The CEO's Billion-Dollar Divorce Regret

My husband, a mafia underboss and a brilliant neurosurgeon, left me to die on the side of a highway in the pouring rain. He had to rush to another woman, his true love, who'd had a minor car accident.

As I lay bleeding on a gurney after being hit by a truck, I learned I was eight weeks pregnant. But my hope was short-lived. The hospital was out of my blood type, and the only reserve had been set aside by my husband for his lover, just in case she had "post-op complications" from her cosmetic procedure.

Over the phone, I heard the nurse beg him. "This woman, and your... this baby will die!"

His reply was ice. "Isabella is my priority."

He let our child die to save her from a minor risk. The ledger where I'd been keeping score of his sins finally hit zero. I was free.

Two years later, I've built a new life, a new career, and found a new love with a man who cherishes me. I'm no longer the broken wife, but a celebrated architect, nominated for a prestigious award.

And tonight, at the awards ceremony, he found me. He got on his knees in the middle of the ballroom, begging for a second chance.

Chapter 1

Seraphina POV:

The day I started keeping score of my husband's sins was the day I realized my marriage was a contract, and my heart was the only asset I hadn't signed away.

It was hidden in the back of our shared walk-in closet, a space larger than my first apartment. Tucked behind a pair of winter boots I'd never worn in Boston, the black leather ledger was plain, severe, and utterly out of place among the silks and jewels that defined my life as Seraphina Rossi, wife to the Santos Underboss.

Dante was looking for his grandfather's cufflinks, the ones carved from old-world silver with the family crest. He moved through the rows of his tailored suits with the same lethal grace he used to command a room, his presence a low hum of power that vibrated through the floorboards.

His hands-the hands of a neurosurgeon, the hands that could kill a man as easily as they could save one-brushed past my things without a second glance.

Then he stopped.

He saw the box. It wasn't designer. It wasn't flashy. It was just a simple black box. His curiosity, a rare thing when directed at me, was piqued. He pulled it down, his movements economical and precise, and opened it.

The ledger sat inside.

He picked it up, his thumb tracing the unadorned cover. He opened it to the first page. My handwriting, the elegant script my mother had taught me, filled the space.

The Sinner's Ledger.

A flicker of something-amusement? annoyance?-crossed his face. He read the rules I'd written below the title.

Starting Score: 100.

Each act of dishonor, each betrayal, subtracts from the score.

When it hits zero, I am free.

He scoffed, the sound low and dismissive in the quiet of the closet. "A bored wife's game," he murmured, the words meant for himself, but I heard them from the doorway where I stood, unseen.

He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the entries. Each one was a small, neat cut.

-5 points: He forgot our anniversary. The date that sealed the pact between the Rossi and Santos families.

-3 points: He canceled our trip to Italy because Isabella called.

-7 points: He called me Isabella's name when he was weak from a fever.

-2 points: He gave the vintage wine, a gift meant for the Don of the Ricci family, to Isabella because she said she liked the bottle.

I watched his jaw tighten, but it wasn't with guilt. It was with irritation. To him, this wasn't a record of his betrayals. It was a testament to my obsession with Isabella Whitfield, the woman he'd loved before me, the woman he still loved. The ghost that haunted our gilded cage.

He remembered her, I knew. He remembered the heartbreak when she'd left him years ago, before our families decided an alliance was necessary. He remembered choosing me, Seraphina Rossi, the architect with a quiet demeanor and a respectable bloodline, as the perfect, placid solution. A beautiful piece of furniture to stabilize the Underboss.

With a final, cold glance, he tossed the ledger back into its box, shoving it back onto the shelf with careless indifference. He found the cufflinks, slid them into his cuffs, and turned to leave.

He finally saw me then. I was in the living room just outside the closet, my sketchbook open on my lap. A stupid, stubborn flicker of hope ignited in my eyes. It had been years since he'd truly noticed it.

"I'm going out," he said, his voice flat. He adjusted his watch. "Isabella's gallery is having its opening tonight."

I felt it die. Snuffed out like a candle, leaving only smoke and darkness behind.

His gaze dropped to my sketchbook. On the page was a detailed drawing of a nursery, with tiny stars painted on the ceiling and a crib carved with gentle waves. A strange, unreadable expression flickered across his features for a split second. A pang I couldn't decipher.

Then his phone buzzed. It was his trusted Capo, Marco.

"Boss," Marco's voice was urgent, crackling through the phone. "There's a fire. Isabella's gallery. The Rinaldis are claiming responsibility."

The blood drained from Dante's face. The cool, controlled Underboss vanished, and in his place stood a man consumed by a singular terror. He grabbed his keys and coat, his movements sharp and frantic. He bolted past me, not a word, not a glance in my direction.

I followed him. I don't know why. Maybe I needed to see it for myself.

The gallery was a vision from hell, flames licking the night sky. I saw Dante at the police line, arguing with firefighters, his voice a raw roar of desperation. He was trying to charge into the inferno.

"My hands are insured for ten million dollars," he screamed at a fire captain trying to restrain him, his voice cracking with a panic I had never heard before. "I'm a surgeon. My entire future is in these hands, and I would let them burn to ash to make sure she is safe. Do you understand me? Let me go!"

My heart stopped. It just... stopped.

Nearby, I overheard Marco talking to another Soldato. "He's been like this since they were kids," the soldier said. "Obsessed. She's the only thing that can make him lose control."

I was just an obstacle. A placeholder. A duty.

The ledger was my lifeline. It was the only thing that was truly mine. Watching him, a man willing to burn for another woman, I knew the score had just plummeted.

He broke through the line. He ran into the smoke.

