Too Late For The Mafia Don's Regret

Too Late For The Mafia Don's Regret

Flying Free

5.0
Comment(s)
146
View
23
Chapters

I kept a ledger to track my marriage to the most feared man in Chicago. Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time Dante looked through me to stare at his mistress, Isabella, I subtracted one. Every time he left our bed to answer her calls, I subtracted five. The day the score hit zero, I was lying in a secret clinic, bleeding out. I had been in a severe accident. I was pregnant, and the hemorrhage was critical. But the nurse, eyes red with weeping, told me they couldn't give me the blood transfusion I needed. Dante had ordered the clinic's entire supply of O-negative blood to be reserved for Isabella. She had a bruised knee and was "in shock." He prioritized her comfort over his unborn child's life. I lost the baby. I left the ledger on his desk with a final note: *You bought her comfort with your heir's blood. Score: 0.* Then, I vanished. Two years later, Dante found me at a gala in Seattle. The ruthless Capo dei Capi, a man who never bowed to anyone, fell to his knees in front of hundreds of people. He begged, tears streaming down his face, claiming he had made a mistake, that I was his only true love. I looked at him, then at Julian, the man standing beside me who treated me like a queen. I pulled my hand away from Dante's grip and smiled coldly. "Apologies don't fix dead things, Mr. Moretti. Go back to your grave."

Chapter 1

I kept a ledger to track my marriage to the most feared man in Chicago.

Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time Dante looked through me to stare at his mistress, Isabella, I subtracted one. Every time he left our bed to answer her calls, I subtracted five.

The day the score hit zero, I was lying in a secret clinic, bleeding out.

I had been in a severe accident. I was pregnant, and the hemorrhage was critical.

But the nurse, eyes red with weeping, told me they couldn't give me the blood transfusion I needed.

Dante had ordered the clinic's entire supply of O-negative blood to be reserved for Isabella.

She had a bruised knee and was "in shock." He prioritized her comfort over his unborn child's life.

I lost the baby.

I left the ledger on his desk with a final note: *You bought her comfort with your heir's blood. Score: 0.* Then, I vanished.

Two years later, Dante found me at a gala in Seattle.

The ruthless Capo dei Capi, a man who never bowed to anyone, fell to his knees in front of hundreds of people. He begged, tears streaming down his face, claiming he had made a mistake, that I was his only true love.

I looked at him, then at Julian, the man standing beside me who treated me like a queen.

I pulled my hand away from Dante's grip and smiled coldly.

"Apologies don't fix dead things, Mr. Moretti. Go back to your grave."

Chapter 1

I claimed the high-backed leather chair that belonged to the most feared man in Chicago, and I wrote the number down in red ink: minus five.

It was a simple math problem.

Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time my husband, Dante Moretti, looked through me like I was nothing more than a pane of glass, I subtracted one. Every time he prioritized the woman he actually loved, I subtracted five.

When the score hit zero, I would break the Omertà. I would disappear.

The heavy oak door creaked open.

Dante walked in.

He didn't look at me. He never really looked at me. He was the *Capo dei Capi*, the Boss of Bosses, a man whose name made the city's toughest criminals tremble in their boots. He had a jawline that could cut glass and eyes the color of espresso over ice-dark, bitter, and unyielding. He was beautiful in the way a loaded weapon is-cold, heavy, and promising destruction.

"Elara," he said, his voice a low rumble that used to make my stomach flip. Now, it just made me tired. "Get out of my chair. I have work."

I closed the ledger.

"It's late, Dante," I said. "I thought we were having dinner."

He finally glanced at me. He saw the book in my hand, but he didn't ask what it was. He didn't care. To him, my secrets were as interesting as the dust on the baseboards.

"Family business," he said, striding to the liquor cabinet. He poured a scotch. "Something you wouldn't understand."

I understood plenty.

I understood that my father, his Consigliere, had forced him into this marriage on his deathbed. A Blood Oath. *Protect Elara. Marry her. Keep her safe from the wolves.*

Dante had kept his promise. He married me. He put me in this gilded cage of a mansion. He kept me safe.

But he left his heart with Isabella Vance.

I scanned the room while he drank. There was a painting on the far wall-a chaotic hemorrhage of colors that induced a migraine just by looking at it. Isabella painted it. There was a crystal decanter on his desk. Isabella bought it.

I was the wife, but I was the intruder in this room.

His phone buzzed on the desk.

The air in the room changed instantly. The indifference vanished, replaced by a sharp, lethal tension.

"Speak," Dante barked into the phone.

I watched his knuckles turn white around the glass.

"Where?" he demanded. "Is she inside?"

He slammed the glass down. In a perfect world, he would have used a coaster. I bought him coasters for Christmas. He never used them.

"I have to go," he said, already moving toward the door. He was moving fast, with a frantic energy I had never seen directed at me.

"Dante?" I stood up. "What happened?"

"Code Red," he said, grabbing his jacket. "The warehouse on 5th. It's burning."

"That's a storage facility," I said, confused. "Why does the Don need to go to a storage fire?"

He stopped in the doorway. He looked at me, and for a second, I saw the panic in his eyes.

"It's not just storage," he said. "It's her collection. She's there cataloging."

Isabella.

He was running into a fire for her art. For her.

"Dante, security will handle it," I said, my voice steady despite the crack in my chest. "You are the Don. You don't run into burning buildings."

"If she's hurt," he growled, "I will burn this entire city to ash."

He left.

The silence rushed back in, heavy and suffocating.

