Chapter 2

I tossed and turned all night.

Even after I’d made up my mind to leave, my heart still spasmed with pain every so often.

I curled up, pressing my hand hard against my chest.

I kept replaying every wound Donovan had given me, telling myself that walking away was the only way to save what was left of me.

But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop my mind from clinging to the good parts of him.

I remembered ten years ago, when my father-Marco Rossi, NYU’s most respected sociology professor-was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a female student. Overnight, his reputation collapsed into ruin.

The entire school avoided me like I was contagious. Friends who used to hover at my side disappeared one after another. Some people even cornered me on purpose-shoving me, cursing me, calling me a “rapist’s daughter,” saying I was filthy, just like my father.

That day, a group of them trapped me in the corner of a campus bathroom. Someone yanked my hair. Someone slapped my face. Someone splashed dirty water all over me. I screamed until my throat tore, desperate, but no one helped. No one believed me, no one believed my father was innocent.

Right when I thought they might actually beat me to death, Donovan appeared.

He’d only been twenty then, already the heir to the Jones mafia family. His brows and eyes still held a young man’s arrogance, yet he possessed a composure and ruthlessness beyond his age. He pushed past teachers and the principal, stepping in without hesitation, planting himself in front of me like a god, cutting off every ounce of malice and harm.

He faced the people surrounding me and spoke with icy certainty, authority that wouldn’t tolerate argument, every word deliberate: “I believe Isabella. I believe Professor Marco. He would never do something like this. From now on, anyone who dares bully Isabella again, anyone who dares slander Professor Marco again—that’s declaring war on the Jones family. That’s declaring war on me, Donovan Jones.”

He didn’t care how filthy I was. He pulled me into his arms and carried me through layers of sneers and laughter.

To protect me, to be with me, he even called off the blind date his parents had arranged with another mafia family’s daughter. He defied his own family and insisted on getting engaged to me.

For five years, I sank into his love.

That man, the one who once saved me was now the one who had hurt me the deepest.

He knew perfectly well that it was Ava’s testimony back then that sent my father to prison.

Ava and I had both been my father’s students.

My father discovered her graduate thesis was bought with money. He ruled it academic misconduct and planned to cancel her grade and make her rewrite it.

Then, right at that moment, someone reported him for sexual assault.

The police investigated again and again, but they never found the key evidence.

In the end, Ava took the stand and her testimony was what got my father convicted and imprisoned.

My father had cherished his reputation his whole life. He couldn’t bear the humiliation. He attempted suicide in prison, only a guard found him in time and saved him.

But he was still tortured in there, day after day.

My mother and I carried the label “rapist’s family.” We were spat on. We couldn’t lift our heads in public.

And now Donovan had chosen Ava as his mistress.

He didn’t care what that did to me. He didn’t care what it did to my mother.

The Donovan I loved, the one whose eyes once held only me was gone.

I drew in a shaky breath and closed my eyes. The pillow beneath me was soaked with tears, cold and damp.

Donovan didn’t come back that night.

He crushed the livestream trending topic down until it disappeared.

When I opened my phone, all I saw were photos of him and Ava together.

My fingers whitened around the phone. I bit my lip until it bled, without even realizing it.

In his world, I only deserved to be a prop, an ornament that accepted everything without complaint.

At dawn, I got up and started packing.

The butler came in carrying several Chanel outfits, smiling brightly.

“Ma’am, Mr. Donovan personally ordered these clothes for you. Mr. Donovan said you should wear this and go with him to the Rossi family home—to visit your mother and Professor Marco… in prison.”

“Put them down.”

My cold tone made the butler hesitate before he spoke again.

“Ma’am… Mr. Donovan… he still has you in his heart.”

I glanced at the photo Ava had just sent me and let out a self-mocking laugh.

Donovan was at the ancestral estate right now, bringing her to greet the elders.

Who the real Mrs. Jones was couldn’t have been more obvious.