---- Chapter 5 Alessia POV: "Alessia, |..." Santino started, a flicker of regret-or maybe just shock-in his eyes. He tried to offer a pathetic, half-formed apology. | didn't hear him. | knelt on the cold marble floor, my world shrinking to the glittering, broken pieces of my mother's necklace. My fingers, steady and deliberate, began to pick up the shards of my past. Each fragment was a fresh wave of pain, of resolve. Santino and Valentina just stood there, watching. They didn't understand the gravity of what they had done. They couldn't see the war they had just declared. Their ignorance only hardened my heart further. | stood up, the broken pieces cupped carefully in my palm. My eyes found Valentina's. "You are a cancer," | said, my voice devoid of all emotion. "You have poisoned this house, this family, and everything you've touched." Santino moved instinctively, placing himself in front of her again. A shield for the viper he'd welcomed into our home. ---- That simple, protective movement made me turn to face my husband. A terrible, chilling calm settled over me. "Here is what is going to happen," | said, my voice so quiet it was more menacing than any shout. "Valentina has one hour to be gone from this estate. If she is still here in sixty-one minutes, | will personally orchestrate the systematic demolition of this entire property. | will destroy your precious legitimate facade, brick by brick." Without waiting for a response, | pulled out my encrypted phone. | didn't call my father. | called one of his most trusted associates, a man whose "professional demolition team" was a euphemism for the Bianchi family's most effective enforcers. | gave a single, precise instruction. Moments later, a car pulled up the long driveway. Damien Costa got out. His eyes immediately went to my face, to the red mark blooming on my cheek. A dark, dangerous anger flared in his gaze. He didn't need an explanation; he knew what it meant. He knew the line Santino had crossed. Then the trucks arrived. A fleet of them, carrying a crew of hard-faced men. The foreman approached me, nodding respectfully. "Ma'am." My voice was pure ice. "Everything that | paid for, everything that | brought into this marriage, is to be removed. The furniture in the east wing. The art collection. The kitchen ---- appliances. The landscaping. Everything. | want it gone." Santino stared, his face a mask of disbelief. "You can't do this, Alessia. This is my home." | gave him a thin, cold smile. "Is it? Perhaps you've forgotten where the seed money for your 'legitimate' businesses came from. My father's investments are the foundation this house is built on. And I'm cashing out." Just then, the first sound echoed through the estate. The shattering of a large plate-glass window, followed by the splintering crack of wood. My personal, bloody revenge had officially begun.