Chapter 2

The three days of captivity were suffocatingly silent. My phone had been taken away. Security stood outside the door in shifts, watching me around the clock.

Even when I went to the bathroom, I could hear the heavy pacing of leather shoes outside the door.

On the fourth night, I grabbed the vanity and slammed it onto the marble floor.

A sharp crash rang out.

The door burst open instantly.

I snatched up the largest shard of broken ceramic from the floor and, without hesitation, sliced it across my left wrist.

I didn't want to die. I just desperately needed proof that I was still alive.

Pain shot through me as bright red blood spilled out, but before I could even get a good look at the wound, one of the bodyguards twisted my arm behind my back and slammed me down onto the carpet. Another brought over a first-aid kit with practiced ease and wrapped my wrist tightly in gauze.

On the fifth day, Victor finally showed up.

He lowered his eyes to the bandage on my wrist, then curled his lip in a mocking smile.

"Emma, you've always been this weak and melodramatic. Pulling a stunt like some spoiled socialite fighting for attention only makes you look ridiculous."

"Weak?" I pushed myself up against the arm of the couch and screamed at him, my eyes red. "I gave birth to Lucas alone, enduring pain so bad it felt like my fingers were being torn apart! I rushed him to the ER alone through countless nights when he burned with fever! I lived every day under the shadow of you people—cold-blooded mafia killers—and still did everything I could to teach him that the world could be beautiful! And you call that weakness?!"

The tears finally broke loose. I jabbed a finger against his chest. "I made him practice piano and study math because I love him! I didn't want my son to turn seven and be holding one of your damn Glock pistols instead of a paintbrush! I didn't want him ending up dead in some shootout on the street!"

Victor brushed my hand away coldly.

"That's exactly why you were never fit to be the mistress of the Castellano family. In this world, tenderness is worthless. What Lucas needs to learn is how to pull a trigger, not how to play Mozart. Isabella can give him supreme power and the brutal rules of survival. You, on the other hand, would only make him weak, just like you."

Something inside me died completely.

"Let me go." I closed my eyes, my voice hoarse.

"Three days from now, my personal security team will escort you out," Victor said as he turned toward the door. "On one condition: you are never to appear in front of Lucas again. Keep your mouth shut about everything that happened here. Forget all of it. If you dare say one word to the media or the police, I promise you this—you'll disappear forever, just like those cement barrels at the bottom of the Hudson."

The door was locked again.

Three nights later, a storm swept over New York.

With a suitcase in my hand and everything I had spent years building here stripped away from me, I stepped out into the rain. Within seconds, my trench coat was soaked through.

Then the old phone a bodyguard had just returned to me began to vibrate in my pocket.

Victor.

"Emma, tomorrow the Castellano family will take over the Waldorf and formally announce Lucas as the heir of the third generation. Isabella will accept the elders' tribute as his mother. As for you... from this day on, Lucas's birth mother no longer exists."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He hung up.

A second later, my screen lit up with a breaking news alert.

Castellano Family to Hold Heir Appointment Ceremony Tomorrow

The photo showed Victor, Isabella, and Lucas in a tailored little suit. They stood together on the steps of the estate, smiling perfectly for the cameras, as if they were the only real family bound by blood.

Tears slid down my face.

I turned off the screen and threw the phone—along with the absurd ruins of the past seven years—into a trash can by the curb.

The wind cut like ice as I wandered aimlessly into an alley in Brooklyn.

Just as I was about to round the corner, a faint, trembling voice came from the shadows behind a dumpster.

"Help me..."

I stopped and looked over under the flickering streetlight. A tiny figure, soaked to the bone, was curled up in the muddy water. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was murmuring the same word over and over in a daze.

"Mom..."