Chapter 1

My adoptive brother, Don Cassian. I loved him. The rival family drugged him.

He had me pinned down. His hands on my breasts. He was hard, his eyes filled with a desperate hunger for me.

But I shoved him off. Ran out the door. And called my best friend, Camilla.

"Cassian's in the master bedroom. Get here. Now."

I locked myself in the bathroom, letting the cold water wash away the fire he’d started in me. I remembered the last time.

In my past life, when Cassian kissed me, I didn't say no. We made love all night.

I thought my ten-year crush was finally mine.

Then came St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Vitelli family's sapphire ring, passed down for three generations. The blessing of the Elders.

I had everything I ever wanted.

But the day after the wedding, I got the news. My best friend, Camilla, was dead. An overdose of antidepressants in her apartment.

I was on the phone, crying for her, when a knife went through my chest from behind.

I turned. It was Cassian, his face twisted with hate.

"If you hadn't blackmailed me with those ledgers—if you hadn't forced your way into my bed—Camilla would still be alive. You have to pay for this!"

That's when I understood. He never married me for love.

It was all because of a whisper from Camilla: "Aurora controls the family's money. She can ruin you with a phone call."

And a warning from the Elders: "Don, you must marry her. She knows too much."

So this time, I stepped aside. I let them have each other.

But why? Why did he come after me, his eyes red, looking like he'd lost his mind?

"Aurora," he begged. "Why don't you love me anymore?"

Chapter 1

The moment I came back to life, my adoptive brother Cassian had me pinned to the sofa in the study. He was ripping my shirt open.

His hot lips moved past my collarbone, stopping at the valley of my breasts.

My body trembled. It was instinct.

This man was a drug. Even reborn, my body remembered his touch.

But just as his hand reached for the clasp of my bra, the memory hit me. The dagger in my heart. His curse: If you hadn't insisted on marrying me.

"No!"

I shoved him off, hard. I scrambled out of the study and locked the door from the outside.

Leaning against the wood, I dialed Camilla’s number.

"Cassian's in the study. The Ortegas spiked his drink tonight. Get over here now."

"What? Aurora, what are you talking about—"

"Ten minutes. You're the one he needs."

I hung up. I heard a vase shatter inside the room.

I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, on my neck, washing away the last of the heat.

Last time, I didn't say no.

That was the beginning of the end for me.

Ten minutes later, Camilla rushed in.

She was wearing a silk slip dress. A dress for seduction, not a rescue.

She saw me standing outside the study, my clothes a wreck but my body untouched. Relief washed over her face.

"Aurora, are you okay?" she asked, grabbing my hand.

"He's drugged. Go on in. Take care of him." I pulled my hand away. My voice was ice.

The worry in her eyes was replaced by a flicker of triumph.

"Thank you, Aurora. I'll take it from here."

I nodded and walked away, toward the east wing.

I had to force myself not to look back, to ignore the victory in her voice.

But then the sounds started. They slithered into my ears like snakes.

I closed my eyes, but I couldn't stop the images. The same sounds from my past life.

A thud. A moan.

"Cassian... gentle... you're hurting me..."

"Too hard... slow down..."

"No... don't... it's too deep..."

I made it to my room and sat at my desk until the sun came up.

At five in the morning, I looked toward the main house.

Camilla was on the second-floor terrace, wearing Cassian's white shirt. Barefoot. Smoking a cigarette.

She looked in my direction and gave me a slow smile.

No guilt in that smile. Just "I won."

All those years I loved him, I had never truly seen my best friend for what she was.

The next day at noon, Marco, the family butler, came to get me for lunch.

When I walked into the dining room, Camilla was draped across Cassian's lap.

She jumped up when she saw me and gave me a huge hug.

"Aurora! None of this would have happened if you hadn't sent me to Cassian last night!"

She pulled back and deliberately rested her left hand on my shoulder. A diamond ring flashed in my eyes.

I stared at the ring. A sharp pain shot through my chest.

The memory of our wedding hit me. Cassian, putting the ring on my finger.

But that was never going to happen now.

"Cassian proposed last night!" Camilla whispered. "I feel like I'm dreaming..."

"Congratulations," I heard myself say. My voice was dry. "It's beautiful."

"You know, Cassian said you're the perfect sister, so understanding..." she said, stroking the diamond. "I'm so lucky to have a friend like you, someone willing to step aside for us."

My nails dug into my palms.

The old me would have lost it. I would have screamed at him, what the hell is this?

But after the marriage he ended with a knife, all I felt was a deep, chilling cold.

