Too Late, Mr. Don: The Wife You Buried

I went to the family lawyer for a routine travel clearance. Instead, I was handed a divorce decree. The ink was three years old.

While I had been playing the role of the dutiful Capo's wife, Dante had secretly divorced me the day after our fifth anniversary.

Twenty-four hours later, he legally married the nanny, Gia, and named her cruel-eyed son as his heir.

I returned home to confront him, only for the boy to throw boiling tomato soup on me.

Dante didn't check my burns. He cradled the boy and looked at me with pure, drug-fueled hatred, calling me a monster for upsetting his "son."

The final blow came in a parking garage. A car sped toward us.

Dante didn't pull me to safety. He shoved me into the vehicle's path, using my body as a human shield to protect his mistress.

Lying broken on the asphalt, I realized Aria Vitiello was already dead to him. So, I decided to make it official.

I arranged a private flight over the Atlantic and ensured there were no survivors.

By the time Dante was weeping over the wreckage, realizing too late that he had been poisoned against me, I was already in France.

The Canary was dead. The Reaper had risen.

Chapter 1

Aria POV

The ink on the divorce decree was three years old, but the paper sliced my thumb like a fresh blade as I held it.

I sat in the wingback leather chair across from Mr. Rossi, the family lawyer who had known me since I was a child in braids. He was sweating. A bead of perspiration rolled down his graying temple, betraying the terrified silence that suffocated the room.

I had come here simply to renew my security clearance for international travel-a routine procedure for the wife of a Capo. Instead, I was staring at my own erasure.

"This is a mistake," I said, my voice sounding hollow, as if coming from a great distance. "We are Catholic. We are Cosa Nostra. We do not divorce."

Mr. Rossi wiped his forehead with a trembling handkerchief. He couldn't meet my eyes.

"It was filed quietly, Donna Aria. Sealed by the highest judges in Chicago. The Don insisted on absolute secrecy."

I looked at the date again. Three years ago. The day after our fifth anniversary. The day after I had woken up alone in our bed, told by the maids that Dante had urgent business.

"And this?" I pointed to the second document.

A marriage certificate. Dated twenty-four hours after the divorce.

Dante Vitiello. Gia Russo.

My husband was not my husband. For three years, I had been living a lie, playing the role of the dutiful wife, hosting his dinners, warming his bed, all while he was legally bound to the woman he called the nanny.

Mr. Rossi slid a third document across the mahogany desk, his movements hesitant.

"He has also formally recognized the boy, Leo, as his blood heir. The Vitiello line continues through him."

The room spun. I gripped the armrests of the chair to keep from sliding to the floor. Leo. The boy with the cruel eyes and the mother who mixed herbal teas that smelled like sulfur and rot.

A sick realization clawed at my throat. I remembered my wedding day. I remembered Gia standing in the back, smiling as I drank the wine that tasted slightly off-metallic, wrong. I remembered the sickness that followed, the months of agony, and the doctor telling me my womb had withered. I was barren.

I remembered Dante holding my hand then. He had sworn a Vendetta against anyone who had hurt me. He had promised to burn the world for me.

Now I knew he had married the arsonist.

I stood up. My legs felt like lead, but my spine was steel. It was the only thing holding me together.

"I will take these copies," I said.

Mr. Rossi looked like he wanted to stop me, to offer some useless apology, but he knew better. I walked out of the office and into the waiting armored car. The drive back to the estate was a blur of gray Chicago streets. I felt nothing. The shock was a cold anesthetic, numbing the amputation of my life.

When I entered the foyer, the house felt different. It was no longer my sanctuary. It was a stage, and I was the prop that had overstayed its welcome.

Voices drifted from the parlor. I stopped outside the open doors, remaining in the shadows.

Dante was there. He was pacing, his movements jerky, his pupils wide and dilated. Gia sat on the velvet sofa, watching him with a predator's patience.

