The Billionaire's Regret, The Heiress's Revenge

I knew my husband, Alessandro De Luca, was the Don of the most powerful Famiglia on the East Coast. What I didn't know was that our five-year marriage was built on another woman's grave.

On our anniversary, I found his hidden safe. The code wasn't our wedding date or our birthdays. It was August 14th-the day his first love, Isabella, lost her family.

Inside was a shrine to her: photos, dried flowers, and a love letter promising her a "castle in the clouds." There was nothing of me, not a single trace of the five years I'd given him. When he found me, he crushed her locket in his fist and threw it all into the fireplace. "Are you done now?" he asked, as if my heartbreak was a tantrum.

He offered a trip to Sicily to "fix" this, then sneered that I had nothing without his name or money. But it was worse than that. He brought Isabella back, gave her my position at the charity I built, and paraded her at our annual gala, publicly claiming her as his own.

He humiliated me in front of our entire world, siding with her after she staged a scene to make me look jealous and unhinged. He roared at me, "Caterina, what the hell is your problem?" while he comforted her.

So I showed him. I walked over, poured a glass of champagne over his head in front of everyone, and said, "That is my problem."

Then I walked out of the ballroom, out of his life, and sent him the separation papers. This wasn't a fight for his love anymore. It was war.

Chapter 1

Caterina "Cat" POV:

I knew my husband, Alessandro De Luca, was a killer, a king, the Don of the most powerful Famiglia on the East Coast.

What I didn't know, until our fifth wedding anniversary, was that our entire marriage was a monument built over another woman's grave.

His study was the one room in our sprawling estate that felt entirely his. Dark wood, the scent of old leather and his cologne, a silence so heavy it felt like a presence.

I was never supposed to be in here.

But tonight, the silence was a taunt. He was late, as usual. Our anniversary dinner, the one I'd spent all day preparing, sat cold and untouched in the dining room.

My fingers traced the spine of a leather-bound book on the shelf. It didn't move. None of them did.

But a cold knot was tightening in my stomach, a whisper of intuition I'd spent five long years ignoring.

I pushed harder, and a section of the bookshelf swung inward with a soft click, revealing the flat, dark face of a hidden safe.

My breath caught. Alex was a man of secrets, but they were meant to be business secrets-numbers, names, territories. This felt different. Personal.

The keypad glowed, waiting.

A wave of guilt washed over me. This was a violation, a betrayal of the vows I'd made. But it was quickly drowned by the bitter taste of five years of loneliness. Five years of being the perfect, dutiful wife to a man who looked at me like I was a beautiful piece of furniture.

My fingers trembled as I typed our wedding date. ACCESS DENIED.

His birthday. ACCESS DENIED.

My birthday. ACCESS DENIED.

A humorless laugh escaped my lips. Of course.

Then, a memory surfaced-sharp and unwelcome. A conversation I'd overheard two years ago, one of his Capos speaking in a hushed, reverent tone. "...a tragedy, what happened to Isabella's family... August 14th."

The day the rival Rossi Famiglia was wiped out. The day his first love, the girl he was supposed to marry, lost everything.

My blood ran cold. No. He wouldn't.

My fingers moved on their own, typing the numbers. 0814.

The safe clicked open.

It wasn't filled with cash or documents. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, was a small wooden box. A shrine.

I lifted the lid. There were photos of him with a dark-haired girl, both of them young and laughing, so full of a life I'd never seen in him that it hurt to look. There were dried flowers, a silver locket, and a faded, handwritten letter. His handwriting.

I read the words he'd never said to me. He promised her the world. He promised to build her "a castle in the clouds."

I searched desperately for something, anything, that belonged to me. A photo from our wedding. A note I'd left him. A trace of the five years I had given him.

There was nothing. I was a ghost in my own marriage.

The sound of the study door opening made me freeze.

Alex stood there, his tall frame filling the doorway. He took in the scene-me, the open bookshelf, the open safe, the box in my hands. His handsome face, usually a mask of cool control, forged itself into something cold and dangerous.

"What are you doing?" His voice was quiet, possessing the deadly calm of a coiled snake.

I met his gaze, my own face numb. "I'm leaving you, Alex."

The words hung in the air, foreign and impossible. The wife of a Don does not leave.

For a moment, he just stared. Then, with a sudden, violent movement, he strode forward and snatched the box from my hands. His fingers closed around the silver locket, crushing it in his fist. He turned and hurled the ruined contents into the cold fireplace.

He wiped his hands on his trousers, his eyes fixed on me.

"Are you done now?" he asked, his tone dripping with contempt, as if my heartbreak was a childish tantrum he simply had to endure.

"Yes," I said, my voice steady. "I'm done."

He sighed, an exasperated sound. "Don't be dramatic, Caterina. I'll take you to Sicily next month. We'll forget this happened."

He thought a trip could fix this. He thought he could erase her, erase his betrayal, with a plane ticket.

"It's over," I repeated.

His patience snapped. The mask fell away, and the Don looked out at me.

"And how exactly do you plan to survive?" he asked, a cruel smile touching his lips. "Without my name? Without my money? You have nothing without me."

He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked out of the study, leaving the anniversary dinner to grow even colder.

For the first time in five years, I didn't follow him.

I finally understood. He never meant to give me his heart, because it was never his to give.

Caterina "Cat" POV:

The next morning, I met Giuliana at a small café in Little Italy, a place so old and unassuming that none of Alex's men would ever think to look for me there.

