Too Late For Regret: The Capo's Ex-Wife
To save my husband, the crime lord of this city, I took a bullet to the gut.
As I lay dying, Dante didn't even glance my way.
He was too busy shielding his mistress, Camilla, checking her for scratches.
When I woke in the hospital, I found out that while I was unconscious, my brother had called, screaming for help.
Camilla answered my phone. She told Dante it was just a prank.
The next morning, my brother was found dead in a dumpster.
When I confronted Dante, he defended her innocence, told me not to make a federal case out of it.
He forcibly removed my grandmother's heirloom ring from my finger and slipped it onto hers.
He mocked me for being unable to bear his heir, completely disregarding the fact that I'd lost that ability five years ago, taking shrapnel for him.
Camilla delivered the final cut: our marriage license was never registered.
Ten years. I was never his legal wife.
He thought I was trapped. He thought without the Moretti name, I was nothing.
But I didn't cry. I went to the guest room and packed my knives, not my clothes.
Two years later, I run the only security firm that can rival his.
When a man, his face a ruin, appeared at my brother's grave begging for forgiveness, I felt neither love nor hate.
"I'm free," I said.
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Chapter 3
The funeral was yesterday.
Dante didn't show.
He sent flowers and a thick envelope of cash, the kind of expensive flowers meant to cover the stench of a bad deed.
I burned the bills in the kitchen sink, watching the faces on them curl into black ash.
I sat at the kitchen island, staring at the divorce papers I'd scrawled on a cocktail napkin. It was the only paper I could find when I'd finally made up my mind.
The front door slammed open, shaking the walls.
Dante stormed in, shrugging off his jacket, tossing it carelessly at a chair.
His eyes landed on the napkin immediately.
He picked it up, his thumb pressing an irreversible crease into it as he read the first line, and then tore it in half.
"Enough of this tantrum!" he snarled, tossing the pieces onto the counter.
He glared at me. "You want a divorce from me? Because I missed your brother's funeral? Camilla's been unwell, she's pregnant, I have to be there for her, you understand?"
"It's not a tantrum," I said. "I'm leaving."
"You're not going anywhere. You're my wife."
"Am I?" The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Then, the sharp click of heels on marble. Camilla appeared.
She was wearing one of my silk robes, a vintage one I loved.
It was open at the neck, displaying the hickeys on her collarbone and chest. She had one hand dramatically placed on her stomach, leaning against the doorframe.
"Dante... I feel so faint," she began, her voice a carefully controlled tremor. "The baby... I think he's restless. It's making me nauseous."
A muscle in Dante's jaw relaxed, his whole posture softening instantly, and a chill hit my chest.
He moved to her, placing his broad hand over hers.
"Go to the master bedroom," he murmured to her, low. "I'll be right there."
"That's my room," I said, my voice sharp as broken glass.
Dante turned to me, his hand on the counter clenching into a fist.
"Not anymore. Camilla needs the space. She needs the big bath for her back pain. You can take the guest room."
"You're moving your mistress into our bed?"
"She's carrying my heir, Serra!" he shouted, the veins in his neck standing out like ropes. "Something you couldn't do."
He pointed at me. "If you could have given me a child, I wouldn't have needed someone else! Don't be so selfish that I can never be a father just because of you!"
The words hit me like bullets; they passed right through, leaving a cold, hollow space behind.
He knew exactly why I couldn't bear children.
He knew it was because I'd taken shrapnel for him five years ago.
To save him. The shrapnel that tore through my uterus.
"I took three bullets for you," I said quietly, the memory a dull ache in my abdomen.
Back then, Dante wasn't the crime lord yet. We were caught in an ambush. I shielded him, took several shots, one of them hitting my lower abdomen, leaving me unable to have children.
I knew he wanted kids, so I tried to call off the wedding.
He refused without a second thought.
He said I mattered more to him than any child ever could.
And now, he was calling me selfish.
"And you lived," he countered. "Don't play the victim. You were born for this life. Camilla's different... she's delicate. She's pure."
A beat of silence, then he added, "What I mean is, you could totally think of me and Camilla's kid as our own. If you want, we'll be his parents together."
I shook my head, decisive. "I don't want that."
Dante's patience evaporated completely. "Serra, don't think I'll endlessly tolerate your bad temper just because I love you."
"I said, you'll always be my wife. You have to learn to accept Camilla."
"She'll stay in the master bedroom until the baby comes. You move to the guest room for now."
He turned his back and followed Camilla upstairs.
I stood there for a long time, frozen in the dead silence of the kitchen.
Later, my throat dry, I went to the fridge for water.
Camilla was just standing there, leaning against the counter, eating an apple.
She smiled when she saw me, her lips parting slowly over her teeth.
