A Diary for a Mad Don

I was drugged. A gunman from the O'Malley gang pinned me to the bed, tearing at my dress.

The door slammed open. Bianca De Luca, Julian’s betrothed, stormed in with several of the family’s Capos.

“You see, Capos? I told you Rowan was conspiring with our enemies!”

Panic seized me. I couldn’t explain, but the gunman only smirked, revealing the damning marks on my neck.

“That’s not the tune you were singing a moment ago,” he purred.

Bianca shrieked, “Rowan Callahan! How dare you betray Julian! To have an enemy’s daughter as the future Donna of the Griffin family is a disgrace to us all!”

“It wasn’t me…” My defense was cut short by a voice as cold as death. It was Julian.

“Rowan, just because I have to marry Bianca for the family, you choose today—the day I become Don—to humiliate me like this? After ten years, is this all our love meant to you?”

To appease Bianca and the Capos, he personally destroyed our unborn child and ordered my blood to be drained.

But after I died, he tore the world apart searching for me, a madman desperate for the forgiveness I could no longer give.

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1

"Rowan, it's been ten years." Julian Griffin’s voice cut through the noise of the Don succession ceremony, sharp as ice. "I gave you everything. My trust, my protection, a home. Is this how you repay me?"

He pointed to Bianca De Luca beside him, his finger trembling with rage. “Just because I have to marry her for the sake of the family, you crawl into bed with some O’Malley scum to humiliate me on the day I become Don? You make me sick!”

"No! Julian!" I crawled toward him, tears streaming down my face.

"I was framed! I just woke up in that room… Please, believe me…"

"Believe you?" His eyes were bloodshot as he let out a hoarse laugh. He viciously flung a stack of photos at my face.

The photos showed me at a warehouse on the docks, in different hotel rooms, tangled with strange men.

“No… these are fakes! They’re forged! Julian, I’ve never been to those places!”

"Fake?" Julian descended the marble steps one by one, his shadow enveloping me.

"The last shipment at the docks was busted by the cops, and six of our men died. The informant said you leaked the information. You said the evidence was fake, and I believed you. Later, someone said you were meeting with the remnants of the Callahan family. You said it was a misunderstanding, and I believed you."

“But moments ago, in that lounge, I saw it with my own eyes: you, writhing under that piece of filth. Was that fake, too? Do I have to find you with a thousand different men before you admit what a whore you are?”

"It's not true... none of it is true... I've loved you for ten years! I've never done anything to hurt you..." I clung to his leg in despair.

"Love?" Julian let out a cold sneer, as if he'd just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.

He took the Griffin family's diamond necklace out of a velvet box. That necklace was the one-of-a-kind symbol of the Donna.

I was the sole survivor of the Callahan family; our families were sworn enemies. For ten years, the family's Capos had never accepted me. They constantly pressured him, but Julian always swore he would personally place this necklace around my neck. He’d claimed that true love could transcend any blood feud. He promised me, year after year, that I would be his only wife. But now, he stared at the necklace, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

“I withstood all the pressure from the Capos for you. I was even prepared to tear up the marriage alliance with the De Luca family and give you the position of the Griffin family's Donna! And you? What was my reward? A public betrayal in front of the entire New York underworld!”