Too Late For Regret: The Syndicate's Queen

I was standing at the cathedral altar, ready to sign the sacred mafia marriage pact with Leo, my fiancé of three years.

But right before my pen touched the vellum, the heavy oak doors burst open. A club dancer stumbled in, clutching her stomach.

"I'm carrying the twin heirs of the Falcone Family!"

Leo dropped the pen and abandoned me in front of the entire underworld to coddle his mistress.

Back at our penthouse, he ordered me to wash fruit for her and pack my bags.

When the mistress intentionally threw boiling water and pure alcohol on my skin, Leo held her protectively.

"You stubborn, psychotic bitch! She was only trying to help you!"

He then locked me out on the balcony in a freezing downpour, ultimately leaving me to be cornered by street thugs in a dark underpass.

I had endured his constant coldness and swallowed his endless betrayals for the sake of our families' alliance, only to be discarded like garbage for a cartel corner-girl's fake pregnancy.

My twenty years of absolute loyalty had been nothing but a massive, pathetic joke.

Watching the thugs approach in the dark, I didn't panic or beg for Leo to save me.

Because from the deeper shadows stepped Don Gabriel-the ruthless, terrifying Boss of the ruling Syndicate.

I looked right at the devil himself and accepted his marriage proposal, ready to become his Queen and bury Leo's entire family in rubble.

Chapter 1

Nadia POV

The tip of the silver pen hovered a fraction of an inch from the vellum of the Cosa Nostra marriage pact. Then a vibration, low and insistent, pulsed against the lace stretched taut over my palm. A text from a name that was never written, only spoken in hushed tones: Don Gabriel.

"Your fiancé's mistress, pregnant with his children, is at the cathedral doors. Renounce this union and I will place my entire enterprise at your feet. Sign that paper, and you will be buried with the rubble of his family."

A sharp, acidic taste flooded the back of my throat. I swallowed, but the bitterness remained.

Gabriel was not so much a man as a chilling void in the city's power structure-a space that had been cleared by the methodical elimination of his own kin.

He was the Boss of the ruling Famiglia, a ruthless predator who had slaughtered his own blood relatives to secure his throne.

The whispers of his impotence were a clever fiction, a smokescreen of rumor his rivals propagated to distract from the simple, terrifying fact of his control over the city's arteries of commerce and violence.

I stared at the glowing screen, the fine tremor in my fingers making the silk of my gloves rustle against my skin.

Just yesterday, I had walked into Leo's luxury penthouse and caught him in a humiliating act with a high-end silicone doll.

I had swallowed my disgust and forgiven him.

Just last night, I received a graphic video of Leo buried inside a cheap club dancer.

He swore it was a deep-fake created by a rival family to ruin our alliance, and like the perfect, caged mafia princess I was raised to be, I accepted the lie.

I set the memory aside like a piece of poorly crafted furniture and picked up the heavy silver pen, ready to bind my family's declining territory to Leo's name.

At that moment, a groan of stressed timber echoed from the rear of the cathedral as the heavy oak doors were forced inward, their impact sending a shudder through the pews.

A woman stumbled into the heavily guarded venue, waving a stack of medical papers in the air.

She clutched her stomach, her face twisted in a mask of agony.

"I'm carrying the twin heirs of the Falcone Family!" her voice, thin and sharp, pierced the vaulted silence.

A collective gasp echoed through the pews.

I turned my head and watched the color drain from Leo's face.

He looked at the woman, then at my father, and finally down at the sacred Omertà pact resting on the marble altar.

His fingers went slack. The pen slipped, striking the stone with a sharp crack that resounded like a pistol shot in the cavernous room.

A knot of acid tightened in my stomach, and I felt the bitter tang of iron in my saliva.

Leo was a weak Underboss, a man driven by a fragile ego and a desperate need for validation. He controlled his family's legitimate finances and shipping routes, but his hunger for more-for heirs, for status, for a legacy-made him dangerously predictable.

The prospect of having twin heirs to instantly elevate his status in the Syndicate was too intoxicating for him to resist.

He abandoned the altar, shoving past his own armed soldiers to reach the crying woman.

He wrapped his arms around her, his voice a frantic bark as he ordered his men to form a protective wall and escort her immediately to the private Syndicate clinic.

My loyalty died in that exact second.

As I turned, the heavy train of my wedding dress, three layers of intricate lace, caught on the sharp corner of a marble step. I did not stoop to free it, but pulled, the sound of tearing silk a quiet, final punctuation.

I walked out the side doors into the cold afternoon air.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the encrypted number I had memorized but never dared to use.

The line connected instantly.

"The offer you made," I began, my own voice a stranger's in my ears, "does it still hold?"

A deep, smooth voice answered, carrying a resonance that seemed to vibrate not in the air, but in the bones of my skull.

"It does, mia regina."

I hung up the phone and walked straight toward the driveway where Leo was loading his mistress into his armored SUV.

I stepped in front of the heavy car door, blocking his path.

I watched the panic flicker in his eyes, a frantic search for an escape route that did not exist.

"Is this a contrivance? A scheme from Gabriel's people to shatter our alliance?" I asked, the words leaving my lips like chips of ice.

Leo refused to meet my gaze, his eyes darting nervously to the ground.

His guilt was a palpable thing, distorting the air between us like heat rising from asphalt.

"This is your final opportunity to honor the pact," I told him. "Return to the altar."

His face flushed with sudden, defensive rage.

He shoved me hard against the side of the vehicle.

"You are being irrational!" he yelled. "You are a woman. You could never comprehend the vital importance of an heir!"

I steadied myself against the cold metal and looked at him with absolute emptiness.

"The betrothal is broken," I told him.

Leo roared at me, his face twisted in ugly fury.

He screamed that it was over, slammed the heavy bulletproof door shut, and ordered his driver to speed off.

I stood alone in the driveway, watching the black SUV disappear down the street.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

It was an encrypted message from Leo.

He explained his infidelity with pathetic excuses, promising that I could raise the bastard children to secure my status as his wife.

He swore he would sign the marriage pact with me the moment his mistress delivered the babies.

My thumb moved with a life of its own, dragging the message to the trash. I hailed a private car to take me back to his luxury penthouse.

I needed to pack my belongings and leave his territory forever.

I unlocked the front door and stepped into the quiet foyer, my bare feet making no sound on the polished hardwood.

A low, choked sound drifted from the hallway.

A cold weight settled deep in my gut.

I walked silently toward the master suite, finding the door ajar by a few inches.

I peered through the gap. Leo and his mistress were on the bed. He held a glass of water to her lips, his movements as delicate and reverent as if he were handling a holy relic.

Leo's voice drifted out to me, dripping with absolute disgust.

"Don't worry about that cold, boring canary," he told her, gently brushing a stray lock of hair from her tear-stained face.

His laugh was a harsh, ugly thing that struck the tiled walls of the en-suite and bounced back, amplified and distorted.

"I only intended to marry her to absorb her father's remaining soldiers and territory. You and the twins are my true future."

The foundations of our arranged life, the carefully constructed edifice of duty and alliance, crumbled to dust in my mind, leaving only a choking silence.

I pressed my palm flat against the cold wall, steadying myself. Somewhere in the dark, I knew Gabriel was watching this catastrophe unfold-waiting for me to make the call that would set the entire city on fire.