I looked up and met Cassian's eyes.

He was watching me.

His left hand was rubbing his wine glass. A nervous habit.

He wasn't looking at the ring on Camilla's hand.

I put on my perfect, professional mask.

"I'm happy for you, Boss. Now, the Sinaloa shipment. The payment needs clearing. I have to get back to work."

The second I turned, I practically ran.

I could feel his eyes on my back, following me until the heavy door shut between us.

Half an hour later, footsteps stopped outside my study.

No knock.

Cassian pushed the door open. Those gray eyes I used to be obsessed with were now just looking at me with suspicion and confusion.

Chapter 2

"You have nothing to ask me?" His voice was dangerously low.

I calmly pushed a file across the corner of my desk.

"Sinaloa is pushing for the payment. Thirty million in clean funds, wired within seventy-two hours. It needs your signature."

"About last night. About Camilla." He leaned over the desk, his huge frame towering over me. "Aurora, are you sure you have nothing to say?"

Camilla's words from my past life echoed in my head.

"Honey, you have to marry Aurora. She controls the family's entire financial network."

That was the line that convinced him I had forced his hand.

"I'm sure," I said, looking up. "Congratulations on finding true love, Boss."

A flash of anger crossed Cassian's face.

He stared at me for a long time. Then he turned and left without another word.

The door slammed shut.

That night, two in the morning.

I came out of the shower and saw a line of light under my study door.

I hadn't left that lamp on.

I pushed the door open. Cassian was sitting in my chair.

In his hands was the Irrevocable Trust Transfer Agreement.

Open beside it was my private ledger. The one I’d kept for six years, written in my own blood and tears.

My blood ran cold.

That ledger held everything.

March 2019: Hush money for the third Ricci brother, $120,000. Paid from my personal account.

August 2020: Cleanup for the FBI informant Johnson's "car accident," $850,000. Paid for with a lien against my mother's inheritance.

January 2021: Body disposal and family pacification after Cassian executed the traitor Moretti, $470,000...

Every single entry was a bloody mess I'd cleaned up behind his back. I used the only clean money I had to do it.

And the trust agreement. The beneficiary was written in clear, block letters: Cassian Vitelli.

Five million dollars. Everything my mother had left me.

My plan was, if the day ever came when everyone betrayed him, when he fell from his throne, I would be there to catch him.

Even if he never knew.

"Aurora." Cassian looked up. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "What were you saving these for?"

"I..."

"The day I go broke? The day I come crawling to you for help?"

I couldn't breathe.

"Or maybe—" He stood up slowly, placing the agreement back on the desk. He handled it gently, like a piece of evidence. "You wanted the Elders to see this? To prove you're the one who really deserves to stand by my side?"

The cold crept through my veins.

A vise clamped around my chest. My eyes burned, but I refused to let him see the tears.

Explanations were useless. To him, my love would always be a tactic.

"No," I heard my own broken voice. "It's just... a useless piece of paper."

"Right," he said softly. "A useless piece of paper, then."

He didn't tear it up.

He just placed the agreement and the ledger back where he found them.

That controlled indifference hurt more than if he had ripped them to shreds.

He walked to the door and stopped, his back to me.

"Camilla and I are getting married on the 30th. At St. Patrick's."

"You'd better learn your place."

The door closed softly behind him.

I sank to my knees. My hands trembled as I opened the ledger.

Every page was six years of my life, written line by line. Every line was love I thought he might one day see.

But to him, it was all just a "tactic."

A tool I was using to "blackmail" him.

I took the ledger and the agreement and threw them into the fireplace.

As the flames rose, my ten-year love affair burned to ashes.

The next morning, I called my Swiss bank.

"Mr. Richardson, the five-million-dollar trust my mother left me. I want to liquidate the entire thing."

I never expected what happened next. Less than two hours after I hung up, my study door was thrown open.

Cassian stormed in. He slapped a fax from the Swiss bank onto my desk.

It was stamped with the Vitelli family crest and a big, red "FROZEN."

"Aurora, what the hell do you think you're doing?" he loomed over me. "Moving funds behind my back? Are you planning to hire someone to make trouble for Camilla before my wedding?"

I stared at the freeze order. It felt like a giant hand was squeezing my heart.

"That's my mother's inheritance," I said, my voice shaking. "It doesn't belong to the Vitelli family."

"As long as you live under my roof, you are my ward. Every penny to your name is under my control," Cassian sneered. "Did you really think you could pull this money out and blackmail me into calling off my wedding?"

