My Kidney For His Mistress: Never Again

I woke up from surgery with a jagged scar on my side and a missing kidney.

My fiancé, Dante Moretti, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, hadn't saved me from an illness. He had harvested me like spare parts to save his mistress, Sofia.

"She pays the tithe," he had told the surgeon coldly while I was paralyzed by anesthesia.

For ten years, I was his loyal shadow. I managed his legitimate empire, took bullets for him, and even aborted our child three years ago because Sofia threw a tantrum about bloodlines.

I thought my absolute loyalty would eventually earn his love.

But when the Cartel held us both over the edge of a bridge days later, Dante didn't choose me.

He tackled Sofia to safety and watched as I fell backward into the freezing black river.

He thought I drowned. Or worse, he assumed I was a dog that would eventually swim back to its master, no matter how hard he kicked it.

He was wrong.

I dragged myself out of that water, but the woman who loved him died in the depths.

Seven days later, I didn't return to the Moretti penthouse.

I walked straight into the headquarters of his mortal enemy, Enzo Falcone.

"Do you still want to marry me?" I asked the man who wanted Dante's head on a spike.

Enzo didn't hesitate. "I will burn the city down before I let him touch you again."

Now, Dante is crawling at my gates, paralyzed and ruined, holding a medical box containing my stolen kidney.

But he forgot one thing: I don't want it back.

Chapter 1

The glass of warm milk sat on the nightstand, innocent and white, a perfect visual echo of the lies Dante Moretti had fed me for ten years.

I drank it simply because he handed it to me.

I drank it because when the Capo of the Chicago Outfit tells you to do something, you do not ask questions.

I drank it because I was foolish enough to believe he actually cared about my insomnia.

The darkness that took me wasn't sleep. It was a chemical sledgehammer that swung down without mercy.

I floated in a black, viscous void, unable to move my limbs.

But sound has a nasty habit of slicing through anesthesia long before the rest of the senses wake up. The rhythmic beep of a heart monitor kept time with the dull thudding in my skull.

"You cannot do this, Dante," a voice hissed.

Matteo. The Consigliere. The only man in this godforsaken city who still possessed a scrap of a soul.

"She is not a spare parts inventory. She is the daughter of your late Underboss. She is Elena."

"She is part of the Family," Dante's voice was a low rumble, the sound of a heavy door sealing a tomb. It was the voice that made grown men wet themselves in fear. "She pays the tithe, Matteo. We all do."

"This isn't a tithe! You are harvesting her kidney because Sofia destroyed hers with cocaine and bad decisions!"

"Lower your voice."

The metallic snick of a lighter flicking open. The smell of sulfur and expensive tobacco filled the sterile room.

"Sofia dies without a match. Elena is the match. It's simple math."

I tried to scream. I tried to force my eyelids open. Nothing happened. I was a statue trapped inside my own flesh, forced to listen to the man I had loved since I was sixteen discuss carving me open like livestock.

"You made her abort your child three years ago because Sofia threw a tantrum about bloodlines," Matteo said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You broke her then. This will kill her spirit."

"She didn't want the child either," Dante lied. Smoothly. Effortlessly.

"And she won't mind this. I'll marry her in the spring. That will be compensation enough. She's loyal. She's a dog that always finds its way home, no matter how hard you kick it."

A dog.

That's what ten years of shadowing him, taking bullets for him, and managing his legitimate empire had amounted to.

I wasn't a partner. I was a golden retriever with a compatible blood type.

"Scalpel," a third voice said. The surgeon.

I felt the pressure then. Not pain, not yet. Just a cold, sliding pressure across my lower back.

They were cutting into me. They were stealing a piece of me to give to the woman who had tormented me for a decade.

My silent scream echoed only in the hollow cavity of my chest.

When I finally woke up for real, the room was dim.

The pain in my flank was a living thing, a sharp-toothed animal gnawing at my side that refused to let go.

Dante was sitting in the armchair, reading a file. He looked impeccable in his charcoal suit, not a hair out of place. The devil usually dresses well.

He saw me stir and snapped the file shut.

"Easy, tesoro. You had an acute appendicitis attack. We had to operate immediately."

The lie was so lazy it was an insult to my intelligence.

I looked at him. I really looked at him.

The sharp jawline I used to trace with my fingertips. The ice-blue eyes that used to make my knees weak. Now, all I saw was a butcher in a bespoke suit.