Jules had been my best friend since we were kids, long before she became a brilliant lawyer and I became the wife of a Don.

She took one look at my face and slid a cup of coffee across the table. "It's real, then? You're really doing it?"

I nodded, the word "yes" catching in my throat.

"Cat," she breathed, a mix of shock and relief in her eyes. "You gave up everything for him. Your art, your friends... you built your entire life around being the perfect Don's wife."

A raw, tired whisper escaped me. "I'm done trying."

I leaned forward, my voice dropping. "She's back, Jules."

Giuliana's face went pale. "Isabella?"

I nodded. It all made sense now. Alex's obsession with privacy, the way he guarded his phone and his past-it was a fortress built to protect her memory.

He was a living contradiction-a man who demanded absolute secrecy in our marriage, yet left a public monument to a past love.

I remembered the night he took me to his "favorite" restaurant on our first anniversary. He'd been quiet, nostalgic. I thought he was opening up to me.

Now I knew the truth.

He was just reliving a memory with her, and I was just the stand-in, the understudy playing her part.

I was shaped to fit the empty space she left behind.

"I'll have the separation papers drawn up by the end of the day," Giuliana said, her voice firm, pulling me back to the present.

"But you know how he'll see this. To a man like Alex, this isn't a divorce. It's an act of war. A challenge to his authority."

"I know," I said, my voice quiet. He wouldn't see a heartbroken wife; he would see a possession trying to escape.

I remembered Giuliana's words to me after my wedding, whispered in the coat check line while Alex held court.

"He looks at you like a newly acquired painting, Cat," she'd said. "Beautiful, valuable, something to hang on his wall. Not like the woman he can't live without."

I hadn't wanted to hear it then. I'd spent five years trying to prove her wrong.

"You can tell someone the stove is hot a hundred times," I murmured, looking down at my coffee. "But they don't really understand until they touch it themselves."

Outside, the sky opened up, a sudden downpour turning the streets dark.

A moment later, the café door opened and a man stepped inside, shaking a large black umbrella. It was Marco, Giuliana's fiancé, one of my husband's most loyal Soldiers.

He spotted us and his serious face broke into a warm smile. He walked over to our table, bent down, and kissed Jules softly.

The intimacy between them was so easy, so natural. It was a partnership.

My marriage was a transaction.

"Ready to go, mia cara?" Marco asked her. He glanced at me. "Mrs. De Luca. Can I give you a ride? It's coming down hard."

I shook my head, managing a small smile. "Thank you, Marco, but I'll wait out the storm."

I watched them leave, Marco's arm wrapped protectively around Giuliana as he held the umbrella over her head.

They were a team.

The question that had haunted me for five years echoed in the empty space they left behind. Why was it so hard for Alex to love me?

And for the first time, a simple, devastating answer hit me with the force of a physical blow.

It was never about me.

He just didn't love me. And he never would.

Caterina "Cat" POV:

The rain slowed to a drizzle. I stepped out of the café, pulling my coat tighter against the damp chill.

And then I saw it.

Alex's black armored Audi was parked at the curb. He was getting out, rounding the hood to open the passenger door. A woman with long, dark hair emerged-Isabella Rossi.

He saw me then. His eyes, cold and gray as the stormy sky, held no surprise, no guilt. Only annoyance.

I fumbled for my phone, trying to pull up a rideshare app, my fingers clumsy with shock. I took a step back, and my heel caught on an uneven cobblestone. My ankle twisted, and a sharp, searing pain lanced up my leg. I cried out, stumbling against the wall, fighting to stay upright.

Alex watched me struggle for a beat, his expression impassive. Then he turned his back on me, took Isabella's arm, and escorted her into the very café I had just left.

My own husband. Leaving me hurt on the sidewalk for her.

A few minutes later, he came back out, holding two coffee cups. He walked over to me, his shadow falling over my crumpled form.

"Get in the car," he said. It wasn't a request. It was a command.

"I'll get my own ride," I bit out, the words tasting like acid.

He ignored me. With a sigh of pure irritation, he bent down, scooped me into his arms with cold efficiency, and deposited me in the front passenger seat.

He wasn't helping his own wife; he was handling a problem.

He got in the driver's seat and thrust a cup into my hand. It was black coffee. His preference. The kind I never drank. I silently pushed it back into the cup holder.

From the back seat, Isabella's soft voice murmured, "I think I'm getting carsick, Alex."

His tone instantly softened. The harsh edge was gone, replaced by a genuine concern that made my stomach clench. "You always did," he said, a small, private smile in his voice. "Remember that trip to the coast? You were green the whole way."

I felt like an intruder in my own husband's car. They spoke around me, their shared history a wall I could never scale.

He drove past the botanical gardens, the manicured lawns slick with rain. He'd taken me there on our first "date," a stilted, formal outing a month before our wedding. He'd told me it was one of his favorite places in the city.

I realized now it was never his place. It was theirs.

I was just a tourist in the ruins of their past.

The pain in my ankle and the sheer emotional exhaustion pulled me under. I must have drifted off, because I woke to the car being parked in our driveway. Isabella was gone. He must have dropped her off.

Alex glanced down at my swollen ankle, his lip curling in a sneer. "Are you faking this for attention, Caterina?"

A raw, cutting laugh tore from my throat. "Believe it or not, Alex, not everything is about you. I am a woman of substance, not some damsel in distress waiting to be saved."

A dangerous light flashed in his eyes. He leaned across the console, his voice dropping to a low growl.

"Is that a challenge?"