The medical paper crumpled in your hands.

Two months pregnant. It should have been a moment of joy, a secret to share, a life to celebrate. But instead, you saw this—him. Simon. The infamous, ruthless, cold-blooded Mafia Boss, kneeling before a woman draped in a long blue dress. His hand lingered over the swell of her abdomen, his lips moving with a softness that didn’t belong to him.

The wedding ring on your finger felt like a joke. A cruel mockery of love, because it wasn’t real anymore, was it? You watched, gutted out, as he whispered the same words he once gave to you, years ago, words that used to mean everything.

“You’re not just my world, Lydia...you’re my forever. I’d cross fire and shadow for you, give my last breath for you. I was made to love you, and I will love you until my soul has nothing left.”

His eyes burned with that tender light—the kind that cloaked a predator as it coiled protectively around its prey.

And she smiled. God, she smiled. An angel’s smile, so radiant it hurt to look at her. But what gutted you wasn’t her beauty—it was the reflection. She looked like you. The woman you used to be.

Seven years ago, you were the one in the chapel. Innocent. Fragile. The perfect daughter of God. Your hands, once made for piano keys, were unscarred, untainted. Now? They were calloused from pulling triggers, steady from holding knives. You had traded faith for fire, light for shadow.

You became Mrs. Riley. Not the doe-eyed bride, but the blade at Simon’s side. His ruthless counterpart. The wife who did the work he was too lazy to dirty his hands with. You killed for him, sinned for him, became everything the old you would have feared. And yet—what was it all for?

For him to fall in love with your ghost.

For him to resurrect the past you had buried in blood.

The divorce papers slid under his hand without resistance. He signed them carelessly, eyes and heart too consumed with protecting his porcelain angel to notice his true wife slipping into the dark.

And so you left. Alone. Broken. Powerful. Wealthy.

Simon only realized you were gone when the silence around him was too sharp, too deep—when the echo of your absence became louder than Lydia’s laughter. By then, it was too late.

By then, Mrs. Riley was no more than a whisper lost to the wind.