Chapter 1

The Morettis tied me up at the Long Island docks. With what little strength I had left, I called him. I was shaking so hard I could barely speak, “Michael, please… save me. I’m at the Long Island docks. They’re going to kill me.”

But he had already decided I was lying, “You’ll do anything to get me home, won’t you? Now you’re even making up something like this? If nothing’s actually wrong, don’t call me again.”

He hung up before I could explain.

And in the end, I died.

Not long after, fishermen found my body.

When Michael got the call from one of his men, he was in a villa in Brooklyn, making Sicilian almond porridge for his mistress, Bella.

Bella stood beside him, one hand resting on her slightly rounded belly. She picked up his phone and smiled, “Michael, your phone.”

The second the ringtone started, Michael assumed it was me again. He frowned and waved it away, “Hang up.”

Bella did as she was told. But the caller was desperate. Two seconds later, the phone rang again.

Michael wiped his hands on a napkin, snatched the phone, and snapped, “Sophia, are you ever done? What lie are you trying to sell me this time?”

In his eyes, I was no longer his wife. I was just the selfish, cold-blooded woman he blamed for my father’s death.

Michael was my father’s adopted son. He had been raised as the Corleone heir since he was a boy.

Once, I had been betrayed by an insider and kidnapped by the Morettis. They used my phone to threaten my father. Either he handed over the Corleone family’s most important business routes, or they would kill me on the spot.

My father loved me too much. Even knowing it was a trap, he agreed without hesitation.

The exchange was arranged at a dock outside the city. The moment they shoved me toward my father, a gunshot cracked through the shadows. A bullet flew straight for his chest.

I panicked. I tried to push him out of the way.

But in the chaos, someone shoved me from behind. I lost control of my strength, and instead of pushing my father away from danger, I sent him straight into the bullet’s path.

The gun went off. My father fell in a pool of blood. And Michael arrived with his men at that exact moment. He saw me push my father. He saw my father get shot. But he did not see the hand hidden in the dark. He did not see the terror in my eyes. He did not see my desperation.

From that day on, I became the woman who had killed his father. He believed I had walked into a trap because I was foolish. He believed that, to save myself, I had pushed my father to his death.

Even on his deathbed, my father took Michael’s hand and made him promise to protect me, to keep me safe, and to never divorce me.

He could not hate my father. So he hated me instead.

After that, my life changed completely.

I lost the father who loved me. And I lost the Michael who had once loved me.

He never gave me another shred of tenderness. The man who once wiped cream from the corner of my mouth now looked sick of me whenever I appeared in front of him. The man who once panicked over a tiny cut on my finger now shoved me away whenever I tried to explain and called me selfish, heartless, and cruel.

This time, before he could say anything else, the man on the other end shouted urgently, “Don, we found a woman’s body at the Long Island docks. Homicide. It’s bad. I’m sending you the location. You need to come now.”

The fury on Michael’s face vanished at once.

In front of outsiders, he always carried himself with a careless, almost bored ease. But when it came to the Corleone family, no one was more serious than him.

That was why my father had chosen him as heir.

That was how Michael had become the Don of New York’s Corleone family at such a young age.

“All right. Stay there. I’ll be there in ten.”

After hanging up, he pulled off his house apron and set down the knife he had been using to pry open a can, “Bella, something happened in the family. I may be busy this weekend. I’ll have Mrs. Smith come look after you for a few days, okay?”

Bella gave an understanding nod and said softly, “Go. Family business comes first.”

I was already dead. But my soul had not disappeared.

Like my body, it was covered in blood and wounds.

I floated behind him and watched him rush out the door. A chill settled deep in my chest.

Would he see my body?

Would he regret hanging up on me?

But even if he did see me, he probably would not recognize me.

By the time Michael reached the Long Island docks, the area had already been sealed off by Corleone men. A black perimeter line marked with the family crest circled the scene. Several enforcers stood around the restricted area.

A young man hurried over when he saw Michael and handed him gloves and a mask, “Don, the victim’s face was destroyed. Her limbs were dismembered. We can’t confirm her identity yet.”

When I was alive, I cared so much about looking beautiful. Seeing my body reduced to something barely human made something inside me ache, even after death.

“The tide has been high lately, so the body is badly bloated. We can’t determine the exact time of death yet.”

“The DNA sample has been sent to the family lab. We’ll have results in three days.”

Michael put on the gloves and bent down. He unzipped the waterproof body bag. The moment he saw what was inside, his brows drew tight. Even his voice changed: “The organs are gone.”

His gaze moved over the cuts, “The incisions are clean. Whoever did this knew exactly how to use a blade.”

His voice sank. “This wasn’t a simple revenge killing.”

Everyone around him went silent.

No one dared imagine what the victim had suffered before death.

Even the enforcers who had seen blood all their lives looked away. A few turned pale and stepped back.

“What kind of hatred makes someone do this?”

The older men exchanged grim looks. None of them spoke.

But they were all thinking the same thing.

The Moretti family. The Corleones’ oldest enemy. The Morettis had taken plenty of Corleone territory over the years, and several smaller factions had already defected to them. The two families had been fighting for a long time, but on the surface, they had still maintained a fragile balance.

In the past, the Morettis only dared cause trouble along the edges of Corleone territory. But now they had struck directly on Long Island. And they had left a body in the heart of Corleone territory. To the Corleone family, this was not just murder. It was a declaration of war.