The Rival Don's Treasured Second Chance

My husband, the King of New York's underworld, declined my call for the ninety-ninth time just as my brother's heart monitor flatlined. He claimed he was in a life-or-death sit-down with the Commission. But moments after my brother took his last breath, I saw his mistress's Instagram post. The "meeting" was an emergency C-section for her Persian cat. My brother was dead because a mistress's pet needed the surgeon Dante had promised to send for him. The betrayal didn't stop there. When our car was T-boned days later, Dante didn't pull me from the wreckage. He carried his mistress to safety, screaming for paramedics to save his "fiancée," leaving me trapped in the burning vehicle with crushed legs. Miraculously, I survived. Lying in the hospital bed, I waited for an apology. Instead, I got a threat. "Without me, you are nothing," Dante sneered, throwing a box of chocolates at me like I was a dog. But the final blow came from the County Clerk. When I tried to file for divorce, they told me no record existed. Seven years of loyalty. Seven years of standing by his side. And I wasn't even his wife. I was just a possession he had tricked into playing house. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I picked up my phone and scrolled past Dante's name to the one man he feared most: his rival, Alessandro De Luca. I typed three words. I need extraction. It was time to burn his kingdom to the ground.

Chapters

Chapter 2

The funeral was quiet, mostly because I couldn't afford for it to be anything else.

Dante controlled the accounts. I had a black card, but he saw every transaction, every decimal point. If I bought a coffin worthy of a Prince, he would know. If I bought a plot in the cemetery, he would know.

So I paid cash—stolen from the grocery budget over three years—for a cremation.

I stood on the pier at Coney Island, the wind lashing my hair into my face. The gray ash swirled in the air, indistinguishable from the dirty sand. I poured Luca into the Atlantic Ocean. No priest. No flowers. Just me and the salt water.

My phone rang.

It was Dante.

It had been a week since Luca died. A week of silence.

"Elara," he said. He sounded tired, the way he always did when he wanted me to feel guilty for his workload. "I am coming home tonight. Have dinner ready."

"Did the cat survive?" I asked. My voice was flat, hollowed out by the wind.

"What?"

"The surgery," I said. "Dr. Alistair. Did he save the cat?"

Dante sighed, a heavy exhale of impatience. "Elara, do not start. Seraphina's animal was in critical condition. It is a prize-winning breed. It is an asset."

"Luca was my brother," I said.

"And he was sick for a long time," Dante replied, dismissive. "We knew it was coming. You are being hysterical. I will bring you a bracelet tonight. The diamond one you liked."

"Don't bother," I said. "I won't be there."

"Excuse me?" His voice dropped an octave. The Don was surfacing. "Where will you be?"

"Cleaning," I lied.

I hung up.

I walked back to my car, a modest sedan Dante allowed me to drive because the Maybach was "too much car for a woman."

On the passenger seat lay a stack of papers. Divorce papers. Dante had drafted them six months ago during a fight, throwing them at me to prove I had nowhere to go. He never expected me to sign them.

But the ink was dry.

I drove to the Outskirts. The neutral territory. The slums where I grew up. Where I met Dante. Where I saved his life.

I needed to clear out Luca's apartment before the landlord threw his things on the street.

I pulled up to the crumbling tenement block. The windows were boarded up. The graffiti was fresh.

And parked right in front of the rotting entrance was a black Maybach.

My stomach dropped.

I killed the engine and sat low in the seat.

Dante stepped out of the car. He looked like a god among insects. His suit cost more than this entire building. He was impeccably groomed, his dark hair slicked back, his presence commanding the very air around him.

The passenger door opened.

Seraphina stepped out.

She was wearing white. Who wears white to the slums? She looked around with a sneer, lifting her heels high to avoid the puddles of grime.

"It smells like piss, Dante," she whined.

Dante walked around the car and wrapped an arm around her waist. He pulled her close, kissing her neck.

I watched my husband kiss another woman in front of the building where we fell in love.

"Not for long," Dante said, his voice carrying in the quiet street. "I bought the block this morning. We bulldoze it next week."

"And the penthouse?" Seraphina asked, tracing a finger down his lapel.

"Top floor," Dante promised. "Glass walls. You can look down on the city."

He took off his jacket—a five-thousand-dollar bespoke piece—and cast it over a muddy puddle so she could walk to the sidewalk.

I felt something snap in my chest. It wasn't a heartstring. It was a tether.

I opened my car door.

The sound of the metal hinge creaking was like a gunshot.

Dante's head snapped toward me.

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