Regret Is Useless: The Mafia Queen Rises

I was a Mafia Princess, and he was the gutter rat I tried to make a King. On our wedding day, with five hundred guests watching, Luca Moretti didn't say his vows. Instead, after receiving a photo of a secret child, he looked at me with panic and backed away from the altar. "I can't do this," he announced to the silent church. "She's here. She'll ruin the kid." He chose a waitress and their illegitimate daughter over me. He walked out, leaving me humiliated in a dress that cost more than most people's lives. Forty-eight hours later, he married her. He gave the waitress my ring, my future, and his name, all to protect a child he had hidden from me. When I confronted him weeks later, he looked at me with cold eyes and told me he did it for honor. He destroyed me to save them, convinced I would fade away into the background. He thought he could break a Vitiello and not pay the price. Five years later, I returned to Chicago. The gala went silent as I walked in, wearing blood-red silk. Luca approached me, eyes full of regret, begging for a second chance, claiming his marriage to the waitress was a mistake. He thought he could win me back. Until a little girl ran into the room—my daughter. And behind her walked my husband. Not a soldier, but the Reaper himself, Dante Cavallaro. Luca’s face turned pale as he realized the truth. He had left me at the altar to play father, but I had married the Devil to become a Queen. Chapter 1 Gianna Vitiello POV: I placed the gun on the mahogany table between us. The metal clattered against the wood-a sound like a judge's gavel sealing a death sentence. "Her or the Outfit, Luca. Choose carefully.Because if you walk out that door to her, you leave as a corpse." That was three years ago. I was twenty-one, a Mafia Princess with a spine made of steel and a heart that beat only for the boy who had clawed his way up from the gutter. Luca Moretti. The bastard son who wanted to be a King. He had looked at the gun, then at me, and I saw the fear in his eyes. Not fear of death, but the terrifying fear of remaining nothing. He chose me. He paid the girl, Elena-a low-level waitress at my father's club-to disappear. He chose the crown over the comfort. Or so I thought. Today was supposed to be the coronation. The air in the cathedral was thick, cloying with the suffocating scent of white lilies and expensive perfume. Five hundred guests. The entire Chicago Outfit. My father, the Capo, sat in the front row, his face a mask of pride. I stood at the altar, the delicate lace of my veil scratching against my skin, waiting for Luca to say the words that would bind his ambition to my bloodline. He looked handsome. Devastatingly so. His tuxedo was tailored to hide the holster at his ribs, his dark hair swept back. But his hands were shaking. A man in a dark suit-one of the outer guards-marched up the aisle. He didn't look at me. His expression was grim as he handed Luca a thick manila envelope. The organ music didn't stop, but the atmosphere in the church shifted. It grew heavy. Static charged the air. Luca opened it. I watched the color drain from his face. It wasn't a slow fade; it was instant, as if someone had severed a vital artery. He pulled out a photograph. Even from where I stood, I could see the image clearly. A toddler. A little girl with dark curls and eyes that mirrored the man standing in front of me. Behind the photo was a document. A DNA test. And a note. I saw his jaw tighten until the muscle feathered. He looked up, scanning the back of the church frantically. Then, he looked at me. There was no love in that look. There was only panic. The panic of a man who had built his castle on sand and just felt the tide rush in. "Luca?" I whispered. He didn't answer. He stepped back. "Luca, give me your hand," the priest said, confusion leaking into his voice. Luca shook his head. "I can't." The whisper ran through the pews like a venomous snake. "I can't do this," he said, his voice loud enough for the first three rows to hear. "She's here. She's going to the Commission. She's going to ruin the kid." "Who?" I asked, though ice was already spreading through my veins. "Elena," he choked out. "The child... she's mine. If I marry you, she exposes the girl as a bastard. She'll be an outcast. Like I was." My heart stopped. The gun on the table three years ago. The choice. He hadn't chosen me. He had just delayed the betrayal. "You are leaving me at the altar," I said, my voice deadly calm. "For a threat?" "For my daughter," he said. He turned his back on me. He turned his back on the Vitiello family. He turned his back on the Outfit. He walked down the aisle, past the stunned Capos, past my furious father who was already reaching for his weapon inside his jacket. Luca walked out of the church, chasing the ghost of his own insecurity, leaving me standing alone in a dress that cost more than most people's lives. The silence was deafening. Five hundred pairs of eyes burned into me. Pity. Shock. Amusement. I didn't cry. I didn't collapse. I reached up and tore the veil from my head. The delicate lace ripped with a sound like tearing skin. I dropped it on the floor, on the spot where he should have knelt. I walked to the microphone. "Let him go," I said, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. My father froze, his hand still inside his jacket. "Let the coward run." I looked at the empty doorway, the bright sunlight blinding against the dark interior of the church. "But know this," I said to the silent room. "Today, Luca Moretti didn't just lose a bride. He started a war."