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.

The hall was silent, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock. I slowly unbuttoned my coat and hung it in the closet.

Dante followed me in, grabbing my wrist before I could reach the stairs.

"Why are you acting like this?" His voice echoed through the empty room.

I wrenched my hand free. "Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

He frowned. "I told you, giving Tess a ride was a matter of convenience. It was business."

"You never mentioned there was another man there," I countered his hollow excuse. "If there had been another man, she would have sat in the back."

Realizing his slip of the tongue, he let out a heavy sigh. "She gets carsick in the back." He stepped closer. "I wasn't alone with her. My relationship with Tess is strictly that of a Don and his subordinate."

I didn't cross my arms in defense; I simply let his explanations scatter between us.

He rubbed the back of his neck-a rare sign of vulnerability. "What exactly do you want from me?"

"I want nothing from you," I said, lifting my eyes to his. "You don't need to explain yourself to me anymore."

I turned and placed my hand on the banister. "But you'd better return that earring to her tonight. Lest your associates come looking for it in the dead of night."

Behind me, the silence was suffocating.

I glanced back. His jaw was tight, and his face was as pale as if he'd just been pulled from freezing water.

As I climbed the stairs, the uninvited images of Tess replayed in my mind.

The first time was late at night. The estate security told me over the intercom that she was at the gate. Tess stood in the pouring rain, clothes soaked, eyes red, claiming she'd left a mission report in Dante's car and feared the Capos' punishment. Dante didn't just hand her the report; he escorted her back to the safe house himself. I waited up until 3:00 AM.

Two weeks later, I found a deep red lipstick under the seat of his SUV. I placed it on Dante's desk. He looked at it, his expression placid. "Tess lost it while running errands." He tucked the lipstick into his pocket instead of throwing it away.

Three nights later, Tess appeared again. She walked straight into the hall, ignoring me entirely, and walked up to Dante. "Boss, where's my lipstick?"

Dante pulled it from his pocket and handed it to her. "Be more careful next time," he said, his voice tinged with a faint indulgence.

Tess made a face at the most feared man in the Syndicate.

I froze in the doorway. In the Mafia, no one dared to be so disrespectful to Dante. Men had lost fingers for less. Yet her behavior was that of a spoiled child, and he was the father who indulged her.

We had our first real fight that night. I screamed, I shattered glasses, I demanded to know why she was allowed to cross every boundary.

Dante stood there, expressionless. "Your head is full of irrational thoughts. Tess is a valuable asset to this family. She is brave and loyal."

He looked at me as if I were a screaming stranger.

Then he turned his back on me and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with the shattered glass.