Chapter 3

In a daze, I drifted into a long, long dream.

The dream took me back to the first time I met Zack. It was at the Yale graduation ball, and for him, it was love at first sight.

To win me over, the heir to the Torrino family waited outside my dorm building every day, like a loyal hound, patiently pursuing me for a whole year.

Finally, I said yes. He pinned me against my dorm room wall and kissed me like a wild beast, yet he was as thrilled as a teenage boy.

Two years later, Zack’s father passed away, and he became the new Don, taking control of Chicago's underworld. That day, he knelt before me with a massive diamond he’d had ready for ages and asked me to marry him.

He said, "Naia, marry me. You will be my one and only queen, and I swear I will be true to you for the rest of my life!"

My mother strongly disapproved when she found out. She said that men in the Mafia were the last people you could trust.

To prove her wrong, I got into a huge fight with my mother and stubbornly made a bet with her.

Zack was different from other men.

And he did treat me wonderfully after we were married. He never came home late, and in bed, he worshipped me like a goddess, unable to bear the thought of me getting even the slightest scratch.

Until that night. He brought home a stunner from the club—a dancer from Eastern Europe, a deadly assassin. That woman’s name was Aurora.

The next day, I saw it in Zack's eyes—the same fiery passion he once had when he pursued me.

But I refused to give up. I refused to accept that the man who once loved me to his very core was gone. And I refused to accept that I had lost to the rules of this world we were in.

So, I stubbornly refused to file for divorce, desperately trying to save our precarious marriage.

It wasn't until Zack, for her sake, threw my asthmatic mother to the wolves that I realized I had already lost. Utterly and completely.

The vision shattered, and I jolted awake, my mind filled with the haunting image of a single, hopeless flat line on the heart monitor.

I ripped the IV needle from my hand and staggered out, running towards the morgue.

But after searching every single refrigerated drawer, I couldn't find my mother's body anywhere.

Just as panic began to overwhelm me, two nurses walked out of a nearby room, dry-heaving into a trash can.

“That was so disgusting. That woman has some seriously sick tastes!”

“I know, right? What kind of twisted fetish is that? Insisting on watching the autopsy of a woman in her sixties, of all people. The second that scalpel went in, her insides just… spilled out.”

My heart seized. A dreadful thought clawed its way into my mind. I rushed over and grabbed one of the nurses, my voice trembling as I asked:

“What did you just say? What do you mean, a woman in her sixties?”

The nurse jumped, her eyes wide as she looked at me and stammered.

“W-well… it’s… it’s about an elderly woman who went into shock yesterday. She didn’t have any family, and she was resting peacefully in the morgue, but the boss’s girlfriend just had corneal surgery yesterday, and she said she wanted to… observe a dissection…”

“…so they sent the body to the anatomy lab.”

I couldn't hear a word the nurse said after that. A cold dread washed over me, as if my very blood was flowing in reverse.

I shoved them both aside like a madwoman and burst into the adjacent room.

All I could see was a mangled heap of remains, a gruesome mix of flesh and bone, scattered across the surgical table. The air was thick with the mingled stench of formalin and blood.

My entire body trembled so violently I could barely stand. I collapsed to my knees beside the table, unable to form a single, coherent word.

A smug look spread across Aurora's face at the sight. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, I lunged at her, my hands clamping around her throat in a death grip.

“You dare dismember my mother’s body? I’ll fucking kill you!”

I grabbed a pair of surgical scissors from the tray beside me and lunged, aiming for her heart.

But before the tip could even touch her, a brutal kick from the side sent me flying. My head slammed against the floor, and the surgical wound on my side instantly ripped open.

I lifted my head, my gaze locking with Zack’s furious eyes.

“Naia, have you lost your mind? How dare you try to stab Aurora with a pair of scissors!”

"If she gets so much as a scratch, I'll have you and your goddamn mother thrown out of the Torrino family!"

I laughed. Laughed until tears streamed down my face. Pointing at Zack, I spoke in despair:

"I am insane! You drove me insane!"

"Zack, you killed my mother! Do you really think I'd stay in the Torrino family after that?!"

"But how dare you let her dismember my mother's body? That was my mother—!"

The man's brows furrowed as he listened, and he shot me a look of displeasure.

"What nonsense are you spouting! How could I have killed your mother? She's lying in her hospital room right now!"

"Stop your act, Naia! This is just a cadaver from the lab. It's not your mother at all!"

With that, he pulled Aurora into a tender embrace and left.

Meanwhile, I stared in agony at the tatters of clothing mixed in with the pile of remains, and a mouthful of blood suddenly burst from my lips.

How could it not be agonizing? This was my mom! And she had died just like that, right before my very eyes.

But I didn't even have the chance to gather her remains.

Numbly, I rose to my feet and arranged my mother's final affairs by myself.

Then, with a heart as dead as ashes, I dialed his number:

"Hello. You've always wanted to take down Zack, haven't you? I can help you, but you have to agree to one condition."