"My appendix," I croaked. My throat felt like I'd swallowed broken glass.

"It was close to rupturing," he said, standing up and smoothing his jacket. He checked his watch, a dismissive gesture. "I have to go. Business with the Commission."

He didn't touch me. He didn't brush a kiss against my forehead. He didn't even glance at the fresh dressing taped to my side.

"Rest, Elena. I'll have the nurse bring you morphine."

He walked out the door without looking back.

A minute later, two nurses walked past my open door, their whispers carrying into the room like smoke.

"Is that the Don?"

"Yeah. He's heading to the VIP suite on the top floor. I heard he's personally spoon-feeding broth to that Bianchi woman. She just got a transplant."

Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, hot and humiliating. I didn't wipe them away. I let them fall, counting each one as a payment on a debt I no longer owed.

I reached for my phone on the bedside table. My hand shook, but my resolve hardened into something colder, sharper than the diamond he had promised but never delivered.

I dialed a number I had memorized from a business card five years ago. A number belonging to the man who wanted Dante Moretti's head on a spike.

It rang twice.

"Speak," a deep, dangerous voice answered.

"Enzo," I whispered.

"Do you still want to marry me?"

Silence stretched on the line, heavy and thick.

"Elena?" His voice changed. The lethal edge softened, just a fraction. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the clinic," I said, staring up at the sterile white ceiling.

"I am done belonging to the Morettis. I saw the photo on your desk, Enzo. The one of me. If you want the real thing, come and get her."

"Seven days," Enzo said.

His voice was a low rumble against my ear, a lifeline thrown into the abyss. "You sever ties with him completely. You walk out of that life, and you are mine. I will burn the city down before I let him touch you again."

"Seven days," I agreed.

But Dante didn't come back to the clinic. Not once.

I spent three days staring at the sterile white wall, feeling the phantom ache of a missing part of myself and the very real throb of a missing heart. When I was finally discharged, a driver came for me. Not Dante. Just a soldier named Marco who kept his gaze fixed rigidly on the road, refusing to meet my eyes.

When I got to the penthouse, Dante was there. He was buttoning his cuffs, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror that reflected the Chicago skyline he ruled.

"You're back," he said, addressing my reflection rather than turning to face me. "Good. Get dressed. We have the Grand Ball tonight."

I stood there, instinctively clutching my side. "I just had surgery, Dante."

"It was just an appendix, Elena. Don't be dramatic." He adjusted his silk tie, his tone bored. "This is important. Your father is wavering on the territory expansion. I need to secure his loyalty tonight."

He turned around finally and pointed to a box on the bed. "I bought you a dress. Wear it."

It was a backless emerald gown. Beautiful, yes, but cruel. It would cover the fresh incision, but the corset was unforgiving. It was designed to display me, not comfort me.

I put it on. I painted my lips blood red. I put on the mask of the dutiful Mafia Princess.

The ballroom was a sea of black tuxedos and designer silk. The air smelled of cloying perfume and thick fear. As we walked in, the music stopped. All eyes turned to the Don and his shadow.

Dante gripped my elbow. His fingers dug into my flesh, possessive and bruising.

"Smile," he murmured against my temple. "You look like a funeral."

"Maybe I am at one," I whispered back.

He ignored me and steered me to the center of the room. He signaled the band to cut the sound. He took a microphone.

"Friends, Family," Dante's voice boomed. "Tonight is a night of celebration. I want to honor the woman who has stood by me through fire and blood."

He turned to me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box.

The room gasped. My father, standing near the bar, looked smug, swirling his scotch. This was the deal. My hand in marriage for his soldiers.

Dante opened the box. A massive diamond glittered under the chandelier lights. It was beautiful. It was cold. And I knew, with a sickening jolt, that it cost exactly one kidney.

He began to kneel.

"Dante!"

The scream shattered the moment.

Sofia stood at the top of the grand staircase. She was wearing white, looking like a frail, tragic angel. She swayed on her feet, clutching her stomach-the stomach that now held my kidney.

"Dante, I..." Her eyes rolled back in her head. She collapsed, tumbling down the first two steps before a guard caught her.

Dante didn't hesitate.

He didn't look at me. He didn't close the ring box. He simply dropped it.

The velvet box hit the marble floor with a dull thud, the ring bouncing out and spinning away like a forgotten promise.

Dante was already running. He shoved guests aside, sprinting up the stairs to where Sofia lay.

