Chapter 1

The Miller family had been entrenched in Berlin’s upper circles for generations, an old mafia dynasty with deep underworld ties and power no one dared to challenge openly.

The first time I attended one of their family dinners as Liam Miller’s fiancée, the banquet hall was filled with powerful figures. Every smile was polished. Every glance carried an agenda.

Cold white light spilled from the crystal chandeliers. The air smelled of cigars and expensive perfume. Every inch of the room pressed down with the quiet weight of power.

I sat beside Liam in silence, doing everything I could to dull my edges, to make myself worthy of standing at his side.

Tonight, I told myself, I would try one last time.

Halfway through dinner, I gathered my courage and brought up our engagement in front of everyone.

I didn’t want his power. I didn’t want the Miller name. I only wanted a stable future with him.

A home that belonged to us.

I had already prepared myself for him to brush me off again.

What I hadn’t prepared for was the first slap.

In front of the entire room, Liam looked at me with eyes colder than ice. He had decided I wanted the Miller family’s fortune and influence, that I had spent all these years clinging to him just to claw my way into their world.

“You think you deserve to sit here?”

The moment the words left his mouth, his hand struck my face.

The sound cracked through the hall.

Every guest went still.

No one dared to move. No one dared to stop him.

He didn’t stop after one.

Again and again, his hand came down, more than a dozen times, until my cheeks burned raw, blood filled my mouth, and my vision blurred.

When he was done, he turned away without hesitation and rushed to Sophia, his childhood sweetheart, who was crying softly in the corner.

He pulled her into his arms and comforted her as if she were the one who had been hurt.

My whole body trembled.

I reached out and grabbed his sleeve, my voice hoarse as I begged him.

“Liam, don’t go…”

In his rage, he shoved me away without mercy.

The sound of bones breaking came from inside my own body, sharp and sickeningly clear.

I hit the edges of the stairs again and again, like a bird with its wings snapped.

At last, the back of my head slammed against the cold marble floor. Warm blood soaked into my hair and slid down my temple.

My consciousness began to scatter, as if someone were slowly turning off the lights inside my skull.

And in those final moments, the nineteen-year-old Liam came back to me.

So clearly it didn’t feel like a memory.

It felt as if time itself had split open.

I saw him skipping class to take me to a Christmas market. He spent ten euros at a balloon-shooting booth, won me a cheap stuffed bear, and shoved it into my arms with ridiculous pride, his eyes bright as if he'd stolen the stars “See? I’m amazing.”

I saw him trying to bake me a cake with his own hands. It came out lopsided, cream smeared all over his face, and the two of us laughed until we had to crouch on the floor.

I saw him calling me late at night, his voice urgent and breathless.

“Emma, I miss you. I need to see you right now.”

Ten minutes later, he really appeared beneath my apartment, his hair blown into a mess by the wind.

Back then, everyone said Liam Miller had lost his mind.

A mafia heir, brought to his knees by an ordinary girl.

But he didn’t care.

He held my hand in front of everyone and said, “She’s the woman I’m going to marry.”

I tried to hold on to those memories.

But they slipped through my fingers like sand.

What had Liam become after that?

Impatient. Careless. Cold.

He treated me like an inconvenience. Like an embarrassment. Like a burden he had outgrown.

The boy who once had eyes only for me had died somewhere along the way.

Or maybe I was the one dying.

Blood kept flowing. The chandelier above me shattered into a blur of light. Suddenly, I felt cold.

So cold.

As if someone had thrown me into the Rhine in the dead of winter.

Before the darkness swallowed me completely, I watched Liam carry Sophia into a car and leave.

He never looked back.

The Miller family hid me away in a private medical estate cut off from the outside world, placing me in an underground ward under layers of security.

There, alone, I fought through an entire month between life and death.

My broken ribs had pierced my lung. Six steel pins were inserted into my legs to hold the shattered bones together. The crack in my skull had nearly reached a fatal point.

The family’s chief physician told me privately that surviving at all was already a miracle.

But while I was fighting to live, no one came to see me.

Not Liam.

Not anyone from the Miller family.

To them, I was nothing more than something broken, tossed into a corner and forgotten.

Only Sophia sent me a bouquet of white lilies.

The card that came with it was crueler than the flowers.

Get well soon. Liam will be staying with me for a while, so he won’t have time to visit you.

Whatever was left of my heart turned to ash.

