Regret Is Useless: The Mafia Queen Rises

I was a Mafia Princess, and he was the gutter rat I tried to make a King.

On our wedding day, with five hundred guests watching, Luca Moretti didn't say his vows.

Instead, after receiving a photo of a secret child, he looked at me with panic and backed away from the altar.

"I can't do this," he announced to the silent church. "She's here. She'll ruin the kid."

He chose a waitress and their illegitimate daughter over me.

He walked out, leaving me humiliated in a dress that cost more than most people's lives.

Forty-eight hours later, he married her.

He gave the waitress my ring, my future, and his name, all to protect a child he had hidden from me.

When I confronted him weeks later, he looked at me with cold eyes and told me he did it for honor.

He destroyed me to save them, convinced I would fade away into the background.

He thought he could break a Vitiello and not pay the price.

Five years later, I returned to Chicago.

The gala went silent as I walked in, wearing blood-red silk.

Luca approached me, eyes full of regret, begging for a second chance, claiming his marriage to the waitress was a mistake.

He thought he could win me back.

Until a little girl ran into the room-my daughter.

And behind her walked my husband.

Not a soldier, but the Reaper himself, Dante Cavallaro.

Luca's face turned pale as he realized the truth.

He had left me at the altar to play father, but I had married the Devil to become a Queen.

Chapter 1

Gianna Vitiello POV:

I placed the gun on the mahogany table between us. The metal clattered against the wood-a sound like a judge's gavel sealing a death sentence.

"Her or the Outfit, Luca. Choose carefully.Because if you walk out that door to her, you leave as a corpse."

That was three years ago.

I was twenty-one, a Mafia Princess with a spine made of steel and a heart that beat only for the boy who had clawed his way up from the gutter. Luca Moretti.

The bastard son who wanted to be a King.

He had looked at the gun, then at me, and I saw the fear in his eyes. Not fear of death, but the terrifying fear of remaining nothing.

He chose me.

He paid the girl, Elena-a low-level waitress at my father's club-to disappear. He chose the crown over the comfort.

Or so I thought.

Today was supposed to be the coronation.

The air in the cathedral was thick, cloying with the suffocating scent of white lilies and expensive perfume. Five hundred guests. The entire Chicago Outfit.

My father, the Capo, sat in the front row, his face a mask of pride. I stood at the altar, the delicate lace of my veil scratching against my skin, waiting for Luca to say the words that would bind his ambition to my bloodline.

He looked handsome. Devastatingly so.

His tuxedo was tailored to hide the holster at his ribs, his dark hair swept back. But his hands were shaking.

A man in a dark suit-one of the outer guards-marched up the aisle. He didn't look at me. His expression was grim as he handed Luca a thick manila envelope.

The organ music didn't stop, but the atmosphere in the church shifted. It grew heavy. Static charged the air.

Luca opened it.

I watched the color drain from his face. It wasn't a slow fade; it was instant, as if someone had severed a vital artery.

He pulled out a photograph. Even from where I stood, I could see the image clearly.

A toddler.

A little girl with dark curls and eyes that mirrored the man standing in front of me.

Behind the photo was a document. A DNA test.

And a note.

I saw his jaw tighten until the muscle feathered. He looked up, scanning the back of the church frantically. Then, he looked at me.

There was no love in that look. There was only panic. The panic of a man who had built his castle on sand and just felt the tide rush in.

"Luca?" I whispered.

He didn't answer. He stepped back.

"Luca, give me your hand," the priest said, confusion leaking into his voice.

Luca shook his head. "I can't."

The whisper ran through the pews like a venomous snake.

"I can't do this," he said, his voice loud enough for the first three rows to hear. "She's here. She's going to the Commission. She's going to ruin the kid."

"Who?" I asked, though ice was already spreading through my veins.

"Elena," he choked out. "The child... she's mine. If I marry you, she exposes the girl as a bastard. She'll be an outcast. Like I was."

My heart stopped.

The gun on the table three years ago. The choice.

He hadn't chosen me. He had just delayed the betrayal.

"You are leaving me at the altar," I said, my voice deadly calm. "For a threat?"

"For my daughter," he said.

He turned his back on me. He turned his back on the Vitiello family. He turned his back on the Outfit.

He walked down the aisle, past the stunned Capos, past my furious father who was already reaching for his weapon inside his jacket.

Luca walked out of the church, chasing the ghost of his own insecurity, leaving me standing alone in a dress that cost more than most people's lives.

The silence was deafening. Five hundred pairs of eyes burned into me. Pity. Shock. Amusement.

I didn't cry. I didn't collapse.

I reached up and tore the veil from my head. The delicate lace ripped with a sound like tearing skin. I dropped it on the floor, on the spot where he should have knelt.

I walked to the microphone.

"Let him go," I said, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. My father froze, his hand still inside his jacket. "Let the coward run."

I looked at the empty doorway, the bright sunlight blinding against the dark interior of the church.

"But know this," I said to the silent room.

"Today, Luca Moretti didn't just lose a bride. He started a war."

Gianna Vitiello POV

The rumors traveled through the Outfit like a contagion.

In our world, weakness is a scent, blood in the water. And right now, the Moretti name reeked of it.

But he had done the unthinkable.

Within forty-eight hours of leaving me at the altar, he had married her. A courthouse wedding. No guests. Just him, the waitress, and the child.