A few minutes later, Marco, one of the younger soldiers, came in to collect Dante's laptop. He looked at me with pity. I hated that look.

"Marco," I said. "Why is that warehouse so important?"

Marco hesitated. He was loyal, but he was young. "The Boss... he built it for Ms. Vance. Climate controlled. Top of the line. He wanted her art to be safe."

I nodded slowly.

He built a fortress for her paintings.

Yet he hadn't even bothered to fix the leak in my bathroom sink.

I sat back down in his chair. I opened the ledger.

Two hours later, the news broke on the TV in the corner. Aerial footage of flames licking the night sky. The reporter was breathless.

*"Sources say Dante Moretti, a prominent Chicago figure, was seen pulling a woman from the blaze. He has sustained severe burns but is in stable condition."*

He had run into the fire. He had burned his skin, risked his empire, risked the stability of the entire Outfit, just to make sure Isabella Vance didn't inhale too much smoke.

I picked up the pen.

I pressed the tip against the paper until the ink bled through.

*Minus five.*

Seventy points left.

Continue Reading

Other books by Flying Free

More
Rebirth: A Wife's Bitter Reckoning

Rebirth: A Wife's Bitter Reckoning

Modern

5.0

The piercing wail of an ambulance siren was the first thing I heard. I was lying on the living room carpet, the scent of dust and cheap air freshener in my nose. A few feet away, my younger sister, Chloe, clutched an empty bottle of pills, feigning unconsciousness. It was a pathetic performance, but it had destroyed my life once before. This was the day I received my acceptance letter and full scholarship to the nation' s most prestigious art school-the day my life was supposed to begin. Instead, guided by my mother' s frantic sobs and my father' s angry accusations- "Ava, how can you be so selfish? Your sister is trying to kill herself because of you!" -I buckled. My fiancé, Mark, whispered poison: "What' s a scholarship compared to your sister' s life?" I believed them. I gave it all up, watching as my scholarship was transferred to Chloe. The betrayal festered. A month later, I discovered Mark hadn' t failed his exams; he and Chloe had plotted to steal my future. When I confronted them, they locked me in my art studio and set it on fire. I survived, disfigured and broken, only to be forced into a brutal marriage where I eventually died. But now, I was back. Seventeen again. Whole. The future they stole, once again within my grasp. Chloe fluttered her eyelids, a flash of triumph in her eyes as they met mine. This time, the burning rage had cooled into something harder, sharper. They thought this was their victory. They had no idea it was just the beginning of my revenge.

Lost Love, Bitter Victory

Lost Love, Bitter Victory

Romance

5.0

My wife, Olivia, and I had what I thought was the perfect life, a vibrant canvas of shared dreams and artistic ambition. But beneath the surface, a shadow lingered: her unexplained infertility, a result of an accident years ago-my fault-that filled me with a guilt I carried like a stone. I watched her endless cycles of hope, the IVF treatments we endured, believing we were fighting for our miracle baby together. Then, a single photograph arrived, shattering my world: Olivia, glowing with maternal pride, kneeling before a three-year-old boy who was undeniably hers. On the back, two words scrawled in messy handwriting: Our son. The fertility struggles, my guilt-it was all a monstrous, suffocating lie, a performance designed to keep me blind. I couldn' t breathe, trapped in her beautiful deception, so I planned my escape, a desperate attempt to vanish from a life that was never truly mine. After I "disappeared," a new life began, quiet and anonymous, painted in the solitude of the Oregon coast. But the past refused to stay buried, returning with the salt on the wind, a ghost with haunted eyes and the cruel truth of consequences. Now, she stands before me, broken and desperate, having lost everything-her child, her lover-in the wake of my strategic vanishing act. She believes my "death" was her fault, the ultimate price for her lies, unaware that the real architect of her downfall was closer than she ever imagined. I am not the man she married. I am a stranger forged in betrayal, ready to confront the wreckage she created.

The Price of a Billion-Dollar Love

The Price of a Billion-Dollar Love

Billionaires

5.0

The private jet' s hum was supposed to drown out the silence, but it only amplified the heavy dread in the cabin. Across the table, my husband, Ethan Vance, watched me with cold, unblinking eyes, his once-loved face a mask of cruelty. "Sign it, Chloe." His low, calm voice cut through the air. The document lay between us, a single sheet of paper that would transfer my half of our billion-dollar company to him-and to her, Scarlett Hayes, his long-lost ex, the ghost haunting my marriage. My hands trembled, but it wasn't just the document. Through the open jet door, his bodyguards held my sixteen-year-old sister, Lily, her face pale with terror, thousands of feet in the air. "Scarlett needs this," he' d said when I begged, "You were just holding her place, Chloe. It's time to give it back." His words were a physical blow, shattering illusions of the life we'd built. My love, my security, my entire world-all just a temporary placeholder. Watching Lily' s silent tears stream down her face, I knew he was using my deepest love as a weapon. My signature was a shaky scrawl, a testament to my broken spirit. "There. It's done. Now let her go." A flicker of satisfaction crossed his face. Then, the guards tightened their grip, and with a brutal shove, pushed my sister out the open door. Her scream tore away with the wind, leaving only a horror too profound to process. He had promised to let her go, and he had murdered her instead. In the ensuing darkness, as my world fractured, a terrible clarity sliced through the pain: I was never the love of his life; I was just the bandage for a wound he never wanted to heal. But as the jet descended, a defiant spark ignited in the ashes of my heart. I would survive. I would escape. And he would pay.

You'll also like

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book