The Mafia Don's Regret: Torturing His True Savior
My husband crushed the metacarpals of my left hand—my drawing hand—with a heavy leather-bound book.
This was Punishment Ninety-Six.
The offense? I had missed a single phone call from my stepsister, Joyce.
According to Don Austen Ballard, ignoring the woman who allegedly saved his life fifteen years ago was akin to high treason.
"Discipline is the highest form of love, Alana," he whispered, watching the violet bruise spread across my skin.
He calls shattering an architect's hand "love."
He believes Joyce dragged him from a burning building when he was a boy. He treats her like a living saint and me like a punching bag to pay his life debt.
But it is all a lie.
Fifteen years ago, Joyce was at a cheerleading camp three towns away.
I was the one in that crawlspace.
I was the one who found the bleeding boy in the dark.
I was the one who called him "Stellen" because he was too terrified to tell me his real name.
He has spent our entire marriage torturing his true savior to please a fraud.
Tonight, the pain finally burned away my fear, leaving only cold resolve.
I didn't cry.
I waited until the house was silent, then I retrieved a burner phone hidden in a false bottom of a box in the bathroom.
I dialed the number of his sworn enemy, Don Dalton Underwood.
"I have the blueprints," I said, my voice steady despite the agony in my hand. "And I have the controlling shares of Ballard Industries. I'm ready to burn his kingdom to ash."
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Chapter 2
Alana POV
"I don't do charity, Mrs. Ballard." Dalton's voice was low and smooth, like whiskey poured over a rusted razor blade.
"This isn't charity," I whispered, pressing the burner phone to my ear with my good shoulder, hissing as the movement pulled at my injuries. "It's a hostile takeover."
"You're offering me the keys to the kingdom."
"I'm offering you the throat of the man who killed your brother."
A pause stretched between us.
Heavy. Thick. Suffocating.
"Extraction is at 0200 hours," he finally said. "The garden gate. If you aren't there, I leave. And I don't look back."
"I'll be there."
I hung up and immediately destroyed the SIM card, flushing the pieces down the toilet.
I had four hours.
I moved with the cold efficiency of a machine.
I went to the wall safe hidden behind the Monet print.
I knew the combination not because he told me, but because I designed the installation.
Inside lay the kingdom: the bearer bonds, the deeds, and the stock certificates.
I took the documents that gave Austen legal control over his legitimate construction empire.
I replaced them with high-quality forgeries I had printed weeks ago, waiting for a moment just like this.
Then, I took a stack of legitimate business contracts Austen needed to sign tonight.
With trembling fingers, I slid the divorce settlement and the asset transfer agreement into the middle of the pile.
The sound of the front door unlatching echoed downstairs.
Austen was home.
I scrambled into bed, my heart hammering against my ribs as I pulled the duvet up to my chin.
My hand was wrapped in a heavy brace the doctor had applied only an hour ago.
Austen walked in.
He smelled of stale cigar smoke and expensive, cloying cologne.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight.
He looked at my hand, then at my face.
His eyes were soft.
It was the look that terrified me the most. It was the look of a man who believed he owned me.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"Yes," I lied.
It hurt like hell, but the adrenaline was masking the worst of it.
"Good." He stroked my hair, his touch possessive. "Pain reminds us of our place. I brought the contracts for the seaport deal. I need to sign them before I sleep."
"I can help you sort them," I said, forcing my voice to tremble just enough to sound broken. "Please, Austen. Let me be useful."
He smiled.
"That's my good girl."
He placed the stack on the nightstand.
I sat up, feigning weakness, leaning heavily against the headboard.
I handed him the papers one by one.
He signed the first three without reading.
He didn't even glance at the fine print.
He was arrogant.
He thought he had broken me completely.
He thought I was too stupid, too scared to pull a move like this.
I handed him the asset transfer.
"This is the supplemental insurance rider," I murmured, keeping my eyes lowered.
He signed it.
He signed away fifty-one percent of his company.
I handed him the divorce papers.
"Liability waiver for the new site."
