The Discarded Wife's Revenge On The Don

I stood outside the mahogany doors, balancing a tray of espresso, when I heard my husband promise his sister that my reign as the Queen of Chicago was over.

I thought being the Don's wife meant safety. I was wrong.

In a warehouse reeking of rust, faced with an ultimatum from our enemies to choose who lives, Brennan made his choice.

"Alyssa is strong," he justified, shielding his mistress, Debbi, who was faking a pregnancy. "She knows the life."

He walked out into the sunlight with her, leaving me in the dark with a gun to my head.

He abandoned me to be tortured and murdered by his rivals, weaponizing my resilience to absolve his guilt.

He thought I died that day. He even mourned me after he eventually found out Debbi was a traitor.

But he didn't know the new security guard was an undercover FBI agent who pulled me from the edge.

Two years later, I've built a quiet life running a bistro in Maine under a new name.

But then the bell above the door chimes during the lunch rush.

I look up, and there he is. The husband who sacrificed me.

He's looking at me not with guilt, but with a terrifying, obsessive hope.

He says he burned down the world to fix his mistake. He says he won't let me go again.

I smile, but my hand is already reaching for the wire the FBI gave me.

I'm not a wife anymore, Brennan. I'm the executioner.

Chapter 1

I stood outside the towering mahogany doors of the inner sanctum, balancing a tray of espresso, when I heard my husband promise his sister that my reign as the Queen of Chicago was over.

The tray didn't shake.

I didn't gasp.

I had been groomed for this life since birth, raised in the shadow of the Sterling Syndicate to be decorative, silent, and composed-even while the world burned down around me.

But the heat flushing through my veins wasn't fear.

It was the sudden, violent death of hope.

Brennan Johnson was not just a man.

He was the Don.

He was the predator who had clawed his way up from the gutter, stepping over bodies to claim the throne of the city, and then he had claimed me to legitimize it.

I thought I was his partner.

I thought the way he looked at me-with those dark, possessive eyes that promised murder to anyone who touched me-meant something.

"She's complicated, Breann," Brennan's voice drifted through the crack in the door, deep and rough like gravel grinding against steel. "Alyssa thinks this is a partnership. She thinks she has a say."

"Debbi knows her place," his sister's voice sneered back. "She is pure. She doesn't have that Sterling arrogance. She just wants you."

"Debbi is safe," Brennan said, his tone dismissive. "I promised I would keep Alyssa safe. The Family comes first, but my happiness... I am tired of the ice queen. Tonight, at the gala, we make the transition."

Gravity took the tray.

The porcelain cups shattered against the marble floor, the sound like a gunshot tearing through the silent hallway.

The doors swung open instantly.

Brennan stood there.

He looked like a god of war dressed in a three-piece suit, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the tattoos that marked his kills.

He didn't look guilty.

He looked annoyed.

"Eavesdropping," he said, stepping over the broken china and the spilled coffee as if it were mud. "It is a bad habit, Alyssa."

"Who is Debbi?" I asked.

My voice was steady, but my chest felt like it had been hollowed out with a rusty spoon.

"It does not concern you," he said, towering over me.

"I am your wife," I said, forcing my chin up. "I am the daughter of the man who made you. You swore a vow. You said I was safe with you."

Brennan laughed.

It was a cold, dry sound.

"You are safe," he said. "You have a roof. You have money. You have the Sterling name. What more do you want?"

"Respect," I whispered. "I want you to tell me you aren't sleeping with a civilian while I plan your anniversary gala."

His eyes narrowed.

The air in the hallway grew heavy, charged with the violence that always simmered beneath his skin.

"You demand things from me?" he asked softly.

He reached out.

I thought he was going to touch my cheek.

Instead, he grabbed a jagged shard of the broken espresso cup from the floor.

He moved faster than I could blink.

The sharp ceramic bit into the skin of my cheek, just below my eye.

It wasn't a deep cut, but it was deliberate.

A line of heat flared across my face, followed by the wet trickle of blood.

