Chapter 1

I married into a powerful mafia queen's empire and stayed by her side for ten years.

I lived and died for her. The hands I once used to play the piano grew thick with gun calluses and stained with blood.

Yet when she turned twenty-eight, she fell madly in love with a boy she brought back from the slums.

She hid him well, until the day I caught him taking her to an OB-GYN clinic for a prenatal checkup.

When I confronted her in a frenzy, she casually handed me a divorce agreement.

"Jonah is a devout Catholic. He can't have a child out of wedlock, so I need to give him a legitimate title."

"Sign it, and forty percent of my empire's shares are yours."

I refused to step aside, so she pressured me at every turn.

In the end, she kidnapped my paralyzed younger brother and dragged him under a hydraulic industrial press.

"Cedric Shaw, sign the papers, or watch him get crushed into meat paste. It is your choice."

I knelt on the floor, begging her to stop. But as the machine roared to life, my brother's blood and flesh sprayed all over me.

I passed out in the middle of his remains.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the day I caught her and that boy at the prenatal appointment.

This time, I didn't make a sound. I quietly arranged for a private sanitarium in New York, signed the divorce papers, and ran.

Yet after I truly vanished, she went completely insane.

1

I crouched behind the wall, covering my mouth as my entire body trembled.

The gruesome image of my brother's death was still burned into my retinas.

Around the corner, Nadia Frost was reassuring Jonah Bennett.

"Once the baby is stable, we will go register our marriage."

Hearing those words again, I didn't lose my mind.

In my previous life, I had charged out to confront her. Afraid that Jonah would discover he was a kept lover, she had smashed my jaw with the butt of her gun without hesitation.

Remembering that agony, I shrank further into the shadows.

Down the hall, Nadia wrapped her arm around Jonah's waist and walked away.

Only after confirming they wouldn't return did I walk into the doctor's office with my test results.

The doctor gave me a sympathetic look. "Mr. Shaw, the cancer cells are spreading rapidly. I strongly advise you to begin treatment while it is still in the early stages."

I stared silently at the lab report in my hands.

My mind was flooded with the tender look in Nadia's eyes as she watched Jonah listen to her belly.

Ten years ago, I drowned in that exact same gaze. For her, I gave up a prestigious music scholarship in Europe and abandoned my dream of being a concert pianist.

Step by step, these hands learned how to pull a trigger instead of playing Mozart. I grew accustomed to a life of violence and bloodshed.

Yet the moment Jonah Bennett appeared, everything I had sacrificed turned into a pathetic joke.

Seeing that I wasn't responding, the doctor continued, "Chemotherapy is best done with family support. Does your wife know about this?"

I looked up, meeting the doctor's eyes, and spoke in a flat voice.

"My wife is dead."

An hour later, I staggered out of the hospital, pale and leaning against the wall for support.

Once the color returned to my lips, I pulled out my phone and dialed my brother's caregiver.

"Leo, transfer my brother to the private care facility in New York this week. Keep it completely quiet. Nadia must not suspect a thing."

I also instructed my trusted associate to draft a divorce agreement.

Just as I finished making the arrangements, my subordinate sent over all the background files on Jonah Bennett.

In my past life, I hated him to the bone and couldn't even stand the sight of his face.

Having lived through it once, I was surprisingly calm. For the first time, I was curious what kind of saint could bewitch Nadia, a woman who had seen countless handsome men.

I tapped open the video attachment.

Inside a weathered, sunlit chapel, a young man was playing A Dream Wedding on an old upright piano.

The warm sunlight fell across his faded white button-down shirt.

He looked pure and innocent, like a gentle spring breeze.

Standing beside him, Nadia's profile showed a rare, intoxicated smile full of adoration.

I abruptly paused the video.

I bolted into the restroom and vomited violently into the sink.

How utterly absurd.

The person she had fallen in love with was simply me from ten years ago.