"I didn't—"

"Save it!" he cut me off. "Drop your pathetic little games. Until you learn your place and stop being hostile to Camilla, you won't see a single dime."

He turned and left.

The door slammed shut. I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

I circled the wedding date on my calendar. I made a promise to myself.

Money or no money, before he and Camilla got married, I would be gone for good.

Chapter 3

Two weeks later, at the family meeting, Cassian officially announced Camilla's pregnancy.

He stood at the head of the table. His eyes scanned the room and finally landed on me.

"Starting next week," he said, "The Foundation, the art museum, the Lakeshore properties. The clean businesses. Camilla takes the books."

The room was silent.

Those were the family’s cleanest, most respectable assets.

Our public face. The charity galas, the press conferences, the high-society events.

They were the assets I had personally dragged out of a swamp of dirty money and made legitimate. The "face of the Vitelli family."

Marcello, one of the Elders, glanced at me but said nothing.

Antonio’s lips moved, his eyes holding a pity I didn't want to see.

"Aurora will continue to handle—" Cassian paused. "The cash from Mexico. The Miami laundry. The East Coast arms deals."

My nails dug deeper into my palms.

That was the dirtiest part of the Vitelli empire.

Drugs. Weapons. Body disposals. Every transaction had a body count.

"Aurora has been handling this for six years. It's second nature to her," Cassian added. "That business is too dirty, too dangerous. Camilla is pregnant. I don't want her touching it."

He said it with such tenderness.

A tenderness that was never for me.

In that moment, I saw it all with perfect clarity.

He didn't want Camilla's hands to get bloody, because Camilla deserved to be protected.

And me? I was the one he had pushed into the mud himself.

He had spent six years training me to be the family's sharpest, dirtiest tool.

"Understood," I heard my own steady voice say.

Cassian finally looked at me again.

I couldn't tell what was in his eyes. Hesitation? Guilt? Or was he expecting me to be grateful for this "decent arrangement"?

I didn't want to know anymore.

Ten years of loving him had taught me one thing.

Every time I tried to read the warmth in his eyes, I was just fooling myself.

On my way out of the meeting, I passed the main house's floor-to-ceiling windows.

Camilla was in the garden, holding a bouquet of white roses. Cassian's dark gray coat was draped over her shoulders.

I recognized that coat. I bought it with him on a business trip to Milan three years ago.

It was raining that day in Milan. He'd pulled the coat from his own shoulders and wrapped it around me. "You're shivering, Aurora."

It was the kindest thing he had said to me in six years.

I had held onto that memory for three years.

Now, that coat was on another woman's shoulders.

I leaned against the cold wall until the feeling passed. There were no tears. Just a quiet, final crack in my soul.

Walking back to the east wing, I passed the backyard.

I stopped dead.

Ombra's doghouse was empty.

His favorite old blanket was still inside. The water in his bowl was bone dry.

My guard dog. The one who had been with me for years. A gift from Cassian on my sixteenth birthday. He was gone.

I spun around and ran back to the main house. For the first time ever, I burst into Cassian's study without being announced.

He was on the phone. He frowned when I stormed in.

"Where is Ombra?" I asked, my voice trembling.

He said, "I'll call you back," into the phone and hung up. His eyes, cold and distant, landed on me.

"He's gone."

"Gone where? Why?"

He got up from behind his desk and walked to the bar to pour a drink. He didn't even look at me.

"Camilla's pregnant. She doesn't like dogs. She said the way Ombra looks at her makes her uncomfortable."

"But Ombra is mine!" My voice shot up. "You gave him to me!"

That finally made him turn around.

He looked at me, his eyes empty of any warmth. Like he was looking at a stranger throwing a tantrum.

"So I took him back."

He swirled the whiskey in his glass. The ice cubes clinked.

"You don't need him anymore."

The air froze.

A sharp pain stabbed my heart.

I remembered when Ombra was just a puppy. Cassian put him in my arms and said, "Aurora, Ombra will protect you from now on."

I thought it was a brother's affection for his sister.

Later, I secretly hoped it was a man's cautious love for a girl.

Now I finally understood. It was just "the daughter of the Vitelli family needs a good watchdog."

I was being exiled. Why would an exile need a guard dog?

"I see." I turned away, not wanting him to see the heat in my eyes.

His cold voice came from behind me.

"Is there anything else? If not, get out. And don't you ever burst in here like that again."

I walked out of the study, my legs unsteady.

Marco the butler saw me at the end of the hall and hurried over.

He saw my pale face, and his eyes filled with real concern and pity.

"Miss Aurora," he hesitated, then lowered his voice. "Please... take care of yourself."