I stood frozen.

He held the bloody shard up, inspecting it like a diamond.

"You are my property, Alyssa," he said. "You are a Sterling. You are a trophy. Trophies do not make demands. This is a reminder. You are flawed now. Imperfect. But you are still mine."

He dropped the shard.

It clattered against the floor.

"Clean this up," he said to the empty air, turning his back on me. "And get ready for the gala. Wear something that covers the mark. I don't want people asking questions."

He walked back into his study and closed the door.

I stood there, the blood dripping onto the collar of my white silk blouse.

He hadn't just cut my face.

He had cut the tether that bound me to him.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, my fingers slick with my own blood, and dialed the one number I knew by heart.

"Carroll," I said when the old Consigliere answered.

"Alyssa?" His voice was rough with sleep. "It is late."

"The plan," I said, staring at the closed door of my husband's study. "The extraction plan you made for me when my father died. Is it still viable?"

There was a pause.

"Alyssa, what happened?"

"Start the clock, Carroll," I said. "I am dead to him. Now, I need to be dead to the world."

The bleeding had stopped, but the throbbing remained a dull, persistent echo.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the master suite, pressing a cold compress to my cheek.

The entire room was suffocating, saturated with his scent.

It reeked of sandalwood, expensive scotch, and the metallic musk of a man who killed for a living.

I used to find comfort in that scent.

Now, it made the bile rise in my throat.

The door opened without a knock.

I expected a maid.

Instead, Breann sauntered in, followed by a girl I had never seen before.

The girl was young.

She had wide, innocent eyes and hair the color of corn silk, and she was wearing an oversized t-shirt that I recognized immediately.

It was Brennan's.

"You need to leave," Breann said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"This is my room," I said, forcing myself to stand. "Get out."

The blonde girl stepped forward.

This had to be Debbi.

She looked around the room with hungry eyes, fingering the silk curtains and running her hand over the mahogany dresser.

"Brennan said I could pick the decor," Debbi said. Her voice was high and breathy. "He said this room was too... cold. Like a museum."

"Get out," I repeated, stepping toward her.

"Brennan ordered your things moved," Breann said, a smirk twisting her lips. "To the basement."

"The basement is unfinished," I said. "It's a storage unit."

"It's where you belong," Breann countered. "You're just clutter now, Alyssa. Expired inventory."

Debbi walked over to the vanity where my jewelry box sat.

She opened it.

She picked up my pearl earrings-a gift from my father on my eighteenth birthday.

"These are pretty," she said. "Vintage."

"Put them down," I warned.

Debbi giggled.

She looked at me, and the mask slipped. Her eyes flashed with a malice that belied her innocent face.

"Or what?" she asked. "You're damaged goods. Look at your face. Brennan doesn't want a scarred wife."

She dropped the earrings.

She stepped on them.

The crunch of the pearls shattering under her sneaker was a sickening sound.

I didn't think.

I simply snapped.

I lunged forward, grabbing Debbi by the arm.

She shrieked, a piercing sound that echoed off the walls.

I twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to stumble.

She tripped over her own feet and fell to the carpet, twisting her ankle.

"My leg!" she screamed. "She broke my leg!"

The door slammed open again.

Brennan was there in a heartbeat.

He didn't look at me.

He didn't even glance at the blood on my bandage.

He went straight to Debbi, falling to his knees beside her.

"Debbi," he said, his voice softer than I had ever heard it. "Are you hurt?"

"She attacked me!" Debbi sobbed, clinging to his shirt. "I just wanted to see the room... she went crazy!"

Brennan looked up at me.

His eyes were black pits.

"You touched her," he said.

"She destroyed my property," I said. "She was in my room."

"This is not your room," Brennan growled. "This is my house. Everything in it is mine. Including you. And you do not touch what I protect."

He scooped Debbi up into his arms as if she weighed nothing.

"Breann," he barked. "Get the guards. Take Alyssa to the cellar. The real cellar. Not the storage room."

