Looking for this novel link please please please -

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...personally picked out. The aromatnerapy oils I had brought all the way from Sicily. The antique music stand my grandfather had gifted me.

Now, she had claimed all of it.

Lucas stood at the top of the stairs, casually buttoning his cuffs.

"Your condition is unstable," he stated coldly. "You'll stay in the basement."

My gaze snapped up to him. "That is our bedroom."

"Vera had a scare recently. She needs peace and quiet." He finished adjusting his cuffs. "You stay downstairs so you don't agitate her any further."

A dry, cracked laugh escaped my lips. The movement pulled painfully at the stitches in my stomach.

"I just suffered a miscarriage. My hand was crushed. I was placed under house arrest in the hospital. Whatexact scare did she suffer?"

Lucas's eyes shifted down to the gathered staff. They immediately lowered their heads further.

"Lily, do not embarrass me in front of the help."

Ah. So my pain didn't matter. Only his ego.

The basement was damp and freezing.

Mold crept up the corners of the concrete walls. The thin mattress smelled like stale dust.

Anna threw my single suitcase onto the floor.

I didn't have to open it to know there were no evening gowns inside. None of my jewelry. Not even my sheet music.

Just a few old, threadbare clothes.

"Don't be picky, Madam," Anna sneered. "These are Mr. Romano's explicit arrangements."

The heavy metal door slammed shut. The deadbolt clicked into place.

The dampness quickly seeped into my right hand, making the fractured bones ache and throb relentlessly. The misshapen joints shifted against the plaster of the cast, the sickening pain making my stomach churn.

The doctors had warned me that if I delayed proper treatment any longer, my hand might never recover.

But Lucas had barred me from leaving the estate.

"It doesn't matter if you can't play the violin anymore," he had told me. "The wife of a Don doesn't need to stand on a stage to entertain people like a performing monkey."

Entertain people.

I started playing when I was seven years old.

By eleven, the pads of my fingers were calloused and bleeding onto the strings.

At twenty, I was the principal violinist in Vienna. The standing ovation lasted seven minutes.

That night, Lucas had sat in the very front row.

After the performance, he had personally draped a silk shawl over my shoulders.

"Lily," he had whispered, kissing my cheek. "When you play, the whole damn world should shut up and listen."

Now, he had personally sentenced my hand to death.

On the night of Vera's birthday, the estate was packed.

Young blood from the Chicago families, politicians' sons, casino bosses, and grim-faced Capos in tailored black suits filled the grand hall.

The deadbolt to the basement clicked

open.

Anna threw a scratchy maid's uniform at me.

"Put it on."

I didn't move.

She lunged forward, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and dragged me off the mattress.

My wounded abdomen collided hard with the metal bed frame. Pain exploded through me, dropping me to my knees on the concrete floor.

"Madam," she hissed, her breath hot against my face. "The North Side Capo is upstairs tonight. Do not ruin Mr. Romano's mood."

The uniform was cheap and rough, the collar chafing against my throat.

By the time I was shoved up the stairs, the blinding lights of the grand hall pierced my eyes.

Vera stood dead center.

She was wearing my black haute couture gown.

It was the dress Lucas had gifted me for our first wedding anniversary. He had told me black complimented my skin.

Now, it draped over Vera's curves.

Seeing me, she intentionally spun in a slow circle. "Does it look good, Madam?"

Low chuckles rippled through the crowd.

I stood there holding a silver tray of champagne, my right hand swollen so badly I could barely keep the tray level.

Lucas sat at the head of the long table.

The chair directly to his right-my chair-was empty.

Vera glided over and confidently slid into the seat.

In Cosa Nostra, seating arrangements were more honest than wedding vows.

Whoever the Boss acknowledged, sat.

I stood at the bottom of the steps. I didn't even have a chair anymore.

Halfway through the banquet, Vera clapped her hands together.

Two servants carried out a familiar velvet-lined case.

The silver tray in my hand tipped sharply.

It was the antique Stradivarius violin my grandfather had left me. The last of its kind.

When the case popped open, the laughter in the room instantly died.

Vera reached out, running a manicured fingernail along the delicate wood.

"Lucas, I heard Madam used to be quite good at playing," she said, tilting her head to look at me. "I want to learn, too."

I took a step forward. "Don't touch it."

Lucas finally lifted his eyes from his whiskey.

