No Next Life For The Don

For two years, I endured hell in an underground brothel, bleeding to earn the bribe money to save my Mafia Don husband from the electric chair.

But when Cassio finally returned, he didn't come to rescue me.

He marched in with thirty armed enforcers, threw annulment papers on my chest, and announced his new mistress was pregnant with his heir.

The mistress was Camilla, a low-level associate who stole the credit for my sacrifice.

Cassio believed every lie she told, looking at my degrading uniform with pure disgust.

"Sign the papers. You have disgraced the Moretti name enough."

He ignored the whip marks and burn scars covering my ruined body, tossing a stack of cash at my feet like I was trash.

When I tried to buy my freedom with the ten million dollars I had agonizingly earned, he ruthlessly blocked my bid.

He demanded I kneel and pledge loyalty to Camilla, trapping me as their property.

I couldn't understand how the man who once promised to burn the world down for me could be so blind.

I had destroyed my body and my ability to ever carry a child just to secure his freedom.

Yet he was standing here, publicly humiliating me for the woman who secretly orchestrated my torture.

Staring into his cold, unforgiving eyes, my dead heart finally turned to ash.

I calmly invoked the ancient, fatal 'Angel's Drop' trial.

I wrapped the sheer red silk around my wrists and ascended into the dark sky, choosing a shattered death in the freezing harbor over a life with him.

Chapter 1

Serafina POV

I remained on my knees, on the sticky floor of the VIP room, the fabric of my stockings fused to the rough-grained wood by a rival Capo's spilled whiskey. I was cataloging the way the amber liquid seeped cold against my skin when the heavy mahogany doors were thrown open with a force that rattled the glassware on the bar.

The husband for whom I had spent two years bleeding in this underground brothel to evade a federal death sentence strode in. He was flanked by thirty armed enforcers, only to drop annulment papers on my chest and announce that his new mistress was pregnant with his heir.

The music in The Velvet Syndicate died instantly.

Every high-ranking man in the room scrambled to his feet, but the viscous spill of whiskey had soaked through my thin stockings, cementing my kneecaps to the coarse floorboards. I made no move to rise, allowing the muscles in my thighs to begin their slow, cramping protest.

A stillness fell over the room, so profound it seemed to pull the warmth from the air.

Cassio Moretti was supposed to be rotting in a supermax prison. Instead, he stood before me in a bespoke charcoal suit, his presence altering the very density of the room, bending the light and sound toward him as if by gravitational pull.

He was the Dark Don-the man who had slaughtered three rival syndicate bosses in a single night with his bare hands before his empire supposedly crumbled.

His six-foot-three frame radiated a terrifying, suffocating authority. His dark eyes-the same eyes that used to trace the constellations of freckles on my shoulders-now regarded me with a disgust so pure it was a physical force.

"Pick up the pen, Serafina." His voice was a low, lethal rumble that vibrated through the soles of my feet.

I slowly raised my head, ignoring the sharp protest of my patella against the wood.

My sheer, degrading uniform clung to my skin, a stark contrast to the modest, elegant dresses I used to wear as his beloved wife.

I looked at the thick stack of legal papers resting against my exposed collarbone.

"Sign them," he commanded. "Camilla is waiting for me at the estate. She is carrying my child."

The dull thud of the bass from the dance floor below began to climb the floorboards, each beat a hammer against my eardrum. I parted my lips, having forgotten the mechanics of pushing air from my throat.

Camilla Russo.

A low-level associate. The woman who was supposed to be my friend.

Madam Rosa stepped out from the shadows behind Cassio, her face twisted in a cruel, triumphant smile. She ran this illicit club; she was the one who held my leash.

"The Don orchestrated his entire downfall, Serafina," Rosa announced to the silent room. "He wanted to see who would stay loyal when the crown fell."

Rosa walked closer, her heels clicking with the sharp report of a metronome against the floorboards.

"While you were so quick to spread your legs in my club to save your own skin, sweet Camilla went to the Chicago Outfit. She sacrificed her innocence to secure the Don's freedom."

My ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out the pounding of my own heart.

I looked up at Cassio, searching his face for a flicker of the man who once promised to burn the world down to keep me safe.

There was nothing but cold, hard contempt.

He believed it. He believed Camilla saved him.

He did not know about the ten million dollars in blood money I had to earn to bribe the federal judges. He did not know about the basement.

He did not know about the rival enforcers who took turns destroying my body until the back-alley doctor told me I would never be able to carry a child.

I stared at his perfectly polished shoes, the memory of the forced sterilization a white-hot agony behind my eyes.

I remembered biting my tongue until it bled so I would not scream his name and give them the satisfaction of breaking me.

Now, he was standing here, demanding I step aside for a woman who stole my sacrifice.

"Are you deaf?" Cassio snapped, stepping closer. His massive frame towered over me, blocking out the dim club lights. "Sign the papers. You have disgraced the Moretti name enough. Do not make me force your hand."

I reached up and took the papers, my fingers, to my own surprise, not trembling. I had learned how to hide the tremor over the last two years.

I pulled a gold pen from the Capo's jacket pocket beside me, uncapped it with my teeth, and smoothed the papers over my bare thigh.

I pressed the gold nib to the thick parchment, poised to sign away the last vestiges of my former life. But as I watched the compliance in my own eyes, the sheer hollowness of it, the heavy gold pen was knocked from my grip by a force I did not see. His jaw was a knot of white-hot fury.

"Congratulations on your heir, Don Moretti," I whispered, my voice a smooth, practiced, and empty thing. "I will finish signing them when my hands are clean."

Cassio flinched. It was a microscopic movement, but I saw the muscle in his jaw feather.

The formal title I used severed the last invisible string between us.

He snatched the unsigned papers from my thigh, the bones of his knuckles showing stark white.

"Get out of my sight," he growled, turning on his heel.

He stormed out of the VIP room, his enforcers swallowing him in a protective sea of black suits.

The heavy doors slammed shut. The Capos slowly sat back down, murmuring among themselves about the Don's ruthless return.

I stood up, my legs two columns of lead. I walked toward the bar, my only thought to fetch another bottle, to give my hands something to do.

Madam Rosa intercepted me in the narrow hallway. She handed me a glass of amber liquid.

"Drink it," she ordered. "You look pale, and we have paying customers."

I took the glass and swallowed its contents in a single, burning motion, craving any substance that might dull the sharp edges of my new reality. It burned my throat.

Within seconds, the hallway began to tilt. The walls melted into a blurry haze of red velvet and gold trim, and my limbs grew heavy.

Rosa had drugged me.

I stumbled against the wall, my vision swimming.

A heavy hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. It was one of the Syndicate's lowest soldiers; his breath smelled of stale tobacco and cheap beer.

"The Don threw you out like trash," he sneered, pressing me against the wallpaper. He pulled a thick black marker from his pocket. "Strip off the top. I want to write 'Syndicate Whore' right across your chest. Let everyone see what you really are."

I tried to push him away, but my arms felt like wet paper.

He grabbed the collar of my uniform and ripped it down, the cold air of the corridor raising gooseflesh on my skin.

A shadow fell across the garish wallpaper, eclipsing the hallway lights.

The soldier froze.

I blinked through the drug-induced fog to see Cassio standing at the end of the hall, his eyes locked on my exposed skin.

The man who had just declared me dead to him had returned-and the violence in his gaze promised that no one else would touch what he still, despite everything, claimed as his.