Too Late For Regret: The Mafia King

I was burning with a 104-degree fever when my mafia boss husband's mistress sent an emergency code, claiming he was bleeding out.

Too weak to stand, my mother-in-law took the medical supplies into the hurricane for me, only to be killed in a rival hit-and-run.

I dragged my sick body across enemy lines to finish the delivery, only to find my husband laughing with his mistress in his office.

"It was just a loyalty test to see how fast you'd react," she sneered.

When I told him his mother died for their sick game, he refused to believe me. He called me a manipulative liar and threw me out into the freezing rain.

Days later, he tracked me down to the family mausoleum. Believing his mistress's lies that we were just faking the death to steal his money, he snatched his mother's urn from my hands and maliciously smashed it to dust.

He even shoved me so hard against the stone altar that I miscarried our unborn child.

I watched the gray ashes scatter over his expensive shoes, my heart turning to ice. How could the man I loved be so blind, choosing a cheap mistress over his own mother's life and his wife's devotion?

When the police finally arrived to confirm his mother's tragic death and the mistress's betrayal was exposed, he fell to his knees in the dirt, weeping and begging for my forgiveness.

But I just smiled, demanded my divorce, and walked away.

Chapter 1

Elena POV

The thin slab of the burner phone sent a vibration through the pillow, a dull tremor against my skull.

I had not the strength to answer. Rosa's hand, weathered and certain, reached for it. With a tap of my finger, I put the call to its speaker. The voice that clawed its way through the static was from my husband's mistress: *"Vincent is bleeding out from a rival ambush. Bring the trauma kit across enemy lines right now, or the Don dies tonight."*

A fever of one hundred and four degrees held me pinned to the mattress; lifting my own head was a task beyond my means.

At the sight of me, his mother, Rosa, had spoken with a quiet finality, insisting she would make the drop. She grabbed the heavy bag of contraband medical supplies and walked out into a brutal hurricane.

She did not return.

She was slaughtered in a hit-and-run on the highway. I had to command my fever-wracked limbs from the bed and force them into the storm, making my way to the underground clinic where the ambulance had taken her. I arrived only to watch the last rise and fall of her crushed chest. I pried the bag from her cooling hands and finished the journey myself.

Vincent was the head of the most powerful Cosa Nostra syndicate on the East Coast-a man whose name alone could draw sweat from politicians and blood from rival bosses.

I had spent four years standing in his shadow, washing blood out of his expensive shirts and keeping my mouth shut.

I loved him with a pathetic, blind devotion. Beyond that, I owed my life to Rosa, who had saved me from a syndicate crossfire a decade ago.

Now, Rosa was lying in a morgue with her eyes wide open.

And I was standing in the hallway of the Family's legitimate corporate headquarters, dripping wet from the storm, my entire frame locked in a violent ague.

I clutched the blood-stained medical bag to my chest, its canvas hide a grim weight against my ribs.

My drenched clothes clung to my skin like a film of ice.

I had risked my life to cross the city, dodging rival soldiers and the tempest itself, just to save the man I thought was dying.

Drawing on some final, hidden reserve of will, I pushed open the heavy oak doors of his office.

The air within the room was a dense, heated thing, thick with the aromas of expensive cigars and aged whiskey.

Vincent was not bleeding.

He was sitting on the edge of his mahogany desk, wearing a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. He sat behind that desk not as a man, but as a force; in this room, his quietest word could extinguish a life, and I was but a speck of mud to be scraped from the sole of his shoe.

Chloe-his associate and the woman who handled his money-laundering fronts-was perched on his lap.

Her arms were wrapped around his neck, and they were laughing. The sound of their shared mirth struck me with more force than the hurricane winds.

I stood frozen in the doorway.

The heavy bag slipped from my numb fingers, hitting the dark-stained hardwood floor with a dull, fleshy thud.

Vincent stopped laughing and his head snapped up.

His dark eyes-the same eyes that used to look at me with something resembling warmth-were now two chips of obsidian.

He let his gaze travel over my soaked clothes and my pale, fever-glazed face, and his features hardened into a mask of pure disgust.

"What are you doing here, Elena?" he asked, his voice low and edged with irritation.

