Too Late For The Mafia Don's Regret

I kept a ledger to track my marriage to the most feared man in Chicago.

Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time Dante looked through me to stare at his mistress, Isabella, I subtracted one. Every time he left our bed to answer her calls, I subtracted five.

The day the score hit zero, I was lying in a secret clinic, bleeding out.

I had been in a severe accident. I was pregnant, and the hemorrhage was critical.

But the nurse, eyes red with weeping, told me they couldn't give me the blood transfusion I needed.

Dante had ordered the clinic's entire supply of O-negative blood to be reserved for Isabella.

She had a bruised knee and was "in shock." He prioritized her comfort over his unborn child's life.

I lost the baby.

I left the ledger on his desk with a final note: *You bought her comfort with your heir's blood. Score: 0.* Then, I vanished.

Two years later, Dante found me at a gala in Seattle.

The ruthless Capo dei Capi, a man who never bowed to anyone, fell to his knees in front of hundreds of people. He begged, tears streaming down his face, claiming he had made a mistake, that I was his only true love.

I looked at him, then at Julian, the man standing beside me who treated me like a queen.

I pulled my hand away from Dante's grip and smiled coldly.

"Apologies don't fix dead things, Mr. Moretti. Go back to your grave."

Chapter 1

I claimed the high-backed leather chair that belonged to the most feared man in Chicago, and I wrote the number down in red ink: minus five.

It was a simple math problem.

Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time my husband, Dante Moretti, looked through me like I was nothing more than a pane of glass, I subtracted one. Every time he prioritized the woman he actually loved, I subtracted five.

When the score hit zero, I would break the Omertà. I would disappear.

The heavy oak door creaked open.

Dante walked in.

He didn't look at me. He never really looked at me. He was the *Capo dei Capi*, the Boss of Bosses, a man whose name made the city's toughest criminals tremble in their boots. He had a jawline that could cut glass and eyes the color of espresso over ice-dark, bitter, and unyielding. He was beautiful in the way a loaded weapon is-cold, heavy, and promising destruction.

"Elara," he said, his voice a low rumble that used to make my stomach flip. Now, it just made me tired. "Get out of my chair. I have work."

I closed the ledger.

"It's late, Dante," I said. "I thought we were having dinner."

He finally glanced at me. He saw the book in my hand, but he didn't ask what it was. He didn't care. To him, my secrets were as interesting as the dust on the baseboards.

"Family business," he said, striding to the liquor cabinet. He poured a scotch. "Something you wouldn't understand."

I understood plenty.

I understood that my father, his Consigliere, had forced him into this marriage on his deathbed. A Blood Oath. *Protect Elara. Marry her. Keep her safe from the wolves.*

Dante had kept his promise. He married me. He put me in this gilded cage of a mansion. He kept me safe.

But he left his heart with Isabella Vance.

I scanned the room while he drank. There was a painting on the far wall-a chaotic hemorrhage of colors that induced a migraine just by looking at it. Isabella painted it. There was a crystal decanter on his desk. Isabella bought it.

I was the wife, but I was the intruder in this room.

His phone buzzed on the desk.

The air in the room changed instantly. The indifference vanished, replaced by a sharp, lethal tension.

"Speak," Dante barked into the phone.

I watched his knuckles turn white around the glass.

"Where?" he demanded. "Is she inside?"

He slammed the glass down. In a perfect world, he would have used a coaster. I bought him coasters for Christmas. He never used them.

"I have to go," he said, already moving toward the door. He was moving fast, with a frantic energy I had never seen directed at me.

"Dante?" I stood up. "What happened?"

"Code Red," he said, grabbing his jacket. "The warehouse on 5th. It's burning."

"That's a storage facility," I said, confused. "Why does the Don need to go to a storage fire?"

He stopped in the doorway. He looked at me, and for a second, I saw the panic in his eyes.

"It's not just storage," he said. "It's her collection. She's there cataloging."

Isabella.

He was running into a fire for her art. For her.

"Dante, security will handle it," I said, my voice steady despite the crack in my chest. "You are the Don. You don't run into burning buildings."

"If she's hurt," he growled, "I will burn this entire city to ash."

He left.

The silence rushed back in, heavy and suffocating.

A few minutes later, Marco, one of the younger soldiers, came in to collect Dante's laptop. He looked at me with pity. I hated that look.

"Marco," I said. "Why is that warehouse so important?"

Marco hesitated. He was loyal, but he was young. "The Boss... he built it for Ms. Vance. Climate controlled. Top of the line. He wanted her art to be safe."

I nodded slowly.

He built a fortress for her paintings.

Yet he hadn't even bothered to fix the leak in my bathroom sink.

I sat back down in his chair. I opened the ledger.

Two hours later, the news broke on the TV in the corner. Aerial footage of flames licking the night sky. The reporter was breathless.

*"Sources say Dante Moretti, a prominent Chicago figure, was seen pulling a woman from the blaze. He has sustained severe burns but is in stable condition."*

He had run into the fire. He had burned his skin, risked his empire, risked the stability of the entire Outfit, just to make sure Isabella Vance didn't inhale too much smoke.

I picked up the pen.

I pressed the tip against the paper until the ink bled through.

*Minus five.*

Seventy points left.