Losing My Queen: The Don's Downfall

My husband, Dante, is the cold-blooded mafia boss of New York whose very name makes people tremble. For four whole years, I devoted myself heart and soul to being his wife.

Yet after I lost my forty-seventh underground poker game-a game they'd rigged-his first love, Talia, deliberately proposed that I sign a marriage-nullification agreement as my punishment.

Not only that. She also converted my late parents' safe house into her private art studio without asking anyone.

I stormed over in fury to confront her, but she got one step ahead of me and faked an arm injury.

Dante rushed to comfort her and shoved me aside without a thought.

I slipped on the wet paint and crashed hard into the marble console.

I lay crumpled on the floor, gasping in pain, unable to move, while he looked down at me with nothing but pure disgust in his eyes.

"It's just a few bumps and bruises. Do you really have to throw a tantrum like a lunatic?"

Then one day I found his top-secret notebook, which stated in black and white:

One more glance at her, he had written, was almost more than he could bear. But her eyes carried a hint of Talia, and that was enough.

My heart froze into ice in an instant. From beginning to end, I had been nothing but a cheap stand-in for the woman he truly longed for.

Snapping my phone's SIM card in half, I boarded a one-way flight to our mortal enemy, the Southern Syndicate.

This time, I would never look back.

Chapter 1

Elena's POV

I watched my husband-the cold-blooded mafia godfather who had personally slaughtered thirty men to rule New York's underworld-openly waive the punishment for his childhood sweetheart, the same punishment he had forced me to endure in full, forty-seven times.

In that moment, a piercing wave of clarity swept over me.

I suddenly realized that our sham "family-approved marriage cooling-off period" had only four days left.

Four more days, and I could launch my extraction plan-vanishing without a trace before he could claim me, legally and by syndicate code, once and for all.

The air in the underground VIP gambling hall was thick with expensive cigar smoke and the acrid stench of spilled bourbon.

I stood beside the heavy mahogany table, my hands trembling faintly against the green velvet felt.

Throughout our four years of marriage, Dante had forced me to obey the merciless rules of the family's underground poker nights to the letter.

I was the godfather's lawfully wedded wife in name, yet I was treated worse than the lowest foot soldier.

Just three days earlier, at our wedding-anniversary party, I had lost a hand-a hand his lackeys had clearly conspired to fix against me.

Talia, the woman who clung to our marriage like a parasite that would never die, had clapped her hands and proposed an insane wager to everyone present.

She suggested we sign a "family nullification pact"-a one-week cooling-off period, dressed up in fine words as a test of our loyalty to the family code.

Dante had looked me over with those cold, hollow eyes and forced me to sign the marriage-dissolution papers.

He said it was all to cement his unshakable authority and to placate his men.

I signed-foolish enough to believe his nonsense about duty and tradition.

But tonight, the tables had turned.

Talia had just lost a hand, and by the rules she should have faced the heavy punishment.

Dante rose from his leather armchair and elegantly smoothed the hem of his tailored suit.

He glanced at the dealer and waved a hand, casual as anything.

He invoked the godfather's absolute privilege and waived her punishment on the spot, on the excuse that she was too delicate to endure a night in the basement.

Marco, one of Dante's most lawless lieutenants, laughed out loud and slammed his glass down on the table.

He pointed a stubby, ring-covered finger straight at me.

He jeered that since I had already signed the marriage-dissolution agreement with the family, I was no longer one of them on paper-so I might as well take Talia's place and suffer that humiliating punishment in her stead.

I looked at Dante, clinging to one last desperate hope that he would shut Marco down.

I naively counted on my husband to protect me.

Dante merely sighed, a flicker of mild impatience crossing his face.

He told me to go along with the crowd, take the punishment, and smooth things over-reminding me that I needed to prove to the men that I still knew my place and put the family first.

A chill instantly froze me to the marrow.

Countless memories flashed through my mind of begging for mercy in this very room.

I remembered being made to stand in a blizzard at fifteen below zero without so much as a coat, until my lips turned purple.

I remembered being forced to gulp down ice water while a fever blurred my consciousness, my whole body shivering uncontrollably-while Dante sat toasting himself by the fireplace, watching me suffer with cold indifference.

I murmured something about going to the restroom.

I turned from the gambling table, my heels clicking hollowly across the hardwood floor.

In the freezing marble bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face and stared at my reflection.

This demure, pale-colored gown, and the blunt bangs Dante had made me cut, made me look like a cheap stand-in, a lifeless ghost.

The blindfold over my eyes had finally been ripped away.

At last I saw what really lay beneath his mask of "upholding the family code."

Blatant favoritism.

Down-to-the-bone coldness and heartlessness.

I dried my face and walked out onto the smoking terrace for a breath of air, trying to steady my breathing before facing those jackals again.

Through the cracked glass door, I caught voices.

Dante and Marco were leaning against the railing.

Marco asked Dante whether he was really unafraid that, once the one-week agreement expired, I would seize the chance to run.

Dante laughed-a harsh, arrogant laugh that turned my stomach.

He told Marco that my entire existence depended on him.

He said I was nothing but a civilian wife with no underworld connections of my own; without his money and power, I couldn't survive a single day.

In his eyes, I was worth nothing and deserved no respect at all.

I pushed the door open and walked back into the private room, my face blank.

Talia was curled up in a chair, clutching her stomach.

She moaned in apparent agony, putting on a full performance of unbearable abdominal pain.

Dante brushed past me in a rush, his hurried steps slamming hard into my shoulder.

He flung the winter coat I had draped over my chair aside, swept Talia up into his arms, and strode for the door.

He barked orders for a car, completely ignoring me standing mere steps away.

I watched him carry her out, leaving me alone in a room full of hostile men.

My heart froze over completely, hardening into a dead, heavy stone inside my chest.

I turned and walked out through the back door by myself, leaving my coat behind, and stepped alone into the biting cold.