"She is asking questions, Dante," Gia said softly. Her voice was like syrup laced with arsenic. "She went to Rossi today."

Dante ran a hand through his hair. He looked manic, a man unraveling.

"It does not matter. She is nothing. You are the Queen, Gia. You always have been."

He fell to his knees before her, burying his face in her lap. It was a display of submission that made my stomach turn. Dante Vitiello did not kneel. The Reaper did not beg. But this man-this husk of a husband-was worshiping her.

"I need you," he mumbled into the fabric of her dress, his voice cracking. "The tea, Gia. My head is splitting."

She stroked his hair, her eyes lifting to meet mine in the hallway. She knew I was there. She smiled.

"Soon, my love," she said to him, staring right at me.

I backed away. I retreated to the guest wing, the only place that felt remotely safe. My hand went to my flat stomach, feeling the phantom ache of the children I would never have. They had taken my husband, my title, and my future.

I pulled my burner phone from my purse. My hands were steady now. The shaking had stopped when the hope died.

I dialed a number I had never used, but had memorized for a lifetime.

"Luca," I whispered when the line clicked open.

"Aria." His voice was deep, rough like gravel. "Why are you calling on this line?"

"I need a cleaner," I said, staring at the blank wall.

"Who is the target?" he asked.

"Me."

Aria POV

Luca held the line in silence for a long, stretching moment.

I could hear the distant, chaotic hum of a busy street on his end, a stark and brutal contrast to the tomb-like stillness of my bedroom.

"Explain," he finally demanded, his voice low.

"I am dead here, Luca," I whispered, gripping the phone. "If I stay, they will kill me. Or I will kill myself. I need to vanish."

I heard the metallic click of a lighter, followed by the hiss of a sharp exhale.

"The Reaper will tear this city down to the bricks if you go missing."

"He won't," I said, my gaze drifting to the wedding photo on the nightstand. The glass was spiderwebbed from where it had been thrown. "He has a replacement lined up. A new heir. I am just a loose end waiting to be cut."

I told him everything-the divorce papers, the sham marriage, the chemical glaze I saw in Dante's eyes.

"I need a crash," I said, my voice trembling. "Total destruction. A classic disposal on the route to the coast."

"Consider it done," Luca replied, his tone shifting to professional ice. "Be at the private strip in two hours. I have a safe house in Provence prepped for you."

I hung up. Provence. Endless fields of lavender. A place where the name Vitiello carried no weight, no blood.

I began to pack with frantic efficiency. No clothes, no jewelry. I took only cash and the fake passport Luca had forged for me years ago-a failsafe I had prayed never to use.

I was just zipping the lining of the suitcase shut when the door handle turned.

I shoved the bag under the bed just as the housekeeper, Maria, stepped inside. She looked pale, her hands wringing in her apron.

"The Don is asking for you, Donna Aria."

I nodded, composing myself. I checked my reflection in the mirror; I looked pale, ghostly. Fitting for a woman walking to her own funeral.

I walked out and descended the grand staircase. Dante was waiting in the foyer. Gia stood beside him, her hand resting on his forearm with a possessiveness that made my stomach turn.

The boy, Leo, was playing with a toy car on the cold marble floor.

Dante looked up. For a heartbeat, I saw the man I used to love fighting to surface through the haze-confused, in pain. Then the chemical glaze returned, swallowing him whole.

"There you are," he said. His voice was too loud, too manic.

I took the last few steps slowly. I smelled it immediately-her perfume. It was cloying, sweet, and heavy, clinging to his suit jacket like a second skin.

"Who are our guests?" I asked, keeping my face mask-like.

Dante blinked, as if genuinely surprised I had to ask.

"This is Gia. The new nanny. And this is Leo. I am taking him on as a ward. He needs a father figure."

Gia smirked. It was a small, sharp expression, like a blade slipping from a sheath.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Vitiello," she said, emphasizing the title she had already stolen.