He signed it.
He signed away his marriage.
I held my breath as he capped his pen.
"Done," he said.
"I'll file these for you in the morning," I said, reaching for the stack as if they were holy scripture.
The door banged open.
Joyce stood there.
She was wearing a silk robe that cost more than my father's entire house.
"Austen!" she whined. "She attacked me!"
She held up her arm.
There was a thin, superficial scratch on her forearm.
Fresh blood welled on the surface.
She held a letter opener in her other hand.
"She came at me with this!" Joyce screamed, her face twisted in theatrical horror. "She's crazy, Austen! She's jealous because you love me more!"
I stared at her.
I hadn't left the bed since the doctor left.
Austen stood up.
He looked at Joyce, then back at me.
"She can barely stand, Joyce," Austen said quietly, his voice devoid of warmth. "Her hand is crushed."
Joyce faltered.
"She... she used her other hand! She's a monster!"
Austen turned to me.
For a second, I saw clarity in his eyes. Not love. Not trust. Just cold, mathematical calculation.
"I believe you, Alana," he said.
My heart skipped a beat.
Was he finally seeing the truth?
"You couldn't have attacked her," he continued, walking toward me. "Because you know the consequences would be death."
He sat back down on the bed.
He leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear.
"But Joyce is upset. And when the savior is upset, the debt must be paid."
He snapped his fingers.
Two guards entered the room, silent as shadows.
One held a rag soaked in chloroform.
"Sleep now, my little architect," Austen whispered, kissing my forehead. "We have work to do later."
The rag covered my face.
The chemical sting filled my nose, burning my lungs.
The last thing I saw was Joyce's smirk fading into the darkness.
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7.5
The Duke was standing in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted to one side. It was a relaxed, casual pose, and yet the way he looked at her was anything but casual. The deep midnight of his eyes burned and he radiated a subtle, sensual energy that made the air around him crackle.
He looked like a man who'd never heard the word 'no' in all his life. Unluckily for him, 'no' was the only word she had.
"There's no reason why I should stay," Anna clasped her shaking hands together in an effort to still them. "I'm not marrying you."
His gaze flickered, his mouth curving slightly, and she had the disturbing thought that far from putting him off, her insistence was only inciting him further.
"But you haven't heard my proposal yet," he said mildly. "Isn't that why you're here?"
"I don't need to hear it. I already know that my answer will be no."
"Of course. But you can hardly tell your father that you heard me out when you haven't, in fact, heard me out.... Anna."
8.0
I posted a photo of baby shoes to celebrate my pregnancy. Two hours later, my husband was holding jumper cables.
Kaeden, the Mafia Capo who swore to protect me, stood under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the basement.
He didn't look like the man who brought me vanilla lattes. He looked like a monster.
His "fragile" childhood friend, Clemmie, had convinced him that my innocent post was a signal to our enemies.
"Discipline," Kaeden muttered, refusing to look at my weeping face. "She needs to learn the cost of her voice."
He ordered low voltage—just enough to scare me.
But the moment he walked out the door, unable to watch, Clemmie smiled.
"He's not coming back for you," she whispered.
She cranked the dial all the way to the right.
She didn't just want to teach me a lesson. She wanted to stop my heart so she could harvest it for herself.
And my husband had already signed the release forms.
But they made one mistake. They left the cleanup to Alois, the family's most ruthless Enforcer.
He didn't bury me. He saved me.
Now, while Kaeden cries over a fake grave, consumed by guilt, I am watching from the shadows.
Daria Burris died in that chair.
The woman who survived is coming for blood.
9.2
I stood on the tarmac clutching white magnolias, watching the man I loved hand his loyalty to the woman born to destroy me.
Dante Cavallaro, the Ruthless Underboss, didn't just leave me for Sofia Moretti.
He revealed that for two years, I wasn't his lover. I was a human shield.
The heavy iron bangle he forced me to wear wasn't a gift for my protection.
"It's a Malocchio anchor," he sneered as I lay paralyzed on the floor. "It drains the wearer's luck to keep Sofia healthy. You are just the filter."
