Too Late To Love Your Drowned Wife

I gave up my champion swimming career and my pride to be the loyal wife of the most ruthless Don in the American Cosa Nostra.

But when his runaway mistress faked drowning in our estate pool, my husband didn't see me trying to save her.

He hauled her from the water, swaddling her in a thick towel, and stood over me as I bled on the hot flagstones.

To break my pride, he dragged me up ten flights of stairs by my wet hair.

"Please, she jumped!" I begged.

But he just stared at me with cold loathing and shoved me into the freezing rooftop water tank.

I fought desperately for my life, but he stood at the edge like carved granite, stomping on my hands until my bones cracked and my lungs burned for oxygen.

The last thing I saw before I sank to my watery grave was my husband walking away to comfort the woman who framed me.

I had spent eight long years cleaning up his messes and playing the perfect Mafia Queen.

Why did my absolute devotion only buy my brutal execution?

Now, trapped as a ghost in our penthouse, I watched him trail kisses down her neck while my rotting body tainted his tap water.

But as he desperately tried to destroy the security footage of my murder, a cold fire burned in my hollow chest.

Even in death, I was going to tear his empire apart.

Chapter 1

Siena POV

I watched my husband, the most ruthless Don of the American Cosa Nostra, trail open-mouth kisses down his mistress's neck while my body, in its slow decay, turned in the currents of the water tank directly above their penthouse ceiling.

This was my reality now.

I was a shade, a presence bound to the very spot where the man I loved had extinguished my life. I tried to trace the outline of the chesterfield sofa, but my fingers passed through the oiled leather, finding no texture, no warmth. Even the memory of a pulse had been hollowed out.

Leonardo was a monster to the rest of the world. He commanded an army of syndicate soldiers, signing death warrants over his morning espresso and rinsing the scent of cordite from his cuticles before dinner. But to me, he was supposed to be my protector.

I was the Underboss's daughter-a champion swimmer who had locked her medals away in a basement vault and cinched her waist into the stiff bones of a corseted gown, all to better suit his station.

I gave him my absolute devotion.

He gave me a watery grave.

Right now, Leonardo was pressing Francesca against the expensive leather sofa in his secure safehouse. His hands roamed over her delicate curves.

Francesca let out a soft giggle, her fingers hooking into the broad cloth of his shoulders.

I lingered in the corner of the room, a pocket of dead air where feeling was a forgotten language.

Three days ago, I had been alive.

Three days ago, Francesca had stood by the edge of the estate pool. She had looked me dead in the eye and her lips had parted in a smile of profound wickedness before she threw herself backward into the deep end.

She flailed her arms, screaming that she could not swim.

I dove in to save her.

Leonardo arrived just as I grabbed her arm. He did not see a rescue; he saw his lawful wife trying to drown his untouchable queen.

He hauled Francesca from the water, swaddling her in a thick towel. Then he stood over me as I bled onto the hot flagstones, his shadow falling across my body. He commanded me to apologize to his mistress before the assembled estate guards. When I refused, his eyes-dark and violent-fixed upon me. A fist closed in my wet hair, and he began to drag me up ten flights of stairs, each step an agony of metal and concrete.

The heavy metal lid of the water tank was already open.

I begged him to listen to me, the words catching in my throat like sobs, insisting that she had jumped.

Leonardo just stared at me with an expression of cold loathing before he shoved me backward over the edge.

The water was freezing. I was a strong swimmer, but the brutal climb had stolen the strength from my limbs. I tried to pull myself up over the rusty rim.

Leonardo raised his custom leather shoe and brought his heel down square in my chest.

I fell back into the dark water, a mouthful of the frigid liquid burning my throat.

I swam up again, my lungs screaming for air.

The first kick struck the back of my hand; I heard the muffled crack of a knuckle-bone giving way. The second, a hard-toed dress shoe, stamped my cheek, sending a constellation of white light across my vision.

He stood at the edge like a figure carved from granite and watched me fight for my life.

My legs cramped. My muscles seized. My lungs burned with a desperate, agonizing need for oxygen.

The last thing I saw before I sank toward the rusty drain at the bottom of the tank was my husband walking away.

Now, I watched him kiss the woman who had framed me.

Leonardo's encrypted burner phone buzzed on the glass coffee table, a sound like a rusty saw cutting through the heavy air.

He pulled away from Francesca with a heavy sigh and picked up the device.