I called my mother overseas, the woman who controlled a powerful mafia empire of her own, and calmly agreed to inherit everything she had spent years trying to give me.

Her voice was steady.

“I’ve waited ten years for this day. I’ll arrange your flight.”

I handled my discharge alone.

A nurse wheeled me to the entrance. She looked at me as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she said nothing at all.

A black Maybach was already waiting outside. The driver opened the door for me with a respectful bow.

“Miss Emma, where to?”

I was quiet for a moment.

Then I gave him the address of the Miller family’s underground casino headquarters.

That building was where I had spent nine years helping Liam build his empire.

Now there was no place for me inside it.

In just one month, all my access had been wiped clean. My identity had been deleted from the system. Even the receptionist looked at me as if I were a stranger.

When I tried to enter, two black-clad guards stopped me cold.

“Ma’am, unauthorized personnel are not allowed inside.”

“I’m Emma. Liam’s—”

I stopped.

Liam’s what?

After nine years by his side, I didn’t even have a proper title.

I called him.

Once.

Twice.

Again and again.

He never picked up.

A few minutes later, Sophia sent me a video call.

On the screen, she was wearing a silk slip dress, her shoulders and collarbones bare. Behind her was Liam’s private lounge.

She smiled sweetly, smugness glittering in her eyes.

“Oh, Emma. You’re out of the hospital already? There have been a lot of threats against the Miller family lately, so outsiders aren’t allowed into the casino. But don’t worry. I’ll let them know.”

She didn’t even end the call.

Holding the phone up, she said lightly, “Let her in.”

The heavy black-and-gold doors, sealed to me only moments ago, slowly opened because of one word from her.

Numbly, I walked into the cage that had swallowed nine years of my youth.

The door to Liam’s top-floor office was half open.

I pushed it gently.

The scene inside was almost blinding.

Sophia lounged lazily on the leather sofa, her pale legs crossed over the coffee table as if she owned the place.

Liam was shirtless, his dress shirt tossed carelessly over a chair.

The air between them still held the heat of whatever had just happened.

They had been tangled together in his office without a care for the Miller family’s rules, dignity, or shame.

I felt nothing.

Nine years of devotion had been worn down over too many hopeless nights.

I placed the resignation letter I had prepared on the center of his desk.

“I’ve completed the handover for all my work,” I said calmly. “I’m leaving.”

My indifference clearly caught Liam off guard.

It was as if he had never seen me so calm.

So final.

He quickly stood and blocked my way, his tone impatient and dismissive.

“Sophia just came back to the country. Our families are close, and the elders asked me to spend more time with her. Besides, she’s more suited to be the future Mrs. Miller than you are.”

“Not just that, Emma,” Sophia interrupted with a soft laugh.

She lifted her hand, showing off the diamond ring on her finger. Under the light, it flashed like a blade.

On Liam’s ring finger, a matching band gleamed.

He didn’t deny it.

He only looked at me coldly, silently admitting everything.

I nodded.

No argument.

No questions.

“I understand. I wish you both happiness.”

Then I turned and left.

The steel pins in my legs had not yet been removed. Every step felt like walking on broken glass.

But that pain was nothing compared to the cold emptiness in my chest.

Every lonely night I had spent fighting to survive, every humiliation I had suffered at that family dinner, had already buried whatever was left of my love.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close, a hand shot between them.

Liam came after me.

He grabbed me from behind and held me tightly, burying his face against my neck. His breath was hot and unsteady.

For the first time, there was panic in his voice.

“Emma, Sophia and I are just a family arrangement. It’s not real. Don’t misunderstand…”

I gently pulled free from his arms and took a step back.

“Whether she’s your childhood sweetheart or your arranged marriage partner has nothing to do with me. I won’t cling to you. Don’t worry.”

The moment I finished speaking, Sophia’s soft voice drifted from the office.

“Liam, where did you put my lace nightgown?”

She walked barefoot to the doorway, wrapped only in a thin blanket.

When she saw me, she covered her mouth in fake surprise.

“Oh, sorry, Emma. I forgot you were still here. Liam and I grew up together. We’re used to being like this.”

I said nothing else.

The elevator doors slowly closed, cutting that ugliness out of my life for good.

Outside the casino, dusk had fallen over Berlin. The skyline glowed dark gold.

Nine years of my youth, from nineteen to twenty-eight.

All of it had been wasted on the wrong man.