"Brennan," I said, my voice shaking. "You can't be serious."

"You need to learn discipline," he said, walking past me with the mistress in his arms. "You act like an animal, you live like one."

Two soldiers appeared in the doorway.

I knew them.

I had signed their paychecks.

Now they looked at me not as their Queen, but as a target.

"Don't touch me," I said, straightening my spine. "I will walk."

I walked past my husband, past the girl pretending to cry in his arms, and headed toward the darkness below.

The cellar reeked of damp earth and soured wine.

It was bitterly cold.

My silk blouse offered no protection against the icy chill that seeped from the rough stone walls.

I wasn't in a cell, exactly. I was in the open area where the wine barrels were stored, stacked high in the shadows, but the soldiers stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocking the only exit.

Brennan came down twenty minutes later.

He was alone.

He held a frame in his hand.

It was our wedding portrait. The one that had hung in the hallway for three years, a monument to a lie.

In the photo, I looked perfect. Pristine.

He looked triumphant.

"Debbi is in pain," he said, his voice echoing in the silence.

"Good," I shot back.

He didn't hit me.

That would have been too simple for a man like him.

He walked over to a heavy wooden table and slammed the picture frame down.

The glass shattered with a sharp crack.

"Come here," he ordered.

I didn't move.

He closed the distance between us in two long strides, grabbing my wrist.

His grip was like iron.

He dragged me to the table despite my resistance.

"You like to use your hands," he said, his tone dangerously low. "You like to hurt things."

He forced my hand down.

He pressed my palm into the broken glass of our wedding photo.

I bit my lip until it bled to keep from screaming.

The shards sliced into my skin with searing heat.

Blood pooled on the photograph, staining the white of my wedding dress a deep, violent red.

"This is what you did to our marriage," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You broke it. Not me. You couldn't just be a wife. You had to be a problem."

He released my hand.

I pulled it back, cradling it against my chest as it throbbed in time with my heart.

Blood dripped onto the cold stone floor.

"You are a monster," I whispered.

"I am the Don," he corrected coldly. "And you are a disappointment."

He turned and walked away without looking back.

"Stay down here until you learn how to apologize," he called over his shoulder.

The soldiers followed him up, locking the heavy door behind them with a tone of finality.

I was alone in the dark.

I looked at my hand.

I looked at the ruined photo.

My blood covered his face in the picture, obliterating him.

I reached into my pocket with my good hand.

I still had the silver lighter he had given me on our first anniversary. It was engraved with the words My Flame.

I walked over to the corner where a stack of old files and boxes sat, forgotten in the gloom.

I found a box labeled "Letters."

They were his letters. The ones he wrote when he was trying to court my father's favor.

I dumped them onto the stone floor.

I flicked the lighter.

The flame was small, dancing in the drafty room like a dying hope.

I dropped it onto the paper.

The fire caught quickly.

I watched the words love and forever curl into blackened ash.

The door at the top of the stairs opened again.

Breann stood there, framed by the light from the hallway.

She threw a small first-aid kit down the stairs.

It landed with a hollow plastic clatter.

"Use it," she said. "We don't want you getting an infection and dying before the gala. You still have appearances to keep."

"Why do you hate me, Breann?" I asked, looking up at her silhouette. "I protected you."

"Protected me?" She laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. "You lied to me. You told me Marco left town. You told me he didn't love me."

I froze.

"He was a rat, Breann," I said, my voice trembling. "He was selling us to the Feds. Brennan executed him. I told you he left so you wouldn't have to hate your brother for killing the man you loved."

"Liar!" she screamed. "Debbi told me the truth. She told me you ordered the hit because you didn't want a commoner in the family. Just like you don't want her."

"Debbi is playing you," I said, desperation creeping in.

"Debbi is my friend," Breann spat. "Rot in there, Alyssa."

She slammed the door.

I sat by the small fire of burning lies, opening the first aid kit with trembling fingers.

I pulled out the tweezers.

I had to pick the glass out of my own palm.