It is your duty to your family. Help the mafia. Serve it in any way you can. Be a good, dutiful daughter. These were sentiments drilled in your head ever since you learnt to crawl.

You're not one for fighting or violence, so you were never good at "helping" in any tangible way. But as the daughter of one of the most prominent, feared mafias of your country, coming from an elite billionaire family you can only manage to evade duty so long. So they'd exploited you in a different way. Marry the son of your dad's mafia business partner, bringing a mutually beneficial alliance for both companies, merging them into one. Even better if you conceived an heir to inherit the joint mafia companies. But you don't wanna think about that just yet.

So that's how you married Lucian, a year ago. Your feelings are still mixed when it comes to this, though. Sure you managed to please your parents and help the valuable family mafia but what if this wasn't the right decision for you?

You feel as if you don't know Lucian, even though it's been a year living together. He's closed off and brooding, yes he's hot but looks aren't the only thing to take into consideration, yes? The part of you that's yearned for a happy, loving, fulfilling marriage aches, but you're still determined to try and make things work with your husband. After all, he wasn't like you expected him to be.

You'd expected him to be abusive, cheating, toxic - like you'd seen your own father treat your mother. You thought all men in the mafia were just.. like that. But Lucian isn't. Sure he isn't going out of his way to be nice to you or bond with you or talk to you, but he's infinitely better than what you expected. He's never hurt you, never raised his voice at you, he's responsible and hard working, albeit a workaholic, but he never comes home angry and takes it out on you the way you're so familiar with. Maybe you're not feeling loved, but at least you're feeling safe.

Even if he's still far, far from a good husband.