My body began to rot from the inside out, my nerves dying one by one.
When I was finally on my deathbed, unable to move or speak, Dante didn't cry for me.
He cried because his tool was broken.
He forced the cursed bangle onto his own wrist, begging the universe to keep me alive so I could continue to suffer in Sofia's place.
"Please," he sobbed into my sheets. "Don't leave me alone with the bad luck."
I used my last breath to make a wish—not for him, but for my freedom.
I closed my eyes and died.
Exactly one hour later, Dante's phone rang.
It was his father.
"Sofia just collapsed," he said. "Her heart just stopped."
I was the vessel.
And now that I was gone, the poison had come home to the King.
7.4
MAFIA DESIRE
7.4
In the city where power was inherited through bloodshed and silence, love was the most dangerous liability of all.
She emerged from the shadows like a secret the underworld had failed to bury-elegant, unreadable, and far more lethal than she appeared. Every step she took echoed with intention. Every smile concealed a calculation. Men underestimated her. They always did. And they always paid for it.
He was young, brilliant, and already feared. A rising king in a world that devoured the weak, carrying ambition like a loaded weapon. He didn't trust easily, didn't hesitate, and didn't believe in fate-until her presence began to unravel everything he thought he controlled.
Their connection wasn't born of innocence or chance. It was forged in danger, sealed by secrets, and fueled by a hunger neither of them dared to name. In a world ruled by betrayal, they found something far more terrifying than enemies-each other.
Because when desire collides with power, and love becomes a threat, survival is no longer guaranteed.
And in the mafia, nothing is more deadly than wanting what you're not supposed to have.
8.7
Synopsis:
She thought she could forget him by morning. She was wrong.
Catherine Moretti wanted to escape her past.
As the daughter of a powerful mafia boss, her life was full of danger, lies, and control. So she ran, hoping to start over, far from the world she was born into.
But one reckless night turned her life upside down, just to find out later she's pregnant with the hot Italian stranger's baby, the one she spent the night with!
Now, she's pulled back into the mafia world, only this time, into Nico's.
She ran from one mafia king... and ended up in the arms of his enemy
However, Nico isn't the kind of man you walk away from.
And in his world, one night can turn into forever.
7.8
Elena Voss was sold like a debt receipt.
Her greedy aunt and uncle handed her over to Damien Blackthorn-New York's untouchable billionaire tech mogul by day, ruthless Mafia Don and Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack by night-to settle a family debt they never asked her to pay.
The moment their eyes met in that rain-soaked alley, the fated mate bond ignited like wildfire. For one reckless night, he claimed her body and soul, whispering "mine" against her skin while the Moon Goddess sealed their destiny.
Then came the betrayal.
On their first anniversary, he paraded his pureblood fiancée through their penthouse, let her kneel for him in the study while Elena watched from the shadows, and divorced her in front of the entire pack.
"Wolfless trash," he snarled. "You were never more than payment."
Heart in pieces and two tiny heartbeats growing inside her, Elena fled. She vanished into Seattle's gray drizzle, changed her name, cut her hair, and built a quiet life as a single mother. She swore the Blackthorn name would never touch her twins-Leo and Luna, the secret heirs he didn't even know existed.
Five years later, the children's first uncontrolled shifts rip through their small apartment like lightning. The only place that can teach them control and keep them hidden from rival packs is back in New York-back under Damien's shadow.
The Alpha Don who once threw her away is now obsessed.
The fated bond never died; it only waited. He feels her every laugh, every tear, every protective growl she gives their children. He'll burn his empire, his alliances, and his pride to drag her back.
But Elena isn't the broken girl he discarded anymore.
She's a mother with claws.
A luna who learned to bite.
And this time, if he wants her forgiveness, he'll have to beg on his knees.
Pregnancy. Divorce. Secret babies. Billionaire alpha. Mafia power plays. Revenge that burns slow and sweet.
Some bonds can't be broken.
Some rejections come with claws.
And some second chances are paid for in blood.