He gave the bastard girl his name. He legitimized her.

He did for that mistake what no one had ever done for him.

It was almost poetic, if it wasn't so pathetic.

Two weeks later, I stood outside the iron gates of St. Jude's Academy.

It was the only school for the children of the Outfit. High walls, armed guards, and a curriculum that conveniently ignored certain legalities.

I was there to drop off my nephew, Leo. My brother was handling a shipment, and I needed the distraction.

"Aunt Gi, is that him?" Leo asked.

He was ten-old enough to know the code, young enough to still have a temper.

I followed his gaze.

A black SUV pulled up to the curb. Luca stepped out.

He looked exhausted. His suit was wrinkled, his eyes shadowed by sleeplessness. He walked around the car and opened the rear door.

Elena stepped out.

It was the first time I had seen her in three years. She had changed.

The drugstore makeup was gone, replaced by a polished, neutral look that screamed 'new money'.

She wore a designer coat that didn't quite fit her shoulders. She held the hand of a little girl.

The child was undeniable. She had Luca's nose, his chin.

Luca saw me. He froze, his hand on the car door.

Elena followed his gaze. She didn't look away.

She smiled. A small, victorious curve of her lips.

She lifted her chin, flashing the diamond on her finger. My diamond.

The one he had bought for me three years ago, repurposed for the help.

I felt the bile rise in my throat, but I swallowed it down. I stood perfectly still, a statue of judgment.

Luca walked the child toward the gate. He had to pass me.

"Gianna," he said, his voice rough. He stopped a few feet away. "You shouldn't be here."

"I go where I please, Luca. This is Vitiello territory," I said, my voice ice. "Or did you forget who built this school?"

"I'm just dropping off my daughter," he said, emphasizing the word.

Leo stepped forward. He was small, but he was my brother's son.

He kicked Luca hard in the shin.

"Traitor!" Leo shouted. "My dad says you're a rat!"

Luca didn't stumble. He barely flinched.

The guards at the gate tensed. Parents stopped talking. The air crackled with sudden violence.

Luca looked down at the boy.

For a second, I saw the old Luca, the dangerous soldier. But then he looked at his daughter, who was hiding behind Elena's legs, eyes wide.

He looked at me.

"Control your family, Gianna," he said coldly. "Or I will."

The disrespect stung like a slap. He was threatening a Capo's son. In public.

To defend the honor of a woman who had used a child as a bargaining chip.

"You don't have family, Luca," I said, my voice low enough that only he could hear. "You have liabilities."

He stiffened. He grabbed Elena's arm and ushered her and the child through the gates, not looking back.

I watched them go.

He thought he was protecting them. He thought he was being a man.

He didn't realize he had just painted a target on their backs.

Gianna Vitiello POV:

The air in the penthouse still carried his scent. Cedarwood and expensive scotch.

It was supposed to be our sanctuary. We had closed on it six months ago-the top floor, commanding the Chicago skyline.

I had hand-picked the Calacatta marble for the counters. I had chosen the silk drapes. Now, I was here to gut it.

"Take the paintings," I directed the movers, my voice flat. "Clear the furniture in the master bedroom. And burn the mattress."

I stood in the center of the living room, clutching a crystal tumbler of water. My grip was white-knuckled, but my hand was steady. I needed to be hollow. If I let myself feel, I would shatter.

The private elevator chimed.

The doors slid open, and Luca stepped out. He wasn't alone; two of his soldiers flanked him, but he waved them off the moment he saw me.

"What are you doing?" he asked. His gaze swept over the chaos, landing on the boxes strictly labeled 'Vitiello'.

"Evicting myself," I said. I set the glass down on a side table that was already tagged for removal. "Unless you want to buy me out? But we both know your liquidity is tied up in your new... family expenses."

He walked toward me, looking like a man who was drowning but trying to convince himself he was swimming. The exhaustion was etched into every line of his face.

"Gianna, please," he rasped. "I didn't want this."

"You walked out of the church, Luca. You made your choice."

"I couldn't let her grow up like I did," he pleaded, his voice cracking. "You know what this world does to bastards. You saw how they treated me. I couldn't condemn my little girl to that life. Elena threatened to go to the Commission with proof of paternity. They would have blacklisted the kid before she even started kindergarten."

"So you saved the child," I said, cold as ice. "And in the process, you destroyed me."

"I love you," he whispered. He reached for me.

I didn't flinch. I let his fingers graze my arm. The touch that used to set my skin on fire now felt cold. Clammy. Wrong.

"Don't lie to me," I said.

"It's not a lie. I married her for the paper. For the name. It means nothing."

"It means everything!" I screamed. My composure snapped. The rage that had been simmering in my gut for weeks finally boiled over. "You humiliated me! You made me a joke to the entire outfit! You chose a whore over a Vitiello!"

I swung my hand.

Crack.

The slap echoed through the empty apartment like a gunshot. My palm stung violently. His head snapped to the side, a red mark blooming instantly on his high cheekbone.

He didn't move. He didn't strike back. As a Made Man, he could have killed me for laying a hand on him. But he stood there, taking it. Accepting his penance.

He looked back at me, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Sorry doesn't fix honor, Luca," I spat. "And it doesn't pay debts."

I brushed past him, marching to the elevator and jamming the button.

"Keep the apartment," I said, refusing to look back as the doors slid shut. "It's haunted anyway."