarah smirked, pulling the child closer against her hip.
"That's right, sweetie," Sarah cooed, her voice dripping with poison. "That's the bad lady who tried to take Daddy away."
The rage hit me with the force of a physical blow, dancing across my vision in black spots.
She was poisoning the child. She was using an innocent girl as a weapon in a war she didn't understand.
I looked at Sarah. I really looked at her.
I saw the costume jewelry. I saw the desperation clawing behind her eyes. She was a civilian. She was a gold digger who had snagged a mobster, thinking she had hit the jackpot. She didn't know the jackpot was rigged with explosives.
I took a step forward.
Leo put a hand on his holster, ready.
"No, Leo," I said softly.
I looked at Liam.
"Get them out of my sight," I said, my voice deadly calm. "Or I have Leo escort them out through the kitchen."
Liam glared at me.
"You're just bitter, Ava. You only care about the name. You don't know what real family is."
He turned and pulled Sarah away.
I watched them walk into the crowd. I watched people turn their backs on them, isolating them in a sea of black ties and silk.
I took a sip of my water.
Leo leaned in close to me.
"Do you want me to handle it?" he asked.
"No," I said.
I set my glass down on the bar. The crystal clicked sharply against the marble countertop.
"I'm done playing the victim, Leo."
I pulled out my phone. I opened the file I had on Sarah—the escort history, the blackmail attempts on her previous boyfriends.
"He wants to play happy family?" I said, my thumb hovering over the screen. "Let's see how happy they are when the lights go out."
I texted the family accountant.
Call the loans on Rossi's construction business. Tonight.
I looked at Leo, a cold smile finally touching my lips.
"Burn it down," I said.
