Too Late For The Mafia Don's Regret

I kept a ledger to track my marriage to the most feared man in Chicago.

Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time Dante looked through me to stare at his mistress, Isabella, I subtracted one. Every time he left our bed to answer her calls, I subtracted five.

The day the score hit zero, I was lying in a secret clinic, bleeding out.

I had been in a severe accident. I was pregnant, and the hemorrhage was critical.

But the nurse, eyes red with weeping, told me they couldn't give me the blood transfusion I needed.

Dante had ordered the clinic's entire supply of O-negative blood to be reserved for Isabella.

She had a bruised knee and was "in shock." He prioritized her comfort over his unborn child's life.

I lost the baby.

I left the ledger on his desk with a final note: *You bought her comfort with your heir's blood. Score: 0.* Then, I vanished.

Two years later, Dante found me at a gala in Seattle.

The ruthless Capo dei Capi, a man who never bowed to anyone, fell to his knees in front of hundreds of people. He begged, tears streaming down his face, claiming he had made a mistake, that I was his only true love.

I looked at him, then at Julian, the man standing beside me who treated me like a queen.

I pulled my hand away from Dante's grip and smiled coldly.

"Apologies don't fix dead things, Mr. Moretti. Go back to your grave."

Chapter 1

I claimed the high-backed leather chair that belonged to the most feared man in Chicago, and I wrote the number down in red ink: minus five.

It was a simple math problem.

Loyalty started at one hundred. Every time my husband, Dante Moretti, looked through me like I was nothing more than a pane of glass, I subtracted one. Every time he prioritized the woman he actually loved, I subtracted five.

When the score hit zero, I would break the Omertà. I would disappear.

The heavy oak door creaked open.

Dante walked in.

He didn't look at me. He never really looked at me. He was the *Capo dei Capi*, the Boss of Bosses, a man whose name made the city's toughest criminals tremble in their boots. He had a jawline that could cut glass and eyes the color of espresso over ice-dark, bitter, and unyielding. He was beautiful in the way a loaded weapon is-cold, heavy, and promising destruction.

"Elara," he said, his voice a low rumble that used to make my stomach flip. Now, it just made me tired. "Get out of my chair. I have work."

I closed the ledger.

"It's late, Dante," I said. "I thought we were having dinner."

He finally glanced at me. He saw the book in my hand, but he didn't ask what it was. He didn't care. To him, my secrets were as interesting as the dust on the baseboards.

"Family business," he said, striding to the liquor cabinet. He poured a scotch. "Something you wouldn't understand."

I understood plenty.

I understood that my father, his Consigliere, had forced him into this marriage on his deathbed. A Blood Oath. *Protect Elara. Marry her. Keep her safe from the wolves.*

Dante had kept his promise. He married me. He put me in this gilded cage of a mansion. He kept me safe.

But he left his heart with Isabella Vance.

I scanned the room while he drank. There was a painting on the far wall-a chaotic hemorrhage of colors that induced a migraine just by looking at it. Isabella painted it. There was a crystal decanter on his desk. Isabella bought it.

I was the wife, but I was the intruder in this room.

His phone buzzed on the desk.

The air in the room changed instantly. The indifference vanished, replaced by a sharp, lethal tension.

"Speak," Dante barked into the phone.

I watched his knuckles turn white around the glass.

"Where?" he demanded. "Is she inside?"

He slammed the glass down. In a perfect world, he would have used a coaster. I bought him coasters for Christmas. He never used them.

"I have to go," he said, already moving toward the door. He was moving fast, with a frantic energy I had never seen directed at me.

"Dante?" I stood up. "What happened?"

"Code Red," he said, grabbing his jacket. "The warehouse on 5th. It's burning."

"That's a storage facility," I said, confused. "Why does the Don need to go to a storage fire?"

He stopped in the doorway. He looked at me, and for a second, I saw the panic in his eyes.

"It's not just storage," he said. "It's her collection. She's there cataloging."

Isabella.

He was running into a fire for her art. For her.

"Dante, security will handle it," I said, my voice steady despite the crack in my chest. "You are the Don. You don't run into burning buildings."

"If she's hurt," he growled, "I will burn this entire city to ash."

He left.

The silence rushed back in, heavy and suffocating.

A few minutes later, Marco, one of the younger soldiers, came in to collect Dante's laptop. He looked at me with pity. I hated that look.

"Marco," I said. "Why is that warehouse so important?"

Marco hesitated. He was loyal, but he was young. "The Boss... he built it for Ms. Vance. Climate controlled. Top of the line. He wanted her art to be safe."