"He's so happy about the baby," she said, chewing, unconcerned. "Too bad about your brother. But maybe it's for the best. He was always a loser, wasn't he?"
The sanity in my brain evaporated.
My hand moved, a blur.
I slapped her.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the kitchen.
Camilla gasped, clutching her cheek. Shock flickered in her eyes, then was replaced by malice.
Then, her gaze dropped.
She saw the edge of fresh bandages peeking from my waistband, the aftermath of the recent ambush.
She reached out and jammed her fingers directly into my wound.
Pain exploded behind my eyes, turning the world white.
I felt a hot, tearing pull as the stitches gave way.
I crumpled to the floor, my lungs refusing to work, my mouth open in a soundless scream.
"Dante!" she shrieked, fake tears instantly welling up and spilling down her face. "She hit me! She's trying to hurt the baby!"
Dante stormed into the room.
He saw Camilla crying, playing the victim to perfection.
He saw me curled on the floor, fetal, clutching my bleeding stomach.
He didn't look at my wound. He didn't even blink.
He stepped over me like I was a stain on the floor and went straight to her.
"Get out of my sight, Serra," he snarled, holding Camilla. "If you touch her again, I'll forget you ever existed."
I coughed, a metallic taste flooding my mouth.
Blood spattered on the pristine white tile.
"You already have," I whispered.
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9.1
"Whether you like it or not, I'm going to marry you, Jillian," Sir Zach told me. His face was dead serious, as if he had already made up his mind.
"What do you mean, marry me? Hey! Just because you're rich doesn't mean you can do whatever you want! There is no reason for me to marry someone like you!" I snapped at him.
It felt like he was trying to dictate every single thing I did, even though he wasn't even my boyfriend.
"I have a reason to marry you, Jillian. Something happened between us, don't you remember? You were actually the one who kissed me that night you were completely wasted," he reminded me, a smirk playing on his lips.
I swallowed hard at his words. Right. Something did happen between us. But it wasn't intentional. Someone had drugged my drink, which was why I acted that way the night he pulled me away from the "friends" I thought were genuine.
"So, there's no reason to say 'no,' my future wife," he said with a wink.
It looks like there's no way out for me. I'm actually going to be the wife of Sir Zach-my professor and the one person I'm always at odds with.
8.7
I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.
8.2
"I am not my sister. And you can LOVE ME OR HATE ME for that, but you don't get to punish me for her sins."
Daniel breaks. The wall doesn't just come down. It collapses.
---
Aria Blackwood didn't plan to fall in love with her boss. She planned to keep her head down, do her job, and ignore the way Daniel Cole's presence rearranged every room he entered, including the room inside her chest.
Daniel Cole didn't plan to feel anything ever again. Not after Vivienne. Not after the betrayal that stripped him of $50,000, a fake pregnancy that never existed, and every reason to trust a woman's smile.
He swore on her name. On her bloodline. On every person who carried her last name.
He just didn't know he'd already fallen for one.
When the truth surfaces at the worst possible moment, mid-engagement, mid-happiness, mid-finally, Daniel must choose between the wound that shaped him and the woman who healed him without even knowing he was bleeding.
Love was never supposed to find him again.
It sent the wrong sister anyway.
8.1
I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood.
For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe.
On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident.
Donovan didn't hesitate.
He forced me to drain my blood to save her life.
Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean.
He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her.
He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella.
He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night.
When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth.
He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman.
Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man.
He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy.
I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing.
"It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her."
9.4
My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine.
Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family.
To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset.
They both thought I was a broken doll they could control.
I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice.
She sang it, and now her career is over.
Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.
7.3
While I was pregnant, my husband held a party downstairs for another woman's son.
Through a hidden mental link, I overheard my husband, Don Dante Rossi, tell his consigliere he was going to publicly reject me tomorrow. He planned to make his mistress, Serena, his new mate.
An act forbidden by ancient law while I carried his heir.
Later, Serena cornered me, her smile venomous. When Dante appeared, she shrieked, clawing her own arm and blaming me for the attack.
Dante didn't even look at me. He snarled a command that froze my body and stole my voice, ordering me from his sight as he cradled her.
He moved her and her son into our master suite. I was demoted to the guest room at the end of the hall.
Passing her open door, I saw him rocking her baby, humming the lullaby my own mother used to sing to me.
I heard him promise her, "Soon, my love. I'll sever the bond and give you the life you deserve."
The love I felt for him, the power I'd hidden for four years to protect his fragile ego, all turned to ice.
He thought I was a weak, powerless wife he could discard. He was about to find out that the woman he betrayed was Alessia De Luca, princess of the most powerful family on the continent.
And I was finally going home.