I raised my hand, the fever causing my muscles to spasm, my fingertip tracing useless, minute arcs in the air before I managed to point at the bag on the floor.

"You were dying," I whispered, my throat raw. "Chloe sent the emergency code."

Chloe hopped off his lap, taking her time to smooth down her tight red dress.

She offered me a sickly sweet, pitying smile.

"It was just a loyalty test, Elena," she said in a low purr. "We needed to see how fast you would react if the Don was actually in danger. You took entirely too long."

Vincent scoffed, picking up his heavy crystal glass of whiskey.

"I command three ports on the East Coast and a dozen laundering operations," he said, taking a measured step toward me. "I need a wife who can handle pressure, not a fragile bird who shows up looking like a drowned rat an hour late."

He swung his leg back and kicked the medical bag out of the way.

The blood-stained satchel skidded across the floor; its zipper tore open and spilled its contents of sterile bandages and syringes onto the expensive Persian rug.

"Pick that garbage up and get out of my office," he ordered, presenting me with his back.

Something inside my chest snapped.

It was a physical sensation-like a thick, water-logged rope parting its final thread under an impossible weight.

My body moved before my mind could object. I stepped forward and brought my open hand across his face with all the force I could summon.

There was no clean crack, only the dull, jarring impact of my palm against his jawbone, a shock that sent a tremor of pain up to my elbow. My knuckles scraped the hard line of his cheek.

Vincent's head whipped to the side.

The silence that followed was deafening, a vacuum heavy with coming violence.

The soldiers and enforcers who stood guard outside the open doors suddenly poured into the room, their hands moving by instinct toward their weapons.

Vincent slowly turned his head back to meet my gaze.

His jaw was clenched so tight a knot of muscle pulsed in his cheek, and a dangerous, violent shadow fell across his features.

He lunged, his fingers closing around my arm like steel clamps.

He yanked me toward him, his face inches from mine, his breath a foul mix of alcohol and betrayal.

"You dare put your hands on me?" he hissed, his grip tightening until I felt my bones grinding together.

I struggled, kicking at his legs, but he was a wall of muscle and bone.

The pain in my arm was a white-hot flare.

Some feral instinct took over; I leaned forward and sank my teeth into the back of his hand, the taste of copper filling my mouth.

Vincent cursed and tore his hand away.

I stumbled backward, dragging air into my lungs.

Chloe gasped with practiced horror and rushed to his side, taking his hand.

"Oh my god, Vincent, are you okay?" She turned a venomous glare on me, her eyes wide with fabricated shock. "Elena, you are utterly out of control. You need to apologize to him right now."

His rage stoked by the bite, Vincent crossed the space between us in a single stride and shoved me hard against the wall.

The back of my head hit the plaster with a dull thud, and my vision swam with dark spots.

"Apologize to her," he demanded, pointing a finger like a weapon at Chloe. "You ruin my night, you disrespect me in front of my men, and you act like a crazy bitch over a simple game. Apologize."

The soldiers in the room were sneering at me, their expressions telling me I was nothing more than dirt on their polished shoes.

I looked at Vincent-truly looked at him through the haze of my fever-and realized the man I loved had never existed.

He was a brute in a suit of fine wool.

I swallowed the thick tang of blood pooling in my mouth and pulled my shoulders back, refusing to cower.

"Rosa is dead," I said, my voice a hollow thing.

Vincent froze, the sneer falling from his face.

"Your sick game sent her into the storm," I continued, staring dead into his cold eyes. "Go visit her body in the morgue. And when you are done, sign the divorce papers."

Elena POV:

The sound of the word _divorce_ had barely left my lips before Vincent moved.

His backhand struck my cheek with the force of a slab of stone.

My head snapped to the side, and the taste of fresh copper instantly filled my mouth.

My knees buckled, and I caught myself against the heavy oak doorframe, gasping for air as the fever spiked a searing heat through my blood.

"Do not _ever_ use my mother's life as a sick joke to win an argument," Vincent roared, his voice making the room's crystal decanters tremble.

His chest heaved, and thick veins stood out against the collar of his tailored shirt.