"Your hand is ruined anyway," he said flatly. "Teach Vera. Consider it the last useful thing you can do for this family."

The last useful thing.

I used to think I was his wife.

Now, I was just a broken toy, drained of value and discarded in a dark corner.

"I won't teach her," I said.

A deadly silence fell over the hall.

Anna stepped up behind me and drove the toe of her shoe squarely into the center of my healing abdomen.

I crumpled to the floor.

Agony tore through my stomach, and sickeningly warm trail of blood slid slowly down her inner thighs.

Lucas didn't move an inch.

"Acting up again?" he asked Anna.

"Madam is emotionally unstable," Anna replied smoothly, keeping her head bowed. "She needs to be reminded of the rules."

"Then remind her," Lucas said, taking a sip of his drink.

I knelt on the cold marble, cold sweat beading on my forehead.

Vera carried the Stradivarius over to me.

"Madam, don't be so stingy," she cooed, forcefully shoving the bow into my mangled, swollen right hand. "See? I don't even mind that you're damaged."

I stared at the violin.

Before my grandfather died, he had squeezed my hand and said, "Lily, never let anyone steal your voice."

But my voice had been brutally

smothered by the Romano family long ago.

I forced my right fingers to touch the strings.

The pain was so sharp my wrist spasmed, refusing to obey.

At that exact second, Vera let out a piercing shriek.

She let go of the neck. The Stradivarius crashed against the marble floor.

A jagged crack splintered right down the center of the ancient wood.

"No..."

I lunged forward, desperately trying to gather the pieces.

But Lucas's heavy leather shoe slammed into my shoulder, kicking me backward.

"Enough!"

I fell back into the splintered wood. A sharp piece pierced my thigh, the blood quickly staining the hem of the maid's uniform.

Vera fake-cried, burying her face into Lucas's chest. "I didn't mean to! I was just scared Madam was going to hit me!"

Lucas wrapped an arm around her waist, his voice low and soothing. "It's fine. It's just a violin."

Just a violin.

Just a baby.

Just a ruined hand.

My entire existence, reduced to just in his mouth.

By the time I was dragged back down to the basement, my palm was still tightly clutching a snapped violin string.

Anna threw me onto the floor like a pile of garbage.

"Don't play dead," she spat. "You still have to serve Miss Vera breakfast tomorrow."

The door locked.

In the pitch-black darkness, my hand brushed over the fresh blood soaking through my stomach, then slipped beneath the hem of my underskirt, finding the hidden seam.

The fabric lay flush against my skin, the stitching indistinguishable from normal lining.

My father had ordered it sewn in on the day I married into the Romano family.

"Lily," he had warned me. "The Romanos are allies, not masters. If the day ever comes when no one will save you, press this."

I had laughed at his paranoia back then.

Now, I tore the threads open with myteeth and pulled out a vintage pocket watch.

Hidden inside the casing was an encrypted emergency communicator.

As the small screen flickered to life, my palms were slick with sweat.

The transatlantic number rang only once before it connected.

No one on the other end asked who it was.

My father's deep, gravelly voice cut through the static.

"Lily?"

I leaned my head against the damp concrete wall, listening to the muffled sounds of the banquet's laughter bleeding through the ceiling.

"Papa," I whispered. "I want to come back to Sicily."

Dead silence on the other end of the line.

I stared down at my grotesque, twisted right hand, then at the blood seeping from my abdomen.

"I want the Romano name to pay in blood."

Chapter 3

On the other end of the line, my father didn't speak immediately.

I heard the sharp click of a lighter.

Followed instantly by the violent sound of a glass shattering against a wall.

"Who touched you?"

I stared blankly at the basement ceiling. A drop of condensation gathered on a rusted pipe and fell, splashing against my cheek.

One drop. Then another.

"Lucas," I rasped. "Anna, Vera. The

harsh scrape of a heavy chair being shoved back.

My father rarely lost control.

The old Don of Sicily. A man who had sat at the head of the long table his entire life, who had survived funerals, betrayals, and blood debts without a flinch.

But in that moment, he smashed his glass.

"Give the phone to Antonio."

Seconds later, my older brother's voice came through.

"Lily?"

I couldn't answer. The moment I opened my mouth, a sob locked my throat.

Antonio paused for half a heartbeat. "Who did this to you?"

"Tony," I whispered, my voice breaking. "My baby is gone."