Leo looked up from his car. He was ten years old, but his eyes held no childhood innocence.

"Hi, Mommy," he sneered.

The word was a calculated slap. Gia let out a small, delicate laugh.

"He is just playing," she cooed.

I felt the bile rise in my throat, burning. I turned to retreat upstairs, my hands trembling at my sides.

"Wait," Dante ordered. His tone shifted, becoming sharp and authoritative. "Leo made you lunch. To start off on the right foot."

Leo stood up, brushing imaginary dust off his knees. He ran into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a steaming bowl of tomato soup. He walked toward me, a strange, eager expression plastered on his face.

"Here," he said.

I reached out to take the bowl, intending to set it down on the nearest table and leave.

But the moment my fingers brushed the ceramic, Leo's expression twisted. He shoved the bowl forward with vicious force.

The boiling liquid splashed over my hand and wrist.

I gasped, the pain instantaneous and searing. The bowl shattered on the floor, the red soup looking like a splatter of arterial blood on the white marble.

Before I could even draw a breath, Leo threw himself backward onto the floor.

"She burned me!" he screamed, clutching his unblemished arm, his face contorted in fake agony. "She threw it at me!"

Aria POV

The double doors to the study crashed against the paneling. Dante rushed in, Gia close on his heels.

He didn't look at me. He didn't even glance at the red, blistering skin on my hand. He went straight to the boy writhing on the floor.

"Leo!" Dante roared, scooping the child into his arms.

"She did it on purpose!" Leo sobbed, burying his face in Dante's chest. "She said she hates me!"

Dante turned to me. His eyes were black pits, pupils blown wide. There was no recognition in them, no memory of the ten years we had spent together. There was only the drug-fueled rage of a protector defending his pack.

"What is wrong with you?" he spat.

I held my wrist, the skin peeling back in angry strips. "Dante, he dropped the tureen," I stammered. "He burned me."

"Liar!" Gia shrieked. She rushed to Dante's side, stroking Leo's hair. "She is jealous, Dante. She is jealous because she is broken. Because she cannot give you what I gave you."

Dante's gaze dropped to my stomach. The look of disgust on his face shattered whatever was left of my heart.

"You are a monster," he said, his voice low and venomous. "You attack a child because of your own failure?"

"My failure?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "You swore to protect me."

"I protect my family," Dante snarled. "Get out of my sight. If you touch him again, Aria, I will forget who you were to me."

He turned his back. He walked away, carrying the boy who was smirking into his shoulder. Gia followed, pausing at the doorway to look back at me.

She didn't say a word. She just smiled, a victory lap in silence.

I stood there frozen for a long time. The soup was drying tacky and stiff on my skin. The burn throbbed in time with my heartbeat, a distinct, rhythmic agony.

I walked to the kitchen sink. I ran cold water over my hand. I wrapped it in a towel. I did it all mechanically, like a robot programmed only for survival.

I remembered a time when a waiter had spilled wine on my dress. Dante had broken the man's fingers. Now, I was the enemy.

I went upstairs to my room. I sat on the edge of the bed we used to share.

An hour later, the door opened. Dante stood there. He looked exhausted, the manic energy fading into a chemical slump.

"I am sleeping in Leo's room tonight," he said. "He is traumatized."

I didn't look at him. I stared at the white bandage on my hand.

"Okay," I said.

He lingered. Maybe he expected a fight. Maybe deep down, the real Dante was screaming to get out. But the drugs were stronger.

"Good," he said.

He left.

I lay down in the dark. The walls of the estate were thick, but not thick enough.

I heard the door to the guest wing open. I heard Gia's voice, low and murmuring. I heard Dante's deep rumble.

And then I heard the rhythmic creak of the bedsprings. The sounds of my husband taking another woman in the house my father had built.

I didn't cry. Tears were for the living. My marriage was a corpse, and I was just waiting for the funeral.