Too Late For Regret: The Don's Queen

My mother was raising her crystal glass to celebrate my long-deferred marriage to Marco when he slammed his hand on the table.

He announced to our powerful Mafia families that he had already claimed another woman.

That woman was Isabella, a fragile, low-level associate. For years, Marco had used me as a forced chaperone, a convenient shield to hide their illicit affair from the Syndicate elders. He had stolen my meticulous ledger work to cover her mistakes, leaving me to endure brutal reprimands from the Underboss. He had even abandoned me in hostile, rival-controlled territory in the dead of night just to escort her safely home.

Now, he was publicly shattering our generation-long alliance.

"What man of consequence would seek out a wife with a spirit as unbending and a heart as cold as yours?" he sneered in front of everyone.

I stared at the man I had grown up alongside. When we were thirteen, I shattered the bones in my own hand pulling him to safety from rival soldiers. He swore a blood oath under Omertà that day to protect me for life.

Yet here he was, treating me like a disposable pawn, discarding our shared history for a pathetic, manipulative girl.

But I didn't cry, and I didn't beg him to stay.

As he turned his back on me to answer a frantic call from his fragile lover, I simply pulled out my phone.

I texted Don Alessandro Moretti, the most feared boss in the city, and allied myself with him instead.

Chapter 1

Sophia POV

My mother was in the midst of her toast, her crystal glass raised to celebrate my long-deferred marriage to Marco Rossi, when he brought his palm down upon the table and announced he had already claimed another woman.

The low hum of the ventilation fan suddenly became the room's only occupant, a dull drone against which the sound of a man's swallowing was a distinct, percussive event. A span of five heartbeats was all the time I possessed to erect a defense against the ruin of my house, before the Valenti and Rossi bloodlines commenced their own grim arithmetic of vengeance.

I stared at the man I had grown up alongside.

Marco's gaze was fixed upon a point on the far wall, a studied avoidance that drew his jaw into a rigid line of obstinacy.

Beside me, my father's fork descended to his plate with a deliberate lack of haste. The tap of silver against porcelain was a sharp, singular report in a room that had grown unnervingly still.

The faces of my parents darkened with a terrifying, quiet fury. In the circle to which we belonged, a slight of this nature was answered not with words, but with steel.

A short, strangled gasp escaped the lips of Marco's mother. But a moment before, she had been jesting about an heir for the Family; now, the blood had receded from her face, leaving it the color of old parchment.

Before my father could reach for the weapon concealed beneath his tailored suit jacket, I opened my mouth.

My voice, when it came, was a thing of perfect composure, betraying nothing of the maelstrom within. I addressed my gaze to the Rossi elders and informed them that my affections had already been pledged to another.

My mother's head turned toward me with a sharp, incredulous motion, her eyes widening as she demanded the meaning of my declaration.

I kept my shoulders from tightening and explained that I had held the matter in confidence out of respect for my duties, and that the arrangement had but recently been made formal.

It was not a lie born of desperation. For months, I had been quietly building an alliance with a man whose name would make every capo in this room reach for their holsters. I had simply chosen this moment to reveal the card I had been holding in reserve.

Marco let out a harsh, ugly sneer.

He leaned his weight across the table, the polished mahogany groaning under his hands, and his eyes held a dark, insolent mirth. "And what man of consequence," he asked, his voice pitched for all to hear, "would seek out a wife with a spirit as unbending and a heart as cold as yours?"

I did not defend myself. I allowed his insult to hang in the heavy air, a foul and lingering vapor.

The celebratory dinner ended in an absolute, freezing tension.

The compact that had bound our two houses for a generation, a thing once thought inviolable, now lay shattered on the floor between us, as irreparable as the crystal goblet he had overturned. Its contents, a deep red wine, seeped slowly into the fibers of the carpet. I felt a strange quietude settle over me as I mentally affirmed the secret bond I had recently forged with my new protector.

I walked out of the restaurant and into the crisp, biting air of the night. The street was preternaturally quiet, lined with dark, hulking motorcars and their heavily armed attendants.

The heavy report of footfalls on the pavement sounded behind me. It was Marco; he reached me before I could gain the sanctuary of my waiting motorcar.

He grabbed my elbow. I wrenched my arm from his grasp with a force that surprised us both.

He accused me of throwing a childish tantrum in there just to save face.

I regarded him as I would a stranger who had mistaken me for another.

He ran a hand through his hair, his tone shifting to something defensive. He professed that Isabella was struggling with her associate duties. He professed that Isabella was a fragile creature, one who required his solace this very night.

My eyes fell to the dark, wet flagstones at my feet. In a voice devoid of inflection, I summoned a memory from our youth.