Moments later, he emerged, carrying Isabella in his arms. She was coughing, her face buried in his chest. He whispered to her-reassurances, promises-his voice thick with a tenderness he had never once shown me. He never looked my way.

He got her to the paramedics, made sure she was breathing, that she was safe.

Only then, when his duty to her was done, did Dante Santos collapse from the smoke.

Seraphina POV:

I spent the next two weeks in the hospital. Dante never came.

Not once.

He sent flowers. Lilies, stark white and funereal, that filled the room with a cloying scent I couldn't stomach. He sent gifts through an associate-cashmere blankets, expensive chocolates, books I'd never read. I donated every single one.

They were gestures of duty, not affection. Payments on an inconvenient debt.

I didn't need his gifts. I had my phone.

Isabella's Instagram was a curated masterpiece of my husband's devotion. A photo of their hands intertwined on a sun-drenched beach, his thumb stroking her knuckles. A video of him cooking for her in a rustic seaside cottage-the one he'd once promised me. A selfie of them wrapped in a blanket by a fire pit, her caption a sickeningly sweet ode to "true love" and "healing with my soulmate."

I felt nothing. The pain had been so sharp, for so long, that it had finally carved out a piece of me, leaving a clean, numb void. I looked at the images of the man I married doting on another woman, and it was like watching a movie about strangers.

When I was discharged, I went home to the echoing silence of the mansion. I was sitting on the terrace, a cool breeze on my face, when I heard voices from the garden below. Marco, Dante's most trusted Capo, and another of his men.

"He bankrupted her ex-husband," the man said, his voice a low grumble. "Used the Family's lawyers to run a personal vendetta. The Don is not happy."

Marco sighed, a heavy, weary sound. "He's always been obsessed. Since they were kids."

"I know, but last night was different," the man countered. I leaned forward, my breath catching in my throat. "He was drunk, out of his mind. Kept calling out a name. Not Isabella's."

My heart gave a foolish, painful lurch.

"He was calling for Seraphina."

I found him passed out on the sofa in his study, the room reeking of expensive whiskey. Empty bottles littered the floor around him like fallen soldiers. His tie was loose, his hair a mess. He looked... broken.

A traitorous part of me, a part I thought was long dead, wanted to cover him with a blanket.

He murmured something in his sleep, his brow furrowed in pain. I leaned closer, straining to hear.

"Isabella," he whispered, the name a ghost on his lips. "I'm sorry... sorry for five wasted years."

The man's words had been a lie. Or a mistake. It didn't matter.

"She's the perfect wife," the man's voice echoed in my memory. "The perfect Regina. Why can't he see what's right in front of him?"

Dante shifted, his lips moving again, a final, slurred judgment from the depths of his subconscious.

"She's not the one."

The words didn't feel like a stab. They felt like a key turning in a lock. I hadn't just been a wife; I had been a placeholder. I had wasted three years of my life trying to earn the heart of a man who saw me as nothing more.

A wave of profound relief washed over me, so pure and absolute it made me dizzy. The cruel, undeniable truth had finally, completely, set me free.

Seraphina POV:

I spent the night in the garden, curled up on a stone bench, watching the moon trace its silver path across the sky.

When dawn broke, painting the horizon in shades of grey and pale rose, I made my way back inside. Dante was still on the sofa, still murmuring Isabella's name in his sleep.

I felt no love. No hate. Just a profound, chilling calm.

I took out my ledger and wrote the final deductions. My hand didn't even shake.

Then I started to pack.

I was methodical. I cleared my side of the closet, leaving a vast, empty space. I boxed up every piece of jewelry, every dress, every pair of shoes he had ever given me. They weren't mine. They were part of the uniform-the uniform of Seraphina Rossi.

Dante woke around noon, his eyes bloodshot. He saw me taping up a box and frowned. "Are you cleaning?"

His phone rang before I could answer. Isabella. His expression softened, the hard lines of the Underboss melting away. "I'm on my way," he promised into the phone, his voice a low, intimate murmur. He grabbed his keys and rushed out, the front door slamming shut behind him.

I whispered to the empty room, "No, you won't."

He was gone for days. Isabella's social media painted a sickeningly perfect picture. He took her to a vineyard in Napa. He bought her a golden retriever puppy. He flew her to Paris for the weekend.

I used the time. I arranged for movers to ship my boxes to a storage unit in San Francisco. I closed my bank accounts. I called Bridget and told her Phoenix Architecture was a go. I methodically erased every trace of Seraphina Rossi from that house.

On the third anniversary of my mother's death, as I was preparing to walk out the door for the last time, he came back. He looked tired but strangely peaceful.

"I'll drive you," he offered, seeing the single bouquet of white roses in my hand.

At the cemetery, I knelt by the cool marble of her headstone. I told her everything, my voice a hushed confession. About the divorce. About the new firm in San Francisco. About my new life.

As we were leaving, the sky opened up. Rain fell in thick, heavy sheets. In the car, the silence was broken by the frantic ringing of Dante's phone.

Isabella.

"I was in an accident," she sobbed through the speaker. "My car... it spun out. I think my wrist is broken."

Dante's face went pale. He slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt on the side of the desolate road. He turned to me, his eyes a cold, hard void, utterly devoid of any emotion for me.

"Get out," he ordered, his voice flat. "I have to get to her."

I didn't argue. I didn't say a word. I simply opened the car door and stepped out into the pouring rain.

I watched his taillights bleed into the rain-slicked darkness, leaving me utterly alone, drenched, on the side of a highway with no one for miles.

My phone was dead. No taxis would come out this far. I started walking, the cold rain seeping into my bones.

I heard the screech of tires before I saw the headlights. A truck, losing control on the slick asphalt, hydroplaning directly towards me.

There was no time to scream.