Morning light spilled across the cobblestone driveway, golden and warm, as if the world itself hadn't yet realized how cruel the day would become. Ten-year-old Mariluna darted barefoot through the foyer, her small feet slapping against the polished floor, her two loose braids swinging wildly behind her.
"Papa! Mama! Wait for me!" she shouted, her breath coming in gasps. In her hands, crumpled from a night of anxious coloring, was a drawing of the three of them smiling on a beach.
Outside, the sleek black car purred to life. Her parents were already inside, the door just clicking shut. Mariluna reached the gate, waving the drawing frantically. "I made this for you! Look!"
But they never saw it.
Without warning, the world shattered. A thunderous boom tore through the morning, followed by a blast of scorching heat that hurled her off her feet. She landed hard against the ground, a ragdoll tossed aside by fate. The air howled with twisted metal and roaring flames, the sky turning orange as fire reached up like greedy hands.
Dazed, her ears ringing, Mariluna lay still, smoke clawing at her throat. She didn't feel the blood trailing from the corners of her eyes. Her gaze locked on the burning car, their car. Flames consumed it, swallowing the two people she loved most, turning everything she knew into ash. Their screams, if they had screamed, were lost in the inferno.
The darkness never came. Instead, her world stayed painted in red, bright, blazing red. A color that would vanish from her vision for years to come.
When she woke again, it was in a sterile hospital bed, the ceiling above her eerily white and cold. She blinked slowly. Everything looked… off. Dull. As though someone had drained the color out of the world and left her to navigate through the dust.
A doctor explained, his voice gentle but detached. The explosion had left her with temporary color blindness, trauma-induced, they said. Shapes were still sharp, shadows still clear, but the color was gone. It would return with time.
But Mariluna knew, even then, some things never return.
Two weeks later, after the ashes settled and the funeral faded into whispers, she was taken in by her uncle, Gerald Thorn. Her father's younger brother.
The one with slicked-back hair and a crocodile's smile, all teeth and nothing behind the eyes. Even as a child, Mariluna had sensed something dark in him. He used to argue with her father, demanding a piece of the company like it was owed to him, not earned. Her mother once said, in a low voice she hadn't meant for Mariluna to hear, "Gerald is poison. But blood is a shackle."
Now that poison wore a grieving man's mask, too loose, too loud. His wife, Lucinda, was no better. With stilettos sharp enough to pierce steel and a face carved in frost, she made it clear from the start: Mariluna was a burden.
And Cassandra. Beautiful, cruel Cassandra. Their daughter. From the moment Mariluna walked into the house, Cassandra's loathing was absolute. And it only grew.
What followed wasn't family. It was a sentence.
Barely a week had passed before Gerald cornered her with paperwork. She was too young to understand the language, but old enough to recognize fear. He claimed guardianship, forged documents, whispered threats that made her stomach twist. She signed the papers that gave him control over her father's legacy.
And then, things got worse.
Bruises bloomed where words had already bruised. Lucinda snapped at her like a dog at a bone. Gerald's rages were quick and cruel. At school, Cassandra made sure she had no friends, no peace. At home, Mariluna was furniture, cold, unwanted, easily kicked.
They stripped her down to nothing. Not just her possessions, but her sense of safety, her voice, her worth.
But they didn't take everything.
She kept her silence like a knife beneath the ribs. She watched. She remembered. And someday, she would give it all back, pain for pain.
Ten years passed.
ThornTech, once a rising empire, had begun to crumble. Gerald's mismanagement, ego, and greed dragged it into the dirt. The company bled money. Their only hope came in the form of an offer from Regale Enterprises, a mysterious private conglomerate led by a man whose name carried power and dread: Don Lorenzo Rossi.
They called him Il Serpente in the underground. The Serpent. A billionaire with mafia ties, born of blood and fire. He didn't need to raise his voice to control a room. He simply existed, and the world adjusted.
The Thorns were desperate enough to offer their daughter.
Lucinda's plan was simple: seduce him, marry him, secure the fortune. Cassandra was the chosen bait, until her vanity got in the way. An "accident" left her face scarred, and she refused to be seen. So the plan changed.
Mariluna, now twenty, was told only hours before his arrival.
Lucinda handed her a dress, deep red, silky, with a slit far too high. Her tone was honeyed, but the poison underneath clung to every word. "Wear this. Smile. Do not ruin this."
Mariluna stared at herself in the mirror. Her reflection felt unfamiliar. Pale skin, eyes the color of stormclouds, lips that barely smiled anymore. She looked like a ghost learning to be a woman.
Three hours later, the air shifted.
A car pulled up, black and silent. Gerald adjusted his collar, his hands trembling. The door opened. A man stepped out, tall and wrapped in shadow. He didn't blink. Didn't smile. He didn't need to.
Lorenzo Rossi had arrived.
His assistant, David, carried the contracts. But the Don raised a single hand.
"Where is the girl?" he asked.
Gerald stammered. "S-she's on her way. Just a small delay."
Mariluna entered, a thin veil covering her face. Her fingers trembled. Her heart pounded.
He moved toward her, slow and sure, like something coiled and powerful. Lucinda stepped forward, but one glance from him stopped her cold. He lifted the veil.
Their eyes met.
She couldn't breathe.
He was terrifying in his beauty, cold, carved from stone and shadow. His eyes were winter. His lips unmoved. His presence swallowed the room whole.
David's brow furrowed. "That's not the girl from the picture."
Lucinda's smile cracked. "My daughter… there was an incident. Her face"
"She is better," Lorenzo said, his voice like velvet wrapped around a blade. His hand closed around Mariluna's wrist, firm and final. "I'll take her."
She recoiled. "Uncle.. Aunt.. don't let him!"
Cassandra stood in the back, smug and silent.
"No!" Mariluna spat, fury boiling past fear. "Let me go, you son of a bitch!"
The entire room froze.
And then, the impossible happened.
Mariluna slapped Don Lorenzo Rossi.
The sound rang out like a gunshot. He turned his head slowly, his expression unreadable. Silence settled like dust before the corners of his mouth lifted into something unexpected.
A smirk.
"So," he murmured, voice smooth and deadly, "you've got claws."