Too Late, Mr. Mafia: The Surgeon He Discarded

Sienna POV

Matteo gathered the papers, his complexion turned the color of ash. He stared at me as if I were some impossible apparition that had just passed through a solid wall.

"The Family will provide a modest allowance," he said slowly, slipping the documents into his dark suit jacket.

"Keep it," I replied, my voice as flat and empty as the room itself.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The linoleum floor, through the thin fabric of my hospital socks, sent a damp chill into the soles of my feet.

I moved toward the window, where outside, the winter trees stood bare and skeletal against a bleak, slate-gray sky.

I was finally done with the mafia. I was done suffocating in that top-floor apartment with its bulletproof glass and private elevator that only activated with his fingerprint.

It was time to reclaim the scalpel I had so foolishly abandoned for a man who never loved me.

The heavy oak door of the sickroom groaned open.

Carmela Cavalli strode in.

My mother-in-law, the formidable Matriarch of the Famiglia, was draped in a tailored wool suit and a strand of pearls that cost more than most people's homes.

She looked at me with that familiar, elitist curl of her lip. She had always despised my civilian blood.

In my past life, this woman had made every waking moment a living hell.

She had isolated me, poisoned Dante's mind with her venom, and actively orchestrated every barrier between us to ensure he never showed me an ounce of affection.

Carmela marched to the bedside table, dropping a thick legal contract next to my water glass with a heavy thud.

"Since you were foolish enough to sign the annulment, we need to finalize the assets," she stated, each word weighted with a malicious triumph. "And don't think for a second that the pathetic allowance Matteo promised you will ever materialize. I am the Matriarch, and I override his weak sympathies."

I glanced at the document, already knowing exactly what those pages contained.

It dictated that the penthouse, the offshore accounts, the luxury cars—and even the dowry my late parents had left me—now belonged solely to the Cavalli Famiglia.

"You will leave with nothing," Carmela sneered, her eyes gleaming with vindictive pleasure. "I will not allow you to take a single cent of our money. You take just the clothes on your back and whatever pathetic civilian trash you brought into this family."

She expected a fight. She desperately wanted to watch me break down, to see the crushing realization hit me that I was now a beggar on the streets.

Instead, I turned my back on her and walked to the small closet in the corner of the room.

From it, I pulled a simple canvas duffel bag, tossed the few old medical journals I had secretly hoarded under my mattress inside, and grabbed my old, worn winter coat.

I completely ignored the designer gowns and the velvet boxes of diamond necklaces sitting in the drawers; they had only ever felt like heavy, suffocating chains anyway.

I zipped the bag shut and slung it over my shoulder.

"Fine," I said simply.

Carmela blinked, her smug, aristocratic expression faltering for a fraction of a second.

I walked toward the door, pausing just inches away from her rigid posture.

I looked directly into her harsh, aging eyes, refusing to shrink away.

"Signora Cavalli," I murmured, my voice pitched low and even. "The blood debt your son owes me could never be repaid in this lifetime, anyway."

Carmela's face twisted into an ugly mask of sudden fury. Her mouth opened, but shock stole her words.

Without waiting for a response, I stepped around her and walked out into the corridor, where the fluorescent lights hummed with a low-frequency current.

I didn't look back.

Halfway down the hall, I saw her.

Elena Falcone.

She was the daughter of Don Salvatore, a woman blessed with a face of breathtaking beauty and cursed with a thoroughly rotten core.

In my past life, I had only learned on my deathbed that Elena was the true mastermind behind my divorce, having used her father's powerful seat on the Commission to force Dante's hand.

Now, she stood right in the middle of the hallway, cradling a massive, ostentatious bouquet of yellow roses.

As I approached, her lips stretched into a sickeningly sweet, practiced smile.

"Sienna," Elena cooed, her voice coated in a thick, false pity. "I heard the terrible news. The life of the Famiglia is just so incredibly cruel. I am so, so sorry."

She held out the vibrant yellow roses—a gesture that was nothing less than a subtle threat, a gloating victory lap.

I stopped dead in front of her.

For a long moment, I looked down at the bright yellow petals, and then I shifted my gaze to the stainless-steel trash can sitting against the wall.

Without a word, I took the bouquet from her manicured hands.

I took two deliberate steps to the right and dropped the expensive flowers directly into the garbage.

"Excuse me," I said, controlling my vocal cords, making each syllable emerge as tonelessly as if I were reading from a telephone directory. "I despise roses."

The triumphant smile froze on her lips. A faint, uncontrollable tremor began at the corner of her mouth. I savored it—the first taste of a victory that was entirely, irrevocably mine.