Back in my study, I locked the door and slid to the floor.

The evening sun slanted through the window. I buried my face in my knees, my shoulders shaking. I didn't make a sound.

Thank god I had already decided to leave.

Thank god I hadn't put my last shred of hope in him showing me any mercy.

Chapter 4

Camilla took over the family business faster than I expected.

Week one: She used "unstable pregnancy emotions" as an excuse to attend every family meeting.

Week two: She started crying before every meeting.

"Cassian, every time I see Aurora, I can't help but think—she knows everything better than me, she's more capable than me. Dr. Morrison says this will affect the baby..."

Cassian's face grew darker each time.

Week three: I was told I no longer needed to attend family meetings.

"Just focus on the underground accounts," Antonio told me, unable to look me in the eye.

On the last day of the third week, a maid knocked on my door.

"Miss Aurora, the Don requests your presence in the main living room. He has an important announcement."

When I walked in, Camilla was lounging on the sofa. Cassian sat beside her, one hand resting on her still-flat stomach.

The sight stung my eyes.

But I had learned to show no emotion.

"Aurora," Cassian began, his voice flat. "For the sake of Camilla's emotional state and the health of our child, starting today, you will move to the villa outside the estate."

The villa.

A small house two kilometers from the main residence. Used for unimportant guests.

Exile.

"I understand," I nodded calmly.

"As for any unfinished work," Cassian added, "write up a memo for Antonio. You don't need to be personally involved anymore."

I turned to leave.

Camilla's sweet voice called out, "Cassian, I'm cold."

"Here, take my coat."

I walked out of the living room, Cassian's gentle voice echoing behind me.

A voice he had never once used with me.

Back in my room, there wasn't much to pack.

In all these years, I had never truly owned anything.

The clothes, the jewelry, the books—they were all things Cassian had given me as his "adoptive sister."

I wouldn't take a single thing.

I only took a photo of my mother, my passport, and a few essential bank cards with minimal funds. The papers for my mother's five-million-dollar trust—now frozen by Cassian—I left on the desk.

Late that night, I walked into Cassian's study for the last time.

He wasn't there. He was at the hospital with Camilla for a prenatal check-up.

I took a thick file out of my bag.

I had spent three nights putting it together.

Mexican Routes, Annotated · Q4 2023 Edition.

FBI High-Priority Monitored Dead Accounts List.

Miami Shell Corporation Fund Flowchart.

Every page was marked with the latest risk alerts and contingency plans.

It was the sum of my six years of experience.

It was the last line of defense I would ever leave him.

I walked to his desk and slid the file beneath the false bottom of his desk blotter.

The one place he never looked. My secret spot.

If he found it in his darkest hour, that would be his luck.

If he never found it, then it would be my own private farewell to the past.

The next morning, I walked out of my room with a small suitcase.

Marco the butler was standing in the hall, his eyes full of pity.

"Miss Aurora, the car is ready."

"That's alright, Marco," I said with a small smile. "I'll walk."

Marco opened his mouth, then closed it. He just nodded.

The maids all looked down, avoiding my eyes.

I pulled my suitcase down the familiar hallway, through the estate I once thought was my home.

At the main gate, I stopped and looked back one last time.

The Vitelli estate was magnificent in the sunlight, an impenetrable castle.

But it was never mine.

"Aurora!"

Cassian's voice came from behind me.

I didn't turn around.

"Where are you going?" His footsteps grew closer.

"To the villa. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I mean... you're going to walk?"

"It's only two kilometers." I kept walking. "I have plenty of time."

"Get in the car. I'll drive you."

That stopped me.

I finally turned and looked at the man who was once my entire world.

He stood in the morning light, dressed in casual loungewear, his hair a mess.

He had clearly seen me leaving and rushed out after me.

There was something in his eyes I'd never seen before. Hesitation. And... unease.

"No, thank you, Boss." My voice was flat. "We wouldn't want Camilla to get the wrong idea."

Cassian froze.

The words were a shard of ice, delivered with perfect precision. I had used his own twisted logic against him.

His Adam's apple moved. His lips parted, but no sound came out.

"Aurora, you—"

"Goodbye, Cassian," I cut him off. "Take care of your wife and child."

I turned and started walking again.

This time, I didn't hear his voice.

The moment I walked out of the estate gates, I felt a strange sense of peace.

Like I had finally set down a burden I had carried for far too long.

The sun was bright. The breeze was light.

I pulled my suitcase, step by step, down the road that led away from Vitelli.

I was never looking back.