Too Late, Don Moretti

I took a bullet to the chest to save Julian, the ruthless Don of the New York Syndicate. For five years, I laundered his millions, intercepted his enemies, and was meant to be his wife.

But seven days before our wedding, he allowed his young ward, Isabella, to steal my matriarchal betrothal ring and flaunt it on the dark web.

When I demanded he postpone the wedding until it was returned, he called me theatrical and took her to his private coastal safehouse. To punish my defiance, he ordered my emergency heart medication removed from my safe.

"I merely wanted to test if you were feigning your little illness for attention."

That was the text Isabella sent me. But I wasn't feigning. My chest seized, and I collapsed on the hardwood floor. I flatlined twice in an off-the-grid clinic. While doctors used defibrillators to violently restart my failing heart, Julian was in an underground arena, publicly sliding a massive diamond onto Isabella's finger.

I had spent every drop of my blood to build his dominion, yet he left me to die just to humor a spoiled girl's games. I finally understood that my lifelong devotion was nothing but a cheap convenience to him.

When I woke up, I didn't shed a single tear.

I printed a meticulous ledger of my blood debts, marked the balance as zero, and vanished to Europe. This time, I would build a mafia empire of my own.

Chapter 1

Eve POV

Seven days before my union with the man who held the New York Syndicate in his fist was to be solemnized, the betrothal ring, an object of some antiquity, vanished from my heavily fortified rooms.

A phantom image, once deleted, had rematerialized on the dark web, displaying his guileless young ward adorned with the jewel, appended with a caption of singular insolence: Let us see if he delays the wedding when I tell him I lost it.

I regarded the screenshot on my encrypted telephone, and a peculiar coldness began its work in my viscera, leaching the very warmth from the surface of my skin.

This was not a mere trinket. It was the Moretti family crest-a diamond whose bloody provenance had graced the hands of the line's matriarchs for four generations.

I emerged from my bedchamber and descended the sweeping marble staircase of the estate. Men whose suit jackets failed to conceal the bulk of the hardware beneath lined the walls. Their heads inclined as I passed.

Julian Moretti awaited me in the grand study.

He was the Viper. He had erased three rival cartels before his twenty-fifth year, and now commanded an army of ten thousand men along the eastern seaboard.

He was seated behind a mahogany desk, and from him emanated a quiet, airless pressure. The room carried the scent of expensive cedar, gunpowder, and of the unassailable quiet that follows a command.

I stepped into the chamber and drew the heavy oak doors closed.

"The ring is gone," I said, the effort to keep my tone even making the muscles in my throat ache.

Julian did not look up from his ledger. A page turned with a dry whisper. I could hear the faint, sharp click of his molars grinding together.

"Then withdraw funds for a new one, Eve," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to travel not through the air but through the floorboards themselves.

I advanced to his desk and placed my hands flat upon the polished wood.

"I will not be acquiring a new one," I said. "It is the matriarchal ring. The wedding must be postponed, the compound locked down until it is recovered."

Julian finally lifted his eyes. They were a cold, arresting amber, the gaze of a creature unaccustomed to being contradicted.

"Do not be theatrical," he said. "I am not delaying a Syndicate union over a misplaced stone. Purchase a larger diamond. I will see the cost is covered."

With a brief motion of his hand, he turned his attention back to his papers.

My hands fell from the desk. I turned, and with each step I took from the room, I felt the architecture of my own composure begin to groan under a strain.

That afternoon, the heavily guarded walls of the Moretti estate seemed to possess the close, oppressive air of a mausoleum. Every shadow seemed to articulate my coming humiliation. Unable to draw the same breath as the Viper, I packed a single valise and removed myself to my private penthouse in the city's heart, in need of sanctuary.

The following afternoon, the lock on my penthouse door gave a sharp, metallic report as Julian let himself in.

He reached into his tailored suit jacket and pulled out the Moretti ring. He tossed it onto the glass coffee table. The massive diamond clattered against the surface.

"Found," he said. "It was in the guest house."

I picked up the ring. The metal held a lingering heat-the warmth of another's skin. The diamond was unmistakably the Moretti heirloom, yet something in the way it had been returned-casually, without ceremony, without explanation of how it had migrated from my locked chambers to the guest house-made my stomach turn.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out the printed dark web photograph, and threw it toward his chest.

The paper fluttered to the floor. Julian looked down at it. It was the picture of Isabella Conti, the orphaned daughter of his late Consigliere, wearing my ring.

"I wish to dissolve the betrothal," I said.

Julian stared at the photo. His expression was a study in stillness. He stepped forward, closing the distance between us until his frame blotted out the light from the window.

"You are being absurd," he said, a new, harder timbre entering his voice. "Isabella is a child. She merely wished to feel the weight of the Family."

"She is twenty years of age, Julian. And she posted the image to the network for the purpose of mocking me."

"She is my ward," he snapped. "I swore an oath to her father on his deathbed to protect her. To break a Mafia betrothal over a girl's foolish games is madness. You will let this go, Eve."

He turned as if to depart, the finality of his posture dismissing my entire grievance as a trifle. A profound, physical revulsion coiled in my throat. I looked down at the Moretti ring in my hand-the very symbol of my approaching servitude.

"Wait," I said, my voice unnervingly quiet.

Julian paused, his head canted slightly over his shoulder. I raised my arm and hurled the heavy blood diamond directly at the broad plain of his back. The priceless heirloom struck the tailored wool over his shoulder blade and fell with a sharp clatter to the polished hardwood floor.

"Take it," I whispered, each word shaped by a cold precision. "I will not wear a ring tainted by her touch."

Julian became utterly still. The muscle in his cheek feathered dangerously. He bent slowly, his large fingers closing around the diamond. Without a word, he straightened, slipped the ring into his pocket, and walked out of the penthouse.

Hours later, finding the air within my own home too thick to breathe, I sought the street.

I moved through the snowy lanes of Little Italy, allowing the bitter winter wind to scour my skin.

I stopped across the street from a high-end restaurant, an establishment owned by the Family.

The large glass windows offered an unobstructed view inside.

Julian was sitting at the head of a long table. His Capos and Soldiers surrounded him. They were laughing and raising their glasses of amber whiskey.

Sitting directly to his right-in the place reserved for the Don's wife-was Isabella.

She was smiling brightly. Then, as if drawn by some invisible cord, she raised her left hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.

The streetlights struck the massive, familiar diamond on her ring finger.

My feet seemed to take root in the pavement. The Capos were raising their glasses to her.

Julian stood up from the table. He walked out the front doors of the restaurant to take a telephone call.

He stopped on the sidewalk when he saw me standing across the street in the snow.

His phone dropped from his ear. He crossed the street, his heavy boots making a crunching sound on the ice.

"Eve," he said, his breath a white plume in the freezing air.

He reached out to touch my arm. I took a step back.

"Why is she wearing it again?" I asked, my voice a steady, level thing that gave no hint of the splintering ruin in my chest.

Julian dropped his hand. His jaw tightened.

"It is a misunderstanding," he said. "She asked to see it-to hold it for a moment. I did not realize she would put it on. I will take it back."

I stood in the freezing snow, a heavy quietude falling between us, and stared at the warm light spilling from the restaurant windows-a warmth I was now certain was no longer meant for me. And in that silence, I understood something I had refused to acknowledge for years: Julian Moretti did not believe I would ever truly leave him. That certainty was the foundation of every cruelty he permitted.