Chapter 5

Alessia's POV:

Bianca approached me as the crowd began to disperse, the five-million-dollar pendant clutched like a trophy in her hand. The moment Marco was out of earshot, her tearful, fragile mask instantly dissolved.

"We don't have to pretend when he's not looking," she sneered, her eyes glittering with triumph.

"Give it back," I ground out, my voice low and dangerous. "I've given you everything else. I want my mother's pendant."

She let out a sharp, ugly laugh. "You didn't give me anything, Alessia. I took it."

She saw Marco approaching, and her entire demeanor shifted in an instant. Her face crumpled, her shoulders slumped, and the carefully orchestrated tears welled in her eyes.

She grabbed my hand, her grip surprisingly strong. "I just wanted to look at it," she wailed, her voice thick with manufactured sobs. "And she started yelling at me! She said I wasn't worthy!"

I tried to pull my hand away, but she clung to it, using the momentum to artfully stumble backward, right into Marco's chest, sobbing as if her heart would break.

Marco's face darkened. Bianca held the pendant out to him, her hand trembling.

"Lia loves it so much," she cried, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes. "I can't take it. It wouldn't be right."

I held out my hand, my heart pounding with a desperate, foolish hope. I expected him to give it to me. He had promised.

Instead, he took the pendant from Bianca, his expression hardening as he looked at me. He unclasped the chain and fastened it around Bianca's neck.

A tremor ran through me, a cold dread washing over me. "What are you doing?"

"This is an apology gift," he declared, his voice a frigid declaration. "To Bianca. For your appalling behavior tonight."

My control shattered. The poise, the calm, the carefully constructed walls-they all crumbled into dust. A raw, guttural sound tore from my throat, and I lunged for Bianca, my fingers already clawing for the heirloom at her throat.

"Are you insane?" Marco snarled, shoving me away with brutal force. He shielded Bianca with his body as if I were a rabid animal. "She would never lie to me."

I crashed into an empty chair, pain shooting up my back as I hit the ground. The last flickering ember of hope inside me died, leaving nothing but cold, black ash.

I got to my feet, my body aching, my very soul numb.

"Keep it," I said, my voice broken.

I turned and walked away.

I heard him call my name, a note of confusion in his voice. "Lia!"

He started to follow, but Bianca clung to him, her sobs escalating. "Marco, I don't feel well. The baby..."

He chose her. He always chose her. He dismissed me with a curt command to "cool off."

Outside the hotel, the cold night air hit my face. I stood on the curb, waiting, a pathetic part of me still clung to the hope of his car pulling up, of him offering one last, hollow placation.

He never came.

He wasn't even going to pretend anymore. It was over. Truly, finally over.