I drifted closer.

It was Enzo, Leonardo's Consigliere.

Leonardo put the phone to his ear, his jaw tight.

"Boss, we have a problem at the estate," Enzo said. "The capos are complaining in the group chat. The tap water smells like rotting meat."

Leonardo rolled his eyes. "Tell maintenance to flush the pipes. Do not bother me with this garbage."

Enzo paused. "Boss. Siena has been missing for three days. No one has seen your wife."

Leonardo's expression hardened, his eyes becoming flat and lifeless, like discs of polished jet.

"She is not a priority right now," Leonardo snapped.

He hung up the phone and tossed it back onto the table.

Francesca traced her manicured finger down his chest, looking up at him through thick eyelashes.

"Is everything okay, Leo?" she asked softly. "Is it about Siena? I am so worried about her."

Leonardo scoffed, pulling Francesca into his lap.

"Do not waste your tears on that bitch," he said. "She got exactly what she deserved. I made sure she will never touch you again."

Francesca buried her face in his neck. Her shoulders, hidden from his view, gave a slight, triumphant tremor.

Upstairs, the water in the tank sloshed against the metal walls, thick with the smell of my own rotting flesh.

*I stared at the ceiling, and in the hollow where my heart used to beat, a cold pressure began to build-silent, patient, and gathering weight with every passing hour. *

Siena POV

A heavy knock echoed through the penthouse.

Leonardo cursed under his breath. He rose, giving the lapels of his tailored suit jacket a sharp, definitive tug.

Francesca stayed on the sofa, crossing her long legs and making a slow, deliberate show of smoothing the wrinkles from her silk dress.

Leonardo opened the heavy oak door.

Three men in dark gray jumpsuits stood in the hallway. They were the syndicate's discreet maintenance crew, the unseen hands that handled the messes the police were never allowed to see.

The head of the crew took his hat off, his knuckles white where he wrung the brim, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of the Don's expensive shoes.

"Sorry to interrupt, Boss," the man said. "We are checking all the units in Building 10. There is a serious issue with the water supply."

Leonardo crossed his arms. "Fix it quietly. Why are you bothering me?"

The man swallowed hard. "It is a biological contamination, Boss. The filters are clogged. We need to check the rooftop tank. Did any of the men lose a dog? A large pet?"

Francesca let out a bright, melodic laugh from the living room.

"We lost a person," she called out. "A living, breathing person."

The three maintenance men froze, their faces becoming slack and pale. They stared at the floor. In our world, hearing a joke like that meant you might not live to see tomorrow.

Leonardo shot a warning glare over his shoulder before turning back to the men.

"Get to the roof," Leonardo ordered. "Clean the tank. If you whisper a single word of what you find up there to another soul, I will have your families burying you in three separate caskets."

The men nodded in a flurry of jerky movements and rushed toward the stairwell.

Leonardo closed the door and locked the deadbolt. He walked back to the living room and poured himself a glass of amber whiskey.

"You need to watch your mouth, Francesca," he said, his tone sharp, yet underscored with a note of undeniable fondness.

Francesca pouted. She walked over and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I'm just tired of hiding," she whispered. "She has been gone for three days. Can we just say she ran away?"

Leonardo took a sip of his drink. "I hope she dies out there in the streets."

Francesca rested her chin on his chest. "Do you think you were too hard on her at the pool? You were so angry, Leo. It scared me."

Leonardo set his glass down, cupping her face with his large hands.

"She pushed you," he said firmly. "You could have drowned. She is a vicious, jealous woman. She deserved the wrath of this Family. I am the Don. I protect what is mine."

Weightless and unseen, I hovered inches from his face. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to tear his eyes out.

I did not push her.

Francesca was a cartel runaway, a girl who grew up swimming in the ocean. She had faked the entire thing to trigger his violent temper.

I had tried to pull her out. But Leonardo had shoved me so hard my knees left skin and blood on the flagstones.

He had stood over me while I bled, his voice a low command for me to apologize to his mistress in front of the estate guards.

I refused. I had my pride. I was a mafia daughter before I was his wife.

And my refusal sealed my death warrant.

He dragged me to the roof to break my pride, but he ended up breaking my body instead.

The burner phone on the table rang again.

Leonardo picked it up. "Yeah?"

It was the head of the maintenance crew. His voice was shaking so badly the words barely made sense.