He looked less a husband and more a predator ready to tear me apart.

"You think you can come in here, curse my bloodline, and make demands?"

The armed soldiers at the perimeter of his office muttered in low agreement.

"Crazy bitch," one of the enforcers whispered from the deeper shadows of the corner.

"Disrespecting the Matriarch like that."

I pressed a hand that would not keep still to my stinging cheek, trying to find my balance.

"I am not lying!" I screamed, my voice cracking with the weight of grief. "She took the bag because I was too sick to walk! She died on the highway making _your_ delivery!"

Vincent's face twisted into a mask of unyielding hatred.

I could see in his eyes that he did not believe a single word.

In his mind, I was playing a manipulative game to pull his attention away from Chloe.

He raised his hand, pointing a rigid finger at the two enforcers standing near the double doors.

"Throw her out," he commanded, with the absolute, chilling authority of a Mafia Don. "Get her out of my sight before I do something I will regret."

The two massive men moved forward, their rough hands seizing me by the shoulders.

I fought them, kicking and thrashing, but my fever-weakened body was no match for their strength.

They dragged me down the estate's long hallway, my shoes scraping against the polished marble floor.

From behind me, I could hear the faint strains of jazz starting back up in Vincent's office-the dark, celebratory atmosphere resuming as if I had never existed.

The enforcers shoved me through the heavy front doors.

I tripped over my own feet and landed hard onto the wet, unforgiving concrete of the driveway.

The freezing autumn rain crashed into my back, soaking through my thin clothes.

A moment later, the heavy mahogany doors slammed shut behind me, locking me out in the darkness.

I lay there on the abrasive ground for a long time, the fight drained out of me.

The steady rain washed the blood from the corner of my mouth.

Looking up into the pitch-black sky, I thought about Rosa.

I remembered how she used to hold my hand when Vincent was away on business, telling me in a soothing voice that family was everything.

She had paid the ultimate price for my weakness, and for my foolish inability to see her son for the brute he truly was.

Slowly, with an agony in every joint, I dragged myself up from the pavement and began to walk through the raging storm.

Over the next two days, I arranged Rosa's underground Mafia cremation alone.

I picked out the heavy marble urn myself.

I paid the shady mortician in unmarked cash to hasten the process and keep the authorities from asking questions.

Standing alone in the cold, sterile basement of the crematorium, I watched the flames take her body, feeling utterly and irrevocably detached from the syndicate and the man I had married.

Three days after being thrown out, I sat on the edge of the plush velvet couch in the penthouse apartment that had become my prison, a vital IV drip taped to the back of my hand by a private underground doctor who had just departed.

The worst of the fever had broken, leaving a hollowed-out and bone-deep exhaustion in its wake.

The click of the front door unlocking broke the silence, and Vincent walked in, using his master keycard to bypass the security system.

He pulled off his expensive, rain-slicked coat and tossed it over a dining chair.

He looked across the room at me, opening his arms slightly as if he expected me to run to him.

"Are you done pouting?" he asked, his tone thick with condescension as he walked past me, straight toward the kitchen to pour himself a drink.

He acted as if the brutal events of the last three days had not happened.

"You embarrassed me in front of my men, Elena," he said with a chill, taking a slow sip of his amber liquor. "You threw a massive tantrum over a basic loyalty test. My time is too valuable for your childish drama."

Without a word, I reached over and pulled the IV needle out of my hand.

A single drop of crimson blood welled up and fell onto the hardwood floor.

Ignoring the sting, I stood up on legs that did not feel steady and walked toward him.

"Your sick game killed your mother," I said, my voice an icy, deadened whisper.

Vincent slammed his crystal glass onto the granite counter, the liquor sloshing over the rim.

"I told you to stop with that fucking lie!" he shouted, stepping into my personal space. "You are testing the limits of my patience, Elena. Do not curse my family."

His breath coming in heavy bursts, he reached into his tailored suit pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.

He tossed it onto the counter in front of me.

"Here," he said, his tone shifting back to arrogant indifference. "An apology for being rough the other night. Now drop this morbid nonsense."

With numb fingers, I reached out and opened the box.

Inside was a glittering diamond bracelet.

I picked it up, feeling the cheap, light weight of the metal beneath the flashy stones-a perfect symbol for our marriage.

I looked him dead in the eye, raised my hand, and threw the bracelet as hard as I could.

It hit the kitchen's marble floor with a sharp crack, the thin metal snapping and sending the false diamonds scattering like worthless pieces of glass.

Elena POV

Vincent stared at the broken pieces of jewelry scattered across the marble floor.

His breathing slowed, becoming heavy and deliberate.

This was the quiet before the violence-the warning sign every soldier in his syndicate knew to fear.

"I sent you five encrypted messages that night," I said, my voice steady despite the frantic pounding in my chest. "I told you I was running a fever of a hundred and four. I told you I couldn't drive."

Vincent looked up from the floor, his dark eyes narrowing.

"I don't read every message you send," he said coldly. "My operations require my full attention, I do not have time to babysit a needy wife."

It was a habit of his-to treat my existence as an afterthought unless he needed something from me.

I looked down at the ruined bracelet.

"This is from the bulk supply Chloe buys for the downtown laundering front," I said, letting out a dry, bitter laugh that scraped my throat. "You couldn't even be bothered to buy a real apology. You just grabbed whatever your mistress had lying around."

Vincent stepped forward, closing the space between us in an instant, and gripped my jaw in his large hand.

He tilted my head up, forcing me to look at him.

"You are testing the limits of my mercy, Elena," he warned, his grip a vise, tight enough to bruise. "You will clean up this mess, and you will wait here until I decide you have learned some respect."

"I want a divorce, Vincent," I said.

I did not blink. I did not look away.

His grip tightened for one agonizing second before he shoved my face away.

The demand for a divorce was a direct challenge to his absolute control.

Nobody left the Don.

Nobody walked away from the Cosa Nostra.

"You are out of your mind," he spat, turning his back on me. "You belong to me. You belong to this Family. You will sit in this apartment until you remember your place."

He stormed to the front door, yanked it open, and slammed it shut behind him.

The walls of the penthouse trembled from the force. The elevator required his fingerprint to be summoned, the security system his iris. There were no bars, but the very air was rationed out by his will.

Left completely isolated in the silence, I walked over to the closet and pulled out a small duffel bag.

I remembered Rosa sitting on the edge of my bed years ago, brushing my hair.

She had told me to endure Vincent's darkness, to internalize my suffering for the sake of Omertà and the Family.

She believed that silence was strength.

But my only true anchor in this dark world was gone.

Rosa was dead, and my silence had not protected her.

It had only protected him.

I packed three pairs of jeans, a few plain shirts, and my passport.

I left the designer dresses, the expensive bags, and the jewelry in the closet.

I left every single luxury bought with blood money, and walked away without a second glance.

I walked over to the mahogany desk, where days earlier I had left the syndicate's official separation papers I had drafted months ago. I had signed them and sent them by a trusted courier directly to Vincent's headquarters three days ago, right after the storm, though he clearly had not bothered to read them.

Then, I picked up the heavy marble urn resting on the side table.

It held Rosa's ashes.

I had retrieved her from the crematorium this morning.

Her dying wish was to rest beside her late husband, the former Boss, in the Family's ancestral mausoleum on the edge of the city.

I walked out of the apartment, locking the door and dropping the key down the hallway trash chute.

I took a taxi to the graveyard.

The sky was a bruised gray, and the wind was biting as I walked up the stone path toward the massive marble structure that held generations of Vincent's bloodline.

I pushed open the heavy iron gates of the mausoleum, the metal groaning.

I walked down the steps into the dim, quiet vault, holding the urn tightly against my chest.

I found the empty alcove next to the late Boss's tomb.

Before I could place the urn inside, the rhythmic, heavy thud of boots echoed down the stone steps.

I turned around.

Vincent was standing in the doorway, his massive frame blocking the only exit.

Chloe was standing right behind his shoulder, holding a tablet that no doubt displayed my courier's delivery notification.

Behind them, six armed soldiers blocked the stairs, their hands resting on their holstered guns.

Vincent looked from me to the open vault, and his eyes went black with a terrifying rage.