Never Again

I woke up from surgery with a jagged scar on my side and a missing kidney.

My fiancé, Dante Moretti, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, hadn't saved me from an illness. He had harvested me like spare parts to save his mistress, Sofia.

"She pays the tithe," he had told the surgeon coldly while I was paralyzed by anesthesia.

For ten years, I was his loyal shadow. I managed his legitimate empire, took bullets for him, and even aborted our child three years ago because Sofia threw a tantrum about bloodlines.

I thought my absolute loyalty would eventually earn his love.

But when the Cartel held us both over the edge of a bridge days later, Dante didn't choose me.

He tackled Sofia to safety and watched as I fell backward into the freezing black river.

He thought I drowned. Or worse, he assumed I was a dog that would eventually swim back to its master, no matter how hard he kicked it.

He was wrong.

I dragged myself out of that water, but the woman who loved him died in the depths.

Seven days later, I didn't return to the Moretti penthouse.

I walked straight into the headquarters of his mortal enemy, Enzo Falcone.

"Do you still want to marry me?" I asked the man who wanted Dante’s head on a spike.

Enzo didn't hesitate. "I will burn the city down before I let him touch you again."

Now, Dante is crawling at my gates, paralyzed and ruined, holding a medical box containing my stolen kidney.

But he forgot one thing: I don't want it back.

Chapter 1

The glass of warm milk sat on the nightstand, innocent and white, a perfect visual echo of the lies Dante Moretti had fed me for ten years.

I drank it simply because he handed it to me.

I drank it because when the Capo of the Chicago Outfit tells you to do something, you do not ask questions.

I drank it because I was foolish enough to believe he actually cared about my insomnia.

The darkness that took me wasn't sleep. It was a chemical sledgehammer that swung down without mercy.

I floated in a black, viscous void, unable to move my limbs.

But sound has a nasty habit of slicing through anesthesia long before the rest of the senses wake up. The rhythmic beep of a heart monitor kept time with the dull thudding in my skull.

"You cannot do this, Dante," a voice hissed.

Matteo. The Consigliere. The only man in this godforsaken city who still possessed a scrap of a soul.

"She is not a spare parts inventory. She is the daughter of your late Underboss. She is Elena."

"She is part of the Family," Dante's voice was a low rumble, the sound of a heavy door sealing a tomb. It was the voice that made grown men wet themselves in fear. "She pays the tithe, Matteo. We all do."

"This isn't a tithe! You are harvesting her kidney because Sofia destroyed hers with cocaine and bad decisions!"

"Lower your voice."

The metallic snick of a lighter flicking open. The smell of sulfur and expensive tobacco filled the sterile room.

"Sofia dies without a match. Elena is the match. It's simple math."

I tried to scream. I tried to force my eyelids open. Nothing happened. I was a statue trapped inside my own flesh, forced to listen to the man I had loved since I was sixteen discuss carving me open like livestock.

"You made her abort your child three years ago because Sofia threw a tantrum about bloodlines," Matteo said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You broke her then. This will kill her spirit."

"She didn't want the child either," Dante lied. Smoothly. Effortlessly.