It was the sixth time Dante Falcone had thrown those damn divorce papers in my face, forcing me to sign.

This time, I didn’t fight back.

He put down his fountain pen.

In that moment, a suffocating silence filled the room.

His deep, dark brown eyes stared dead at me, as if trying to pierce through my soul.

"Why are you being so obedient this time, Sophia?"

"Or are you planning another trick? Don't forget who you are, Mrs. Falcone."

I took off the ruby ring that symbolized the mistress of the family.

It was the one he had put on my finger when he proposed in Sicily.

I placed it gently on the mahogany desk, which had seen its share of both blood and money.

My voice was as calm as a dead person’s.

"No, Dante. I’m just... tired. Your world is too loud."

Silence stretched on.

Dante closed the folder and leaned back into his expensive Italian leather chair.

He picked up a cutter, snipped the tip of a Cuban cigar, and lit it slowly.

Through the swirling smoke, his expression was unreadable.

"There’s actually no rush. Even though you signed, the lawyers are still handling the complex split of the trust funds."

"Until the judge signs the final decree, legally, you are still my wife."

"The main thing is that Olivia is running for Chair of the Falcone Charity Foundation soon. It’s key to whitewashing our image in New York."

"You keep going to Mass General Hospital to make a scene, and you messed up her fundraising gala. It embarrasses the Family. The old guys on the board have a lot of complaints."

I didn’t answer.

I just gripped the pen.

Stroke by stroke, I signed "Sophia Rossi" on the agreement—my maiden name.

After signing, I looked up.

I looked straight at the Godfather who controlled Boston's underworld.

"Don't worry. I won't do it anymore."

Dante’s fingers, holding the cigar, paused slightly.

The smoke blurred his handsome but cruel face.

A moment later, he sat up straight.

His tone carried a hint of irritability and a threat I knew all too well.

"Good. It better be that way."

"Otherwise... you know the consequences of defying the Family’s will, Sophia. In here, no one can hear you scream."

My body trembled instinctively.

The last time I was forced to divorce, I had a mental breakdown.

I had posted evidence on Twitter and Reddit proving that Olivia Ricci stole my lab data.

Those screenshots clearly showed that her research on new opioids, published in The Lancet, used core data copied directly from my notes two years prior.

The result?

Dante used the Family’s legal team to sue me in Boston Federal Court for "violation of trade secrets" and "federal defamation."

After that, Olivia’s fanatical supporters—or rather, the bots hired by the Family—doxxed my address.

They launched a bullying campaign on social media designed to destroy me.

After the judge ruled in her favor, Dante stood there in his custom Tom Ford suit, looking down at me as I collapsed in tears.

He raised an eyebrow, the cruel smile of a victor on his lips.

"My dear, are you satisfied with this result?"

"Now you know. There are some families you can never mess with."

It was strange.

Back then, I felt suffocating pain, desperate enough to want to die.

But thinking back on it now, my heart felt nothing.

Only irony.

Carrying my Louis Vuitton suitcase out the gate of that Beacon Hill mansion, I stood in the cold wind.

I looked at the one-way ticket in my hand.

Belatedly, I realized something.

I was finally escaping this marriage that had dragged me into hell.

And I was escaping alive.