Too Late To Beg: The Don's Regret

I was still bleeding into the mesh underwear the hospital gave me when the photos hit the internet: my husband, the Don, forcing his tongue down his mistress's throat. Three days ago, that very mistress had shoved me off a yacht. I lost the baby. I lost my uterus. I was left completely barren. Yet, when my husband finally called, it wasn't to ask if I was alive. "The press is eating us alive," Dante barked through the phone. "Send a gift basket to Sofia. Fix this mess." To make matters worse, his grandmother stood at the foot of my bed, holding the hand of the daughter they had stolen from me at birth. "Mommy looks like a ghost," my daughter said, her voice devoid of love. That was the moment the last ember of affection died. I realized I wasn't a wife to them; I was just a broken vessel. So, when they sneered that I was useless, I didn't cry. I pulled a black USB drive from under my pillow and threw it on the bed. "Divorce papers," I said calmly. "And the complete security blueprints of the Moretti Fortress. Every blind spot. Every tunnel I designed." "Sign the papers and let me go, or I sell this drive to your enemies for one dollar." I left the country with nothing but the clothes on my back, vanishing into a freezing attic in Paris. I thought I was finally free. But three weeks later, Dante kicked down my door, looking at my poverty with horror. "Come home," he begged, tossing a box of diamonds onto my drafting table. "We can be a family." I looked at the man who had destroyed me and opened the window. "You're looking for the girl who loved you," I whispered, throwing the diamonds into the trash alley below. "But you killed her." Chapter 1 Elena POV I was still bleeding into the mesh underwear the hospital had given me when the tabloid photos hit the internet: my husband, forcing his tongue down his mistress's throat. The caption screamed in bold font: "The Don and his Muse." I perched precariously on the edge of the massive four-poster bed in the Moretti estate's guest wing, the light of my phone screen cutting through the room's oppressive darkness. My abdomen throbbed—a relentless, hot pulse where they had cut me open only three days ago to remove the remains of my unborn child and my uterus. I was empty. A hollowed-out husk, left to rot on the porch. Downstairs, the distinct crash of shattering porcelain echoed. Nonna Rosa was awake. And she was furious. Not because her grandson's mistress had shoved me off a yacht into the freezing Atlantic on New Year's Eve. Not because the heir to the Moretti throne had been washed away in a tide of blood and brine. She was furious because Dante had been sloppy enough to get caught kissing Sofia Rossi while his wife was in surgery. The door to my room didn't just open; it flew inward. Marco, the Consigliere—a man who had watched me grow up and then watched me wither—stood in the frame. He looked at the floor, unable to meet my eyes. "You are summoned to the Inner Sanctum, Elena." I didn't move. The fresh stitches in my belly pulled tight, a searing reminder of the price I had paid for this moment. "Tell Nonna Rosa that if she wants to speak to me, she can drag her old legs up these stairs." Marco's head snapped up. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. In the Moretti family, you did not summon the Matriarch. You crawled to her. "I said, tell her to come to me. Or I press send on the email." He didn't ask what email. He saw the dead look in my eyes and turned around. Ten minutes later, the hallway filled with the ominous click-clack of sensible heels and the heavy thud of a cane. Nonna Rosa swept into the room, a vision in black lace and ancient malice. And she brought Mia. My heart—or the stone that had replaced it—gave a single, agonizing thump. Mia wore a velvet dress that cost more than my father made in a lifetime. She looked at me with the same cold, assessing stare as her great-grandmother. "Look at her, Mia," Nonna Rosa hissed, pointing her cane at me like a weapon. "Look at the weak thing your father married. A civilian. A broken vessel." Mia looked at me. "Mommy looks tired," she said, her voice devoid of affection. "Sofia says she looks like a ghost." The mention of the woman who tried to kill me, falling so easily from my own daughter's lips, should have broken me. But I was already shattered. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was Dante. I picked it up, putting it on speaker. "Elena." His voice was a deep baritone, rough with whiskey and arrogance. "I need you to handle Nonna. The press is eating us alive. Send a basket to Sofia's penthouse. Something expensive. Chocolate. And tell the security team to double the guard there." I looked at Nonna Rosa. Her face was a mask of disgust, not at him, but at the inconvenience of it all. "Is that all, Dante?" I asked. "Don't use that tone with me. You fell. You were clumsy. Now fix the mess." The line went dead. Nonna Rosa stepped forward. "You heard him. You are the Don's wife. Your job is to eat shit and smile so the world thinks it's chocolate." I stood up. The pain was blinding, white-hot needles stabbing my core, but I forced myself upright. "No." Nonna Rosa's eyes widened. She stepped into my personal space, the scent of lavender and rot surrounding her. She raised her hand and brought it down across my face. The slap echoed in the silence. My head snapped to the side. I tasted copper. But I didn't cry. I didn't cower. My hand shot out, snatching her wrist. Her skin felt papery and thin under my grip. I squeezed, watching her shock curdle into outrage. "If you ever touch me again," I said, my voice barely a whisper, "I will burn this house to the ground." I released her and reached under my pillow, pulling out a manila envelope and a black USB drive. I threw them on the bed. "Divorce papers," I said. "And the complete security blueprints of the Moretti Fortress. Every blind spot. Every sensor code. Every tunnel." Nonna Rosa looked at the drive, then at me. Her face paled. "I designed this place, Nonna. I built your cage. And if you don't sign those papers and give me safe passage out of Italy tonight, I will sell this drive to the Russo family for one dollar." She stared at me, calculating. She looked at my flat stomach. She knew what the doctors had done. She knew I could never give Dante another heir. I was depreciated stock. Useless. "You are barren," she spat the word like a curse. "You are of no use to the bloodline." "Then let me go." She snatched the papers. "Marco will process this. You will leave with nothing. No money. No jewelry. No clothes. You leave as the beggar you were when we found you." "Fine," I said. "And you never see Mia again." I looked at my daughter. She was playing with the fringe of the curtain, ignoring us completely. She didn't know me. She had been stolen from my arms ten minutes after birth and raised by wolves. "She is already yours," I said, the words tearing my throat apart. "Keep her." Nonna Rosa sneered. "Get out of my sight."