Too Late For Regret: The Don's Queen

“My mother was raising her crystal glass to celebrate my long-deferred marriage to Marco when he slammed his hand on the table. He announced to our powerful Mafia families that he had already claimed another woman. That woman was Isabella, a fragile, low-level associate. For years, Marco had used me as a forced chaperone, a convenient shield to hide their illicit affair from the Syndicate elders. He had stolen my meticulous ledger work to cover her mistakes, leaving me to endure brutal reprimands from the Underboss. He had even abandoned me in hostile, rival-controlled territory in the dead of night just to escort her safely home. Now, he was publicly shattering our generation-long alliance. "What man of consequence would seek out a wife with a spirit as unbending and a heart as cold as yours?" he sneered in front of everyone. I stared at the man I had grown up alongside. When we were thirteen, I shattered the bones in my own hand pulling him to safety from rival soldiers. He swore a blood oath under Omertà that day to protect me for life. Yet here he was, treating me like a disposable pawn, discarding our shared history for a pathetic, manipulative girl. But I didn't cry, and I didn't beg him to stay. As he turned his back on me to answer a frantic call from his fragile lover, I simply pulled out my phone. I texted Don Alessandro Moretti, the most feared boss in the city, and allied myself with him instead.”