I nodded slowly.

He built a fortress for her paintings.

Yet he hadn't even bothered to fix the leak in my bathroom sink.

I sat back down in his chair. I opened the ledger.

Two hours later, the news broke on the TV in the corner. Aerial footage of flames licking the night sky. The reporter was breathless.

*"Sources say Dante Moretti, a prominent Chicago figure, was seen pulling a woman from the blaze. He has sustained severe burns but is in stable condition."*

He had run into the fire. He had burned his skin, risked his empire, risked the stability of the entire Outfit, just to make sure Isabella Vance didn't inhale too much smoke.

I picked up the pen.

I pressed the tip against the paper until the ink bled through.

*Minus five.*

Seventy points left.

The air in the lawyer's office hung heavy with the scent of lemon oil and the musk of old money-a smell that usually promised security, but today tasted like ash.

Mr. Henderson, a man who had served as my father's legal counsel for decades, peered at me over the gold rims of his spectacles.

"Elara," he said gently. "This is... unconventional. In our world, a legal separation isn't just a formality. It's a liability."

"I don't want a divorce yet," I said, my hands clasped tightly in my lap to hide their trembling. "I want a draft. A framework. So when the time comes, the break is clean. No alimony. No shares in the shell companies. I just want my name back."

"You want nothing?" His brows shot up. "You are the wife of the *Capo dei Capi*. You are entitled to millions."

"I don't want his blood money," I said quietly. "I just want my freedom."

He let out a resigned sigh and began to type. The sound pattered against the silence like rain on a tin roof.

An hour later, I stepped out into the cool air, a heavy envelope weighing down my purse.

My next stop was the hospital.

It was my duty. The dutiful mafia wife brings soup to her injured husband. It was part of the script.

The Family owned the entire fourth floor of St. Jude's. Security guards nodded at me as I walked past. They didn't check my bag. They knew who I was.

To them, I was just part of the architecture-silent, decorative, and easily ignored.

I reached Dante's room. The door was slightly ajar.

I raised my hand to knock, but then I heard her voice.

"You're an idiot," Isabella whispered.

I froze.

Through the sliver of space between the door and the frame, I saw them.

Dante was sitting up in bed, his left arm bandaged from shoulder to wrist. His face was pale, but his eyes were alive. He was looking at her with a raw, unguarded warmth that made my chest ache.

Isabella sat on the edge of the mattress. She was holding a roll of gauze, tentatively trying to adjust his dressing.

"Let the nurse do that," Dante said softly.

"No," she said. "I caused this. I fix it."

"You didn't cause anything, Bella. It was faulty wiring."

"I was stupid," she sniffled. "I went back for the portfolio."

"It's your life's work," Dante said. He reached out with his good hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I would have gone back for it too."

"You wanted to be an architect once," she said. "Remember? Before your father died. Before the Oath."

"I remember," he said. "I wanted to build things. Now I just break them."

"You built that warehouse for me," she said, leaning into his touch.

"I'd build you a castle if you asked," he murmured.

He pulled her down. She rested her head on his uninjured shoulder. He closed his eyes, and the expression on his face wasn't pain. It was peace.

He looked like a man who was finally home.

I looked down at the thermos of chicken soup in my hand. It felt like a prop in a play I had been written out of.

I set the thermos on the floor outside the door.

I walked away. My heels clicked on the linoleum, but they didn't hear me. They were in their own world.

Near the elevator banks, a soldier named Luca intercepted me.

"Mrs. Moretti," he said, holding out a thick manila folder. "The Boss asked for this file to be brought up, but..."

He hesitated, glancing toward the closed door of Dante's room. He didn't want to walk in on them either.

"I'll take care of it," I said, saving us both the awkwardness. "I'm heading back to the estate."

I got into the back of the town car. The driver pulled away from the curb.

I opened the folder. It was labeled *Emergency Protocol*.

I thought it was contingency plans for the Outfit. Routes out of the city, safe houses, bank accounts.

I flipped through the pages.

It was a blueprint.

Labeled simply: *Project True North.*

It detailed the design for a massive estate in Tuscany. A vineyard. A sanctuary away from the violence of Chicago.

I looked at the notes in the margins. They were in Dante's handwriting.

*Studio facing east for morning light - for her painting.*

*Nursery near the master suite.*

*Rose garden - pink varieties only.*

"True North." That was his nickname for her in high school. Because she was the only thing that guided him.

He was planning a life. A retirement. An escape.

And nowhere in those sprawling lines and careful measurements was there a room for me.