I spoke of a certain back alley, and of the rival soldiers who had cornered him there when he was but thirteen. I spoke of his blood on the cobblestones, and of the splintered bones in my own hand from the labor of pulling him to safety.

I spoke, too, of the oath he had sworn under Omertà that day-a vow to be my protector for all his life.

A wave of impatience washed over his features, and he made a sharp, dismissive gesture with his hand, silencing my next word before it could form.

He acknowledged the oath, but his voice was thick with irritation. He stressed again that Isabella was delicate. She needed him right now.

He lowered his voice and promised he would still marry me and take care of me, but only after Isabella was properly settled and safe.

I looked into his dark eyes and felt absolutely nothing.

I told him that would not be necessary. I stated clearly that I had a man now.

I told Marco that the debt of the past was void. The blood oath was broken. We were entirely even.

Marco fell silent.

Then he laughed. It was a cold, dismissive sound.

He doubted my mysterious man even existed. He mocked the idea, saying I never had the time or the charm to meet anyone outside our immediate crew.

As if summoned by his words, his burner phone vibrated in his jacket pocket.

He pulled it out. The screen lit up with Isabella's name.

The rigid set of his shoulders dissolved. The hard, metallic quality in his eyes was replaced by a sudden, unguarded warmth.

Without another word, he turned his back on me and walked away into the darkness. He never looked back.

I watched him disappear, the man who had sworn a blood oath to protect me, now running to answer a call from the woman he had publicly claimed over our shattered engagement. My fingers found my phone, and I typed a single message to the one man who had never once broken his word to me.

Sophia POV

I stood on the pavement, watching Marco's silhouette be swallowed by the corner's darkness.

From the depths of my purse, I produced my telephone. My fingers moved across the screen, composing a brief message to Alessandro, inquiring if his evening was free.

His reply came through a second later. He confirmed his availability and added that he was already on his way to collect me.

A genuine smile touched my lips for the first time all evening.

I put the telephone away, but a sharp wind that cut across the street recalled to my mind the chill that had settled deep in my bones two years prior.

That was the year Marco had first declared his obsession with Isabella.

I remembered the day of her arrival at our compound. She was a new associate, hailing from some poor and unconnected lineage.

She was quiet and weak, and possessed an air of profound pathos.

She was a thing of soft edges and downcast eyes, a stark anomaly in this life of ours, where even the fine linen of a dinner table might conceal the cold steel of a pistol.

I recalled asking Marco about our arranged betrothal not long after her arrival.

He had looked at me then with a strange, sickening admixture of resentment and justification. He claimed I was strong enough to endure it; he said I already possessed everything, whilst Isabella had nothing.

He insisted his actions were a form of protection for her, swearing he would still fulfill his duty to me, if only to satisfy the Dons.

That was the exact moment I realized he was serious.

In that moment, I understood my place in his grand design. I was not his partner, but a chess piece to be sacrificed, a convenience held in reserve for the sake of a political gambit.

I became their forced chaperone.

I was the perfect shield behind which they conducted their illicit affair, hidden from the ever-watchful eyes of the Family elders.

During their clandestine meetings, Isabella's gaze would find mine, her smile a confection of cloying pity. Yet, beneath this veneer of sympathy, I could always discern the hard, triumphant glint of a victor.

He made of me a tool, an instrument of his deception, and with it, he chipped away at my standing, piece by patient piece.

He forced me to serve as a third party to their flirtations, which he conducted openly in my presence.

A deep and sickening disgust churned in my stomach, but I held my tongue, honoring the stoicism expected of me. Marco, however, noticed my cold demeanor and dismissed it. He justified his cruelty by claiming I was tough enough to withstand a little discomfort.

He reminded me that Isabella was delicate and required a softer environment.

I lost my temper that night.

But Marco was unmoved. He explained, with a brutal frankness, that my presence was a necessity; with me there, the Consigliere would not report his distraction to the Don.

If they were discovered alone, Isabella would face exile-or worse.

The silent compact I had maintained with him for years, a thing stretched taut by a thousand small betrayals, did not so much break as simply cease to exist. It vanished without a sound, leaving not even an echo in the hollow of my chest.

I remembered one particular month-end, when the illicit ledger reports were due.

Isabella had failed utterly to complete her section and was weeping in Marco's office.

Marco took my own meticulous, finished work and handed it to Isabella, instructing her to present it as her own.

Because my work was now missing, I was summoned by the Underboss. I endured a harsh reprimand and a thorough humiliation before the assembled capos.

Marco addressed the matter the following day with an air of complete indifference.

