CHAPTER 3

Betrayal Doesn't Kill You. It Reshapes You.

Alessia Rossu had died that night in Naples.

But Sasha?

Sasha was born in fire.

She didn't run. Running was for the desperate, for those who clung to the hope of return.

Alessia fled like a ghost.

She left behind no traces—no loose ends, no lingering shadows of the woman she had once been. Everything that had tied her to Naples, to Matteo, to the empire they had built together—erased.

Her penthouse? A smoldering ruin before the sun rose.

Her bank accounts? Drained and funneled through a dozen untraceable hands.

Her past connections? Cut with surgical precision until she was nothing but a whisper on the wind.

Matteo had ensured there was no place left for her in Naples.

Fine.

She would carve a new existence—one built not on love, but on vengeance.

And for that, Alessia Rossu had to die.

Sasha had to be born.

Becoming Sasha was not a mere change.

It was a purge. A violent, merciless reinvention forged in suffering and discipline.

The Body

Alessia had been soft, her curves once admired, once cherished. But softness had been a weakness. A liability. A flaw.

So she stripped it away.

Morning runs that pushed her lungs to their breaking point.

Weights that carved strength into her bones.

Combat training that taught her the language of pain—knife work, firearms, bare-knuckle fights that left her bloodied but standing.

Every bruise, every aching muscle, every drop of sweat was a reminder: she was not the girl Matteo had betrayed.

She was becoming something else.

The Face

Her reflection was no longer her own.

Her auburn hair, once soft waves, darkened into a cascade of midnight curls.

Her once-rounded features sharpened—cheekbones carved like marble, lips a perfected smirk, eyes that no longer carried warmth.

But the eyes themselves?

Bluish-green hazel. The last relic of Alessia Rossu.

Sasha hadn't needed a scalpel to erase Alessia Rossu. Surgery was for those who wanted to tweak a feature, not for someone who needed to become an entirely different person. She had shed everything—her softness, her weight, her innocence—until nothing remained of the girl who once worshipped Matteo. The world didn't recognize her because there was nothing left to recognize.

A ghost of who she had been.

Everything else had burned.

Strength was not enough.

If she wanted revenge, she needed power. And power was built not just on muscle, but on knowledge.

She studied the things Matteo had used against her.

Finance. How money moved in the shadows—offshore accounts, shell corporations, silent takeovers. She learned to track wealth, to dismantle fortunes with a few keystrokes.

Law. She dissected legal loopholes, memorized extradition policies, studied the thin line between criminal and untouchable.

Cybercrime. She learned to erase herself, to walk unseen in a world ruled by data and surveillance.

The girl Matteo had played like a pawn?

She was gone.

Now, Sasha would be the one moving the pieces.

For years, something had lingered. A foolish, fragile hope buried beneath the rage.

Maybe there had been a reason.

Maybe Matteo had regretted it.

Maybe—just maybe—some part of him had still loved her.

And then she saw him.

Years later. Sitting at the head of an empire he had stolen, sipping aged whiskey in a high-rise office overlooking Naples, untouched by his sins.

He had not suffered.

He had not mourned.

He had not even hesitated.

He had sacrificed her to save himself.

And it had worked.

The last ember of love, of longing, of anything soft, died in that moment.

Alessia had once loved Matteo.

But Sasha?

Sasha would ruin him.

There was no mourning.

No grief.

Only resolve.

She had been the girl who built his empire.

Now, she would be the woman who burned it to the ground.

And Matteo?

He would finally understand—

Some betrayals don't just wound.

Some betrayals don't just destroy.

Some betrayals ignite an inferno