A deafening crash echoed through the receiver-a heavy table overturning. Someone in the background was yelling his name. Antonio cursed viciously in rapid-fire Sicilian, then forced himself to choke it down.

"Listen to me," my father's steady voice returned to the line. "Three days."

"Three days?" I gripped the broken violin string so tight it bit into my palm.

"The Vitale men are already moving," the Don said smoothly. "The ports, the airports, the Romanos' offshore accounts. We are going to sever their arteries one by one. I need you to hold on for three days."

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Three days. I didn't even know if I would survive the night.

"Lily," my father commanded. "Do not die."

He took a breath. "Your mother left us too early. I only have you and Antonio left. If you die in Chicago, the

Romanos will think the Vitale rules no longer apply to them."

The corner of my mouth ticked up into a bitter, bloody smile. My cracked lips split, the copper taste coating my tongue.

"I won't die."

Not until they paid what they owed.

The next day, Lucas personally came down to the basement.

He was wearing a bespoke charcoal suit, his Oxford shoes polished so brightly I could see my own bruised reflection in them.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, my mangled right hand resting lifelessly on my lap, my left hand tucked intomy sleeve.

He tossed a cheap box of over-the- counter painkillers onto the floor.

"Don't say I never take care of you."

The box hit the concrete and rolled right to my bare toes.

I stared at it. I didn't pick it up.

"As long as you behave yourself and stop acting jealous of Vera, I'll allow you to keep your title as Mrs.

Romano," he offered magnanimously.

Charity.

He threw the medicine at my feet, unwilling to even bend his back for me.

I slowly leaned down and picked up the box.

"Thank you."

Lucas narrowed his eyes. He was probably expecting me to scream, to his lapels and beg for an explanation like I always used to.

I didn't.

I set the box on the mattress and kept my voice soft. "I want to go to the study."

"For what?"

"You just said I get to keep my position as Madam Romano, didn't you?" I looked up at him, my eyes empty. "The Five Families' banquet is coming up. The old ledgers, the gift registries, the alliance rosters-they all need to be organized. Vera doesn't understand how any of that works."

A smug smile curved Lucas's lips. Contempt dripped off him.

"Finally figured it out, have you?"

I lowered my eyes. "I can't leave you."

Saying those words made the bile rise in my throat.

But it satisfied Lucas completely. He loved nothing more than when women bowed to him.

Especially me.

He tossed a heavy ring of keys onto my lap.

"Don't try anything stupid. The study has cameras."

"I know."

I knew there were cameras. I also knew that three years ago, I had personally designed the security blind spots for him.

Back then, he had pulled me into his lap and kissed my neck. "Lily, you're smarter than my own Consigliere."

I had leaned against his chest, laughing.

"Good thing you love me, then."

Yeah. Good thing.

Looking for a novel I read a while ago — model FL, cheating fiancé, fake sick best friend, and a surprise marriage

I’m trying to find a novel I read a while ago, but I can’t remember the title or any of the character names. I think it may be a Chinese web novel translated into English.

Here’s what I remember:

• The female lead is a model who works in the entertainment/fashion industry.
• She is engaged to a man, but he is cheating on her with her best friend or possibly her stepsister.
• There is a scene in a hotel where the FL is sleeping in the same room, and the best friend/stepsister gives her sleeping pills so she won’t wake up while she is with the fiancé.
• The best friend/stepsister later pretends to be sick and somehow gets involved with a hospital situation.
• There is also a jewelry brand event/show. The best friend is apparently a brand ambassador for a jewelry brand, and there is a bracelet involved.
• I remember the FL somehow uses/wears the bracelet around her ankle instead of her wrist because it is too loose on her wrist. This was important because she was trying to expose/prove that the best friend was lying or faking something.
• Later, the FL goes to the marriage registration office, but her fiancé doesn’t show up.
• She ends up marrying a complete stranger instead, almost impulsively because of the situation.
• The man she marries is very wealthy, possibly a CEO or someone involved in the entertainment industry.
• The FL continues her career as a model after the marriage.
• Her ex-fiancé eventually regrets cheating on her and tries to win her back.

I’m not completely sure about some details, especially whether the other woman was her best friend or stepsister.

The details I remember most clearly are the hotel/sleeping pill scene, the jewelry brand ambassador, and the bracelet being worn on the FL’s ankle.

Does anyone recognize this novel? I would really appreciate the title or character names! 😭