Chapter 1

1.

"Stop... please... it's too full..."

Tears streamed down my face as I kneeled before the man in the pure black Armani suit.

His voice was gentle, but his movements were savage.

"Baby, we're only halfway there."

After my rebirth, I spent five million dollars to hire the most expensive Italian model from New York's underground scene.

Money really does buy perfection.

He showed me things I had never experienced before.

But the next morning, while I was riding him for our morning exercise, a familiar face suddenly appeared in the doorway.

My husband. The Godfather of the Knight family. Asher Knight.

Asher ordered his men to drag the model away, then turned his cold eyes on me.

"Where did he touch you?"

My head was still spinning, and I gave a lazy, reckless smile.

"Lips, chest, inner thighs... everywhere you used to like, he touched."

A storm raged in his eyes. Veins bulged on his neck as he commanded his men.

"Chop him up. Feed him to the fish in the Hudson River."

I slid off the bed, stripping off my sweat-soaked nightgown as I walked to the bathroom.

"Do whatever you want."

In my past life, I was married to him for ten years.

They called me the "Scalpel of the Underworld."

I used my ruthlessness to help him wipe out rival families.

I watched him go from a nobody to the Godfather who ruled the city.

But during a turf war, he fell in love with a girl selling fish at the market.

She was timid. She would cry if a fish flopped too hard.

Asher said he had never seen a girl so clean and pure.

He took her away from the fish guts and put her in a countryside manor.

Her world of bloody scales turned into one of silk and diamonds.

I didn't know until I saw the wedding announcement in the New York Times.

Groom: Asher Knight.

After confirming it with the wedding planner, I ran to him in despair.

He was cleaning his Desert Eagle, looking completely unbothered.

"Lily is timid. If I don't give her a ceremony, she'll cry."

"You've always been the sensible one, Serafina. Don't make a scene."

My world collapsed.

On the day of their wedding, I grabbed a canister of gasoline, intending to burn us all down.

I failed.

That night, my grandmother, who was in the ICU, was taken off life support and thrown out of the hospital.

"Serafina, I told you to be sensible. This is your lesson."

I banged my head on the floor until I bled, begging him to let my grandma go, begging the doctors to save her...

But she turned cold in my arms.

I looked at the pool of blood spreading beneath me, screamed in agony, and faded into darkness.

Then, I opened my eyes.

I was back to the day I found the wedding news.

This time, I didn't cry. I didn't scream.

I immediately contacted a lawyer to file for divorce.

I just wanted to take Grandma and leave quietly. To go where Asher would never find us.

...

"Ma'am, the system shows your husband has indeed booked the Century Wedding Package at the Prada Hotel."

The wedding planner's voice yanked me back to reality.

My fingers trembled uncontrollably, nails digging into my palms.

Grandma was still in the hospital on a ventilator, but this time, she was still breathing.

My throat felt like sandpaper. "Can you tell me exactly when he booked it?"

"October 15th, around 3 PM."

My heart turned to ice.

October 15th was my birthday.

That day, I had cooked his favorite filet mignon and ordered a cake. I waited from dusk until dawn.

He never came home.

Not even a text.

It turned out he missed my birthday because he was too busy booking a wedding with another woman.

I hung up and rushed to the law firm.

I was about to hail a taxi when I saw that familiar bulletproof Cadillac parked on the corner.

In my past life, this was where I broke down and begged him.

He had pressed the handle of his gun against my chin and told me to "grow up."

This time, I immediately turned and hid in the shadows.

The car door opened. Asher stepped out in all black.

The man who always looked down on everyone actually walked around the car to open the passenger door.

He helped a girl out.

The fish girl. Lily.

She wore a pure white dress. Her slender fingers gripped his sleeve tightly. Her eyes were wet, like a frightened deer.

Asher draped his jacket over her shoulders and spoke softly.

"It's windy. Don't catch a cold."

That tone. I hadn't heard that gentleness in ten years of marriage.

Her lower belly was already slightly showing. She whispered fearfully, "Mr. Knight... are you sure about the wedding? I'm just a fish seller... I don't deserve you..."

He smiled, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

"Don't be silly. You deserve it. And our child deserves it."

Standing in the shadows, I let out a cold laugh.

I slipped away, finished my business at the law firm, and went straight to a clinic.

I booked an appointment to terminate my pregnancy.

The doctor looked at the ultrasound and hesitated.

"Ma'am, are you sure? With your physical condition, it might be difficult for you to conceive again."

I closed my eyes. My voice was dead calm.

"I'm sure."

He shouldn't come into a world where even his father doesn't want him.