I closed the folder.

I didn't cry. I think I was long past the luxury of tears.

I opened the ledger in my mind.

*Minus ten.*

I had converted the east wing of the estate into a studio.

It used to be a storage area for Dante's old gym equipment, a graveyard of rusted iron and leather. Now, it smelled of graphite, cedar shavings, and fresh paper.

I called Maria, my old architecture professor.

"I'm ready," I had told her on the phone, my voice trembling slightly. "I want to start my own firm. Small. Anonymous. But I need to work."

"It's about time, Elara," she had replied, her tone fierce. "You were the best student I've had in twenty years. Don't let that talent rot in a mobster's kitchen."

That afternoon, I was hunched over a draft for a library renovation when the door opened.

It was our third anniversary.

Dante walked in. He was wearing a tuxedo, the black fabric absorbing the afternoon light. He looked devastatingly handsome, yet his eyes held their usual glazed indifference.

He looked around the room, taking in the drafting tables, the models, the pinned-up sketches.

"What is all this?" he asked.

"I'm working," I said, not looking up from my blueprint, grounding myself in the straight lines of the drawing. "I'm starting a firm."

He let out a short, dismissive breath. "A firm? Elara, we don't need the money. And it's a security risk. You meeting clients? Being out in the open?"

"I'll use a pseudonym," I said, my grip tightening on my pencil. "And I need this, Dante. I need something that is mine."

He walked over and tapped a finger on my blueprint, leaving a smudge. "It's a cute hobby. But don't let it distract you from your actual duties."

My actual duties. Being seen and not heard. Warming his bed on the rare nights he came home.

"Is that why you're here?" I asked, finally meeting his gaze. "To critique my hobby?"

"It's our anniversary," he said. He checked his watch. "We have a reservation at Le Monde. 8:00 PM."

My heart did a traitorous little stutter. Le Monde was impossible to get into.

"You remembered," I said softly.

"My assistant remembered," he corrected flatly.

He pulled a velvet box from his pocket and placed it on the drafting table. Next to it, he laid a single long-stemmed pink rose.

"Happy anniversary," he muttered.

I reached for the box, a foolish spark of hope igniting in my chest.

Then, his phone buzzed.

He looked at the screen. His expression shifted instantly. The boredom vanished, replaced by sharp alertness.

"I have to take this," he said.

He walked to the window, turning his back to me. "Bella? Slow down. What's wrong?"

I froze, my hand hovering over the velvet box.

"Okay," he said, his voice dropping to a soothing register I rarely heard. "Okay, I'm coming. Stay there."

He hung up and turned to me.

"Change of plans," he said. "We need to go."

"Go where?" I asked, my hand retracting. "Dinner?"

"We're stopping by the grand opening of The Sapphire Room first," he said. "Isabella is managing it. She's... having a crisis with the staff."

"Dante," I said, my voice tight. "It's our anniversary."

"It will take twenty minutes," he snapped, already moving toward the door. "Get your coat."

We drove in silence.

The Sapphire Room was a high-end lounge, a front for the Family's money laundering, but on the surface, it was all glitz and glamour.

We walked in. Isabella was standing near the bar, looking frantic in a silver dress that fit her like a second skin.

When she saw Dante, she didn't just smile. She beamed.

"You came!" she cried, rushing over. She linked her arm through his, pulling him close as if she owned the space he occupied. She glanced at me. "Oh. Hi, Elara. Thanks for lending him to me."

"He's not a library book," I said.

Dante ignored me. "What's the problem, Bella?"

"The band cancelled," she said, pouting. "And the flowers are all wrong. It's a disaster."

"We'll fix it," Dante said soothingly.

Then, he did something that stopped my heart.

He reached into his pocket. He pulled out the velvet box. The one he had put on my drafting table moments ago.

"Here," he said, handing it to Isabella. "For good luck on your opening night."

Isabella squealed. She opened the box. It was a diamond bracelet.

"Dante!" she gasped. "It's beautiful."

She threw her arms around his neck.

He looked over her shoulder at me. He didn't look guilty. He looked practical. Like he had just solved a logistical problem using the nearest available asset.

"And the rose," Isabella said, seeing the flower in his other hand. "Pink. My favorite."

He handed her the rose too.

"Happy opening," he said.

I stood there in my anniversary dress, watching my husband give my anniversary gift to his mistress.

I wasn't the wife. I was the courier. I was just the transportation method he used to get the diamonds from the estate to her wrist.

I turned around and walked toward the bar.

*Minus fifteen.*