Zero Score: My Escape from the Mafia Don
For three years, I was the wife of Don Dante Moretti. But our marriage was a transaction, and my heart was the price. I kept a ledger, deducting points for every time he chose her—his first love, Isabella—over me. When the score reached zero, I would be free.
After he abandoned me on a roadside to rush to Isabella's side, I was hit by a car. I woke up in the ER, bleeding, only to hear a nurse shout that I was two months pregnant. A tiny, impossible hope flared in my chest.
But as the doctors scrambled to save me, they patched my husband through on speakerphone. His voice was cold and absolute.
“Isabella’s condition is critical,” he ordered. “Not one drop of the reserve blood is to be touched until she is safe. I don't care who else needs it.”
I lost the baby. Our child, sacrificed by its own father. I later learned Isabella had only suffered a minor cut. The blood was just a “precautionary measure.”
The tiny flicker of hope was extinguished, and something inside me snapped, clean and final. The debt was paid.
Alone in the silence, I made the last entry in my ledger, bringing the score to zero. I signed the divorce papers I had already prepared, left them on his desk, and walked out of his life forever.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 4
Elara POV:
Isabella led Dante on a tour of her restaurant, her voice laced with a silken triumph. "It's exactly as I described it to you, all those years ago. The velvet booths, the gold accents... every detail."
"'A place where danger and beauty can drink together,'" Dante recited, his voice a low rumble. Words she'd spoken a lifetime ago, yet he had them etched in his memory.
A delicate hand flew to her chest in feigned surprise. "You remembered."
He smiled, a true, unguarded smile I hadn't seen in years. "Does your offer to make me a partner still stand?"
"A Don is too important for that," she demurred, her eyes glittering with a predatory light.
I followed them like a shadow, a weight settling so heavily in my chest it stole my breath.
In the private dining room, Dante ordered for the table without a glance at the menu. Pan-seared scallops, truffle risotto, a bottle of vintage Barolo. All of Isabella's favorites.
"You know me so well," she purred, then her gaze flickered to me, a calculated performance of pity that felt more like a dismissal. "Dante, let your wife choose something. We should be good hosts."
He slid a menu across the table to me. "I don't know what you like. Order for yourself."
Three years of marriage, and he didn't know if I preferred fish or steak. I felt erased, as if the last three years of my life had been written in invisible ink.
"Excuse me," I mumbled, pushing my chair back and fleeing to the restroom.
Isabella followed me. She cornered me by the marble sinks, her reflection in the mirror sharp and predatory.
"He's only with you out of duty to your father," she whispered, her voice a silken, venomous thread. "A vow of honor. It has nothing to do with love. A real woman knows when to walk away."
Suddenly, a deep, groaning sound echoed from above. The massive crystal chandelier hanging over our heads swayed violently, its supports giving way. Sabotage. A message from a rival Family.
It plummeted towards us.
Dante moved like lightning, a predator reacting to a threat. In a blur of motion, he crossed the room, yanked Isabella into his arms, and shielded her with his body as the world exploded in a shower of glass and metal.
I was thrown sideways by the impact. A searing pain shot through my side. I looked down and saw red blooming across my dress.
The world went black.
I woke up in a sterile hospital room. I was alone. The pain in my side was a dull, throb-bing ache. Wincing, I reached for my purse on the nightstand, my fingers fumbling for the black ledger inside. I subtracted ten points.
A nurse bustled in, her eyes, kind and curious, falling on the book.
"What's this, dear?" she asked, her voice soft.
"A marriage ledger," I whispered, my voice a hoarse rasp. "When it reaches zero, I'm getting a divorce. Only ten points left."
The door opened. Dante stood there, his expression unreadable, his suit immaculate. He'd heard me.
"What ten points?"