Signing Away The Mafia Don

For five years, I nursed my crippled mafia boss husband back to health.

But the moment he reclaimed his throne, he brought home his childhood friend, Rosalie.

He gave her the master suite and ordered me to the kitchens to prepare food like a common maid.

Even my eight-year-old stepdaughter, whom I had raised since she was a toddler, started looking at me with absolute disgust.

"I wish you were my real mother, Aunt Rosalie. She dresses like a peasant and doesn't belong in our bloodline."

When Rosalie orchestrated a fake kidnapping to frame me, my own daughter looked Vincenzo in the eyes and lied to support the mistress.

Then, Rosalie faked a fainting spell at the top of the grand staircase.

Vincenzo rushed up to catch her, letting me tumble violently down the hard marble steps.

As I lay paralyzed in a pool of my own blood, miscarrying our unborn child, he carried her away without sparing me a single glance.

I didn't understand.

I had pulled him from the edge of death, washed his wasted body, and carved the wooden cane he used to walk.

Why was my five years of absolute devotion treated like disposable garbage?

When the doctor delivered the crushing news about my baby, the last ember of affection I held for him went cold.

I signed the annulment papers without asking for a single cent, and vanished from the city forever.

Chapter 1

Serena POV

My shoes seemed to have fused with the marble of the grand foyer. From that rooted spot, I watched the syndicate soldiers snap the wooden cane I had carved for my husband across a man's knee.

Before the echo of the splintering wood had faded, my phone vibrated, a low hum against my hip. A message from my stepdaughter.

"Aunt Rosalie is wearing the diamonds Dad bought for you. Do not come to the main hall and embarrass us."

I lifted my gaze from the acidic blue light of the screen as Vincenzo wrapped his custom suit jacket around another woman's shoulders.

He was the Don of the Cosa Nostra. He was the most ruthless man in the city, a man who commanded thousands of soldiers and bathed his hands in blood to reclaim his throne.

Five years ago, he had been a man undone, with legs of useless bone and sinew. His bastard brother, Bastian, had crippled him to steal his territory. I had found Vincenzo on the ledge of a safehouse roof, a silhouette poised against the grey sky. I had pulled him back.

For five years, I had sponged his inert body, