The Billionaire's Most Painful Regret

s, a beautiful statue whose only purpose was to produ

introduced me to my replacement. He called her a "vessel," a

pending every night with her. The ultimate humiliation came at my birthday party. When a champagne

ily, the Underboss chose h

the glass. I was no longer just a failed wife. I was

. While he was distracted by his mistress's fake pregnancy, he unknowingly signed our d

pte

phin

De Luca crime family, told me I was barre

, whispered order. He controlled shipping routes, politicians, and the lives of thousands of men who had sworn fealty to his name. His hands, which had on

r world, had one

f our penthouse. We were in the family's private clinic, a sterile white room that smelled of antise

ect facade of our marriage, a strategic alliance between my family's old-world influence and the De Lucas' brutal power. I was a Vitali, bred for this role,

had

of shadows, had made his decree. Alessandro had one year to produce an heir, or he would forfei

he brought h

here I was polished, she was rough. Where I was restrained, she was wild. She wore e

ined, his eyes fixed on her, not me. "A temporary arrangemen

just a tool, a mean

set." I spent our fifth wedding anniversary alone in the cold, silen

n a warning from a rival family, a test of the De Luca defenses. I called Alessandro, my husband, my swor

among my crystal perfume bottles, was a tube of cheap, garish lipstick. The colo

y more proof, bu

re-in-training. His voice, usually so controlled, was thick with an infatuation I had never hea

Como villa, the sacred De Luca property that had been promised to me,

photos of them, laughing, touching, their bodies intertwined. Al

t crack; it began to freeze solid. I wasn't just a failed wif

couldn't just leave.