He remarked, with an almost breathtaking casualness, that my own standing in the Family was secure enough to absorb such a blow. He said Isabella would have suffered severe punishment, perhaps even a beating, had she failed.

My humiliation was of no consequence to him; her safety was his only concern.

They would dine at secure safehouses, and I was compelled to accompany them so the guards would log my presence.

They would enact their small intimacies across the table, while I sat as a silent sentinel, my gaze fixed upon the untouched food on my plate.

During one such dinner, Marco leaned close to my ear.

He whispered that Isabella found my presence vexing, that my conversation was ruining her appetite.

I stood and walked out of the safehouse without having touched a single bite.

Marco pursued me into the yard, his hand closing on my shoulder as he loudly accused me of tormenting Isabella with my bitter attitude.

I did not bother to argue. The ledger theft, the forced chaperoning, the stolen meals-each betrayal had been a brick in the wall I was building around my heart. What Marco failed to realize was that the wall was nearly complete, and on the other side of it, I was no longer his to wound.

Sophia POV

The memory of that safehouse dissolved, supplanted by the sharper, colder recollection of a far darker night.

It was the night Marco took Isabella and me out for a routine Family run to collect payments.

Halfway through the route, Marco brought the car to a sudden halt, the tires protesting against the asphalt.

Without a word of warning, he announced a detour to escort Isabella safely back to her apartment.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes devoid of any lingering warmth, and told me to get out and make my own way back to the estate.

I stepped out of the vehicle, the biting cold of the night air instantly piercing my clothes.

He drove off without a second glance, leaving me standing alone on a desolate street corner.

I was completely abandoned in hostile, rival-controlled territory, stranded miles away from our turf.

I pulled out my burner phone, only to be met by a dead screen and a complete absence of signal.

Shivering, I stood in the freezing shadows for twenty minutes, entirely unable to call a Family driver or a soldier for backup.

Seeing I had no other choice, I started walking.

I walked for nearly two hours through the darkest, most dangerous alleys in the city, my hand resting heavily on my concealed weapon the entire time.

I finally made it back to the Valenti estate well past midnight, my body exhausted but my mind possessed of a newfound, chilling clarity.

The next afternoon, Marco walked into the compound as if nothing had occurred.

His first words to me were not an apology, but a casual dismissal as he passed on a message.

He said Isabella had been very concerned for my safety last night.

I watched him approach, a sourness rising in my throat like the dregs of stale coffee. He did not so much as glance at my knuckles, which were still pale and stiff from the cold.

I calmly replied that I had made it home fine, and told him to pass on my thanks to her.

Marco nodded in smug satisfaction, then turned and left to go find her.

In that moment, the bond of Omertà between us finally crumbled, leaving nothing but dust in its wake.

The muscles in my neck, which had been drawn tight with a lingering fear, suddenly went slack. The acid churning in my stomach vanished, and in its place settled a profound and empty numbness.

I looked at his retreating back, and to my eyes, he was no more than a ghost, a specter from a life I no longer claimed.

I stepped back from Marco's crew immediately after that day, severing my professional ties just as cleanly as I had severed my emotional ones.

Soon after, I received an invitation to dinner that would permanently alter the trajectory of my life.

It was from Alessandro Moretti, a man whose name was spoken in whispers, a dark reputation preceding him like a shadow.

Alessandro was a rising Don from a powerful, allied Family, a man who was straightforward, observant, and known for his lethal efficiency.

We met at a private, high-end restaurant, secluded away from prying eyes.

He had but recently cemented his dominion, the consolidation of his territory marked by a river of blood, and the scent of that danger still clung to him.

He poured us both drinks, the amber liquid catching the dim light of the room.

In a rare moment of vulnerability, he looked at me across the table.

His eyes were dark and heavy with intent as he directly asked me if I was claimed by anyone.

I silently shook my head.

Alessandro set his glass down, the clink echoing softly in the quiet space.

He leaned forward, the space between us charged with a sudden intensity. He declared his intent, stating with a stark and simple finality that he wanted me for his own.

I fell silent, carefully weighing my next words.

I asked him if he truly knew who I was beneath the heavy weight of the Family name.

Alessandro admitted that he knew enough for now, his voice dropping lower as he said he wanted a lifetime to learn the rest.

Then, before I could speak, he raised a hand. "I know what you are about to ask," he said quietly. "Why now? Why wait until your engagement is a public humiliation before I approach you?" He leaned closer, his dark eyes holding mine without wavering. "Because you are not a prize to be stolen, Sophia. You are a queen who needed to walk away from her crumbling kingdom on her own terms. I refused to be another man who made decisions for you."

I allied myself with him that very night.

He had given me the one thing Marco never had: a choice.