Too Late For Regret: The Mafia King

I was burning with a 104-degree fever when my mafia boss husband's mistress sent an emergency code, claiming he was bleeding out.

Too weak to stand, my mother-in-law took the medical supplies into the hurricane for me, only to be killed in a rival hit-and-run.

I dragged my sick body across enemy lines to finish the delivery, only to find my husband laughing with his mistress in his office.

"It was just a loyalty test to see how fast you'd react," she sneered.

When I told him his mother died for their sick game, he refused to believe me. He called me a manipulative liar and threw me out into the freezing rain.

Days later, he tracked me down to the family mausoleum. Believing his mistress's lies that we were just faking the death to steal his money, he snatched his mother's urn from my hands and maliciously smashed it to dust.

He even shoved me so hard against the stone altar that I miscarried our unborn child.

I watched the gray ashes scatter over his expensive shoes, my heart turning to ice. How could the man I loved be so blind, choosing a cheap mistress over his own mother's life and his wife's devotion?

When the police finally arrived to confirm his mother's tragic death and the mistress's betrayal was exposed, he fell to his knees in the dirt, weeping and begging for my forgiveness.

But I just smiled, demanded my divorce, and walked away.

Chapter 1

Elena POV

The thin slab of the burner phone sent a vibration through the pillow, a dull tremor against my skull.

I had not the strength to answer. Rosa's hand, weathered and certain, reached for it. With a tap of my finger, I put the call to its speaker. The voice that clawed its way through the static was from my husband's mistress: *"Vincent is bleeding out from a rival ambush. Bring the trauma kit across enemy lines right now, or the Don dies tonight."*

A fever of one hundred and four degrees held me pinned to the mattress; lifting my own head was a task beyond my means.

At the sight of me, his mother, Rosa, had spoken with a quiet finality, insisting she would make the drop. She grabbed the heavy bag of contraband medical supplies and walked out into a brutal hurricane.

She did not return.

She was slaughtered in a hit-and-run on the highway. I had to command my fever-wracked limbs from the bed and force them into the storm, making my way to the underground clinic where the ambulance had taken her. I arrived only to watch the last rise and fall of her crushed chest. I pried the bag from her cooling hands and finished the journey myself.

Vincent was the head of the most powerful Cosa Nostra syndicate on the East Coast-a man whose name alone could draw sweat from politicians and blood from rival bosses.

I had spent four years standing in his shadow, washing blood out of his expensive shirts and keeping my mouth shut.

I loved him with a pathetic, blind devotion. Beyond that, I owed my life to Rosa, who had saved me from a syndicate crossfire a decade ago.

Now, Rosa was lying in a morgue with her eyes wide open.

And I was standing in the hallway of the Family's legitimate corporate headquarters, dripping wet from the storm, my entire frame locked in a violent ague.

I clutched the blood-stained medical bag to my chest, its canvas hide a grim weight against my ribs.

My drenched clothes clung to my skin like a film of ice.

I had risked my life to cross the city, dodging rival soldiers and the tempest itself, just to save the man I thought was dying.

Drawing on some final, hidden reserve of will, I pushed open the heavy oak doors of his office.

The air within the room was a dense, heated thing, thick with the aromas of expensive cigars and aged whiskey.

Vincent was not bleeding.

He was sitting on the edge of his mahogany desk, wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. He sat behind that desk not as a man, but as a force; in this room, his quietest word could extinguish a life, and I was but a speck of mud to be scraped from the sole of his shoe.

Chloe-his associate and the woman who handled his money-laundering fronts-was perched on his lap.

Her arms were wrapped around his neck, and they were laughing. The sound of their shared mirth struck me with more force than the hurricane winds.

I stood frozen in the doorway.

The heavy bag slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the dark-stained hardwood floor with a dull, fleshy thud.

Vincent stopped laughing and his head snapped up.

His dark eyes-the same eyes that used to look at me with something resembling warmth-were now two chips of obsidian.

He let his gaze travel over my soaked clothes and my pale, fever-glazed face, and his features hardened into a mask of pure disgust.

"What are you doing here, Elena?" he asked, his voice low and edged with irritation.

I raised my hand, the fever causing my muscles to spasm, my fingertip tracing useless, minute arcs in the air before I managed to point at the bag on the floor.

"You were dying," I whispered, my throat raw. "Chloe sent the emergency code."

Chloe hopped off his lap, taking her time to smooth down her tight red dress.

She offered me a sickly sweet, pitying smile.

"It was just a loyalty test, Elena," she said in a low purr. "We needed to see how fast you would react if the Don was actually in danger. You took entirely too long."

Vincent scoffed, picking up his heavy crystal glass of whiskey.

"I command three ports on the East Coast and a dozen laundering operations," he said, taking a measured step toward me. "I need a wife who can handle pressure, not a fragile bird who shows up looking like a drowned rat an hour late."

He swung his leg back and kicked the medical bag out of the way.

The blood-stained satchel skidded across the floor; its zipper tore open and spilled its contents of sterile bandages and syringes onto the expensive Persian rug.

"Pick that garbage up and get out of my office," he ordered, presenting me with his back.

Something inside my chest snapped.

It was a physical sensation-like a thick, water-logged rope parting its final thread under an impossible weight.

My body moved before my mind could object. I stepped forward and brought my open hand across his face with all the force I could summon.

There was no clean crack, only the dull, jarring impact of my palm against his jawbone, a shock that sent a tremor of pain up to my elbow. My knuckles scraped the hard line of his cheek.

Vincent's head whipped to the side.

The silence that followed was deafening, a vacuum heavy with coming violence.

The soldiers and enforcers who stood guard outside the open doors suddenly poured into the room, their hands moving by instinct toward their weapons.

Vincent slowly turned his head back to meet my gaze.

His jaw was clenched so tight a knot of muscle pulsed in his cheek, and a dangerous, violent shadow fell across his features.

He lunged, his fingers closing around my arm like steel clamps.

He yanked me toward him, his face inches from mine, his breath a foul mix of alcohol and betrayal.

"You dare put your hands on me?" he hissed, his grip tightening until I felt my bones grinding together.

I struggled, kicking at his legs, but he was a wall of muscle and bone.

The pain in my arm was a white-hot flare.

Some feral instinct took over; I leaned forward and sank my teeth into the back of his hand, the taste of copper filling my mouth.

Vincent cursed and tore his hand away.

I stumbled backward, dragging air into my lungs.

Chloe gasped with practiced horror and rushed to his side, taking his hand.

"Oh my god, Vincent, are you okay?" She turned a venomous glare on me, her eyes wide with fabricated shock. "Elena, you are utterly out of control. You need to apologize to him right now."

His rage stoked by the bite, Vincent crossed the space between us in a single stride and shoved me hard against the wall.

The back of my head hit the plaster with a dull thud, and my vision swam with dark spots.

"Apologize to her," he demanded, pointing a finger like a weapon at Chloe. "You ruin my night, you disrespect me in front of my men, and you act like a crazy bitch over a simple game. Apologize."

The soldiers in the room were sneering at me, their expressions telling me I was nothing more than dirt on their polished shoes.

I looked at Vincent-truly looked at him through the haze of my fever-and realized the man I loved had never existed.

He was a brute in a suit of fine wool.

I swallowed the thick tang of blood pooling in my mouth and pulled my shoulders back, refusing to cower.

"Rosa is dead," I said, my voice a hollow thing.

Vincent froze, the sneer falling from his face.

"Your sick game sent her into the storm," I continued, staring dead into his cold eyes. "Go visit her body in the morgue. And when you are done, sign the divorce papers."