Rising From Ashes: The Don's Lost Queen

I gave up the peace of a civilian life to marry Dante, the most cold-blooded Don this city has ever known.

For years, I managed the chaos of his life and respected his lethal secrets.

But everything changed the moment he took a young soldier named Tess as his private secretary.

He let her sit in the passenger seat of his armored SUV-a spot strictly reserved for me-and even allowed her to answer his encrypted burner phones.

When I found her lipstick in his car, he simply said, "Don't be so paranoid."

I knew then that we were over.

So, on our fifth wedding anniversary, I left my wedding ring on his desk alongside a signed set of divorce papers.

I packed a single bag and walked out of his gilded cage, finally choosing to live for myself.

Chapter 1

I stared at the sapphire-encrusted earring lodged in the crevice of the passenger seat.

I understood the owner's ambition instantly. I also understood that if I didn't sever ties with the city's most powerful mob boss tonight, his unwritten rules would seal me away like a tomb.

Dante sat in the driver's seat. He was the youngest Don in the history of the Syndicate, having wiped out three rival families before the age of thirty. He was my husband, and right now, he was watching me observe that earring.

I recognized the jewelry at a glance.

Tess wore them constantly. She was the only female soldier in the family, and Dante had taken her under his wing as his personal secretary.

And this seat, the passenger side of this car, was our unspoken pact-it belonged to me alone.

I reached out, plucking the earring from the leather fold, the metal feeling icy against my fingertips.

Dante shifted slightly. "I dropped Tess off at a safe house. It was snowing hard after the meeting, and she didn't have a car."

In the past, my hands would have trembled. My throat would have tightened, and I would have interrogated him on why he broke his promise. But tonight, a strange sense of relief flooded my chest, as if a vital organ had been cleanly excised.

I placed the earring on the center console. "It doesn't matter."

Dante braked in the middle of the driveway and turned to look at me, searching for the familiar storm. "That's all you have to say? You don't care?"

He expected me to scream, to fight him as I always had.

Instead, I simply turned my head to meet his gaze, pulled the door handle, and stepped out into the biting snow.