"Get the car!" he roared, scooping her up in his arms. "Clear the way!"

He carried her past me. He was so close I could smell his cologne mixed with her floral scent. He didn't even see me. I was a ghost in a green dress.

The ballroom was silent. Hundreds of people stared at the empty space where the Don had been, and then they looked at me.

Elena Vitiello. The woman left standing at the altar before she even got there.

I looked up at the staircase. Sofia's head was resting on Dante's shoulder. Her eyes were open.

She looked right at me. Her lips curved into a small, venomous smile. She mouthed five words that hit me harder than the surgery.

You will never be Queen.

I looked down at the ring on the floor. I didn't pick it up. I stepped over it.

The penthouse was silent, a gleaming mausoleum of glass and steel.

I didn't cry. I think I had left the last of my tears on the clinic floor. Instead, I moved with a cold, mechanical efficiency.

I pulled a suitcase from the closet. I didn't pack the designer clothes Dante had bought me. I didn't pack the jewelry, cold diamonds meant to buy silence.

I packed my jeans, my comfortable sweaters, and my passport.

At the bottom of a drawer, buried under layers of unworn silk scarves, my hand brushed against soft cotton.

I froze.

I pulled it out. A yellow baby onesie.

It was three years old. I had bought it the day I found out I was pregnant. Before Dante told me it was "inconvenient."

Before he told me Sofia was "sensitive" about children because she couldn't conceive.

Before he drove me to the clinic and waited in the car, checking his watch, while they scraped his heir out of me.

I held the small piece of fabric to my nose. It smelled of lavender and dead dreams.

I walked to the kitchen and dropped it into the trash compactor. I pressed the button.

The grinding noise shattered the silence. It was the most satisfying sound I had heard in years.

Next, I drove to Moretti Headquarters.

The sentinels at the front desk straightened up when I walked in. "Miss Elena. The Don isn't here."

"I know," I said.

I walked into my office-the office next to Dante's. I placed my key card, my company phone, and the encrypted tablet that held the secrets of the entire Chicago underworld on the desk.

I wrote a single note on official letterhead:

I resign. Effective immediately.

I walked out.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Dante.

"Where are you?" he demanded. No hello. No apology for the ball.

"I'm leaving, Dante," I said, my voice steady. "I resigned."

"Don't be childish," he snapped. "I know you're upset about last night. Sofia had a rejection episode. It was life or death."

"It's always life or death with her," I said. "Did you pick up the ring?"

"What?"

"The ring you dropped on the floor. Did you pick it up, or did the cleaners sweep it away with the trash?"

"Elena, stop this. I'm busy. I'll see you at home tonight."

"Feed me, Dante," a soft, mewling voice came from his end of the line. "I want the grapes."

Dante covered the phone, but not well enough. "Just a second, cara."

He came back on the line, impatience clipping his tone. "We'll talk later."

He hung up.

I checked Instagram. There it was. A photo posted two minutes ago on Sofia's account. Dante's hand, recognizable by the signet ring, holding a peeled grape to her lips.

Caption: My King always takes care of me.

I blocked her account.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang again. It was Matteo.

"Elena, you need to come to the hospital. Now."

"I'm not coming, Matteo. I'm done."

"It's Dante," Matteo said, his voice tight with panic. "He was leaving the hospital to come find you. He realized you weren't bluffing. A drive-by. He took two in the chest. He's bleeding out."

My hand gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. "He has guards."

"They missed the shooter. He needs blood, Elena. He's B-negative. The hospital is low on supply. Sofia refused."

I laughed. A dry, humorless sound that scraped my throat. "Of course she did."

"She said she's too weak from the surgery. The surgery you gave her a kidney for. Elena, please. He will die."

I should have let him die. It would have been poetic justice.

But the old Elena, the stupid girl who had loved him for ten years, wasn't quite dead yet. She gave a final, pathetic kick against my ribs.

"I'm coming," I said.

I drove to the hospital. I walked past the guards. I sat in the chair next to his unconscious body.

I let the nurse stick a needle into my arm, drawing the life out of me to pump it into him.

My vision blurred. I was still recovering. I was anemic.

"That's enough," the nurse said, looking worried. "You're going to pass out."

"Take it," I whispered, watching my red blood flow through the tube. "Take it all. This is the last thing he ever gets from me."

The world went black before the bag was full.