"Boss. Boss, please. We opened the tank."

Leonardo frowned. "What is it? Just clean it out."

"It's a body, Boss," the man sobbed. "It's a woman. She is completely bloated. Boss... It's your wife. It's Siena."

Leonardo stopped breathing.

His impenetrable facade cracked right down the middle.

The expensive burner phone slipped from his slack fingers, and the screen spider-webbed into a dozen jagged lines against the glass of the coffee table.

*I watched the splintered glass scatter across the floor, and for the first time since my death, I felt something shift-not quite a pulse, but the first tremor of a power I did not yet understand. *

Siena POV

Leonardo stared at the splintered screen of the phone.

The collar of his bespoke suit suddenly felt like a hangman's knot. He fumbled at his tie, his Adam's apple bobbing, a sour taste of bile rising in his throat.

Francesca rushed over, her brow furrowed in alarm. "Leo? What happened? Who was that?"

Leonardo did not answer. He pushed past her, his eyes wide and unseeing, and bolted for the door.

I floated right behind him, a formless specter drawn into the vortex of his panic. I watched the powerful, untouchable Don stumble down the hallway like a man in his cups.

He took the stairs to the roof two at a time, the frantic slap of his leather soles echoing in the concrete stairwell.

I followed him, remembering the last time we were on these stairs. The roots of my hair had burned where his fist was knotted. My knees had slammed against the hard edges of the metal grates.

I had loved him completely. I had offered up my dignity on a platter to be his loyal instrument.

My father had the muscle, and Leonardo had the ambition. Their alliance was what had put Leonardo on the throne.

When Leonardo proposed to me right after I graduated college, I thought he finally saw me. I thought he finally loved me.

I had abandoned my swimming career for him. I stayed in the shadows, ignoring the late nights and the cloying, alien scent of cheap perfume on his collars when Francesca moved back to the States.

I had bought my own brutal execution with my blind loyalty.

Leonardo burst through the heavy roof doors, the hinges groaning in protest against his force.

The scene was already chaotic. The maintenance men had called the syndicate's private medical examiner, but someone else had tipped off the feds.

Men in dark windbreakers with FBI printed in bright yellow were securing the perimeter under the harsh, artificial glare of floodlights.

Leonardo pushed his way through the crowd of agents, moving like a man possessed.

"Stop right there," an agent yelled, reaching out to block his path.

Leonardo ignored him, shoving the man aside until he reached the base of the water tank.

The medical examiner was lowering a black body bag onto the concrete roof using a mechanical winch, the gears grinding with a coarse, mechanical sound in the night air.

The zipper was partially open.

The smell hit Leonardo first. It was the heavy, sickeningly sweet stench of rotting meat and stagnant water.

A spasm seized Leonardo's body. He doubled over and heaved up the amber whiskey, the foul liquid splashing across the lapels of his custom suit jacket and his expensive shoes as his frame convulsed with the horror of it.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his chest laboring for air as he forced himself to look at the bag.

A swollen, discolored face peeked out from the dark plastic. The skin was peeling, and the lips were blue and torn.

"No," Leonardo whispered, the sound a raw tear in his throat.

He fell to his knees, the rough concrete scraping through the fine wool of his expensive slacks as if he no longer felt physical pain.

"No. That is not her."

An FBI agent stepped in front of him. "Mr. Vitiello. Step back from the deceased."

Leonardo looked up. His eyes were wild, stripping away the polished mafia boss until he looked completely deranged.

"That is not my wife!" he screamed, the raw anguish in his voice a shockwave that silenced the night.

He lunged forward, his hands reaching desperately for the body bag.

Two armed federal agents tackled him, their combined weight slamming the Don of the Cosa Nostra face-first into the dirty roof.

Leonardo thrashed against them, kicking his legs as he let out a guttural roar, a sound more animal than human.

"Get off me! She is alive! She is not dead!"

The lead agent crouched down next to Leonardo's pinned face, his expression unyielding.

"Your men found her in your water tank," the agent said coldly. "You are coming with us, Vitiello. You have a lot of questions to answer about the Underboss's daughter."

*I hovered above his pinned body, and the cold pressure in my chest swelled into something sharper-a gathering storm. I had been weightless, powerless, for three days. But as I watched him thrash in the grip of men who answered to a law he could not buy, I realized my rage was no longer just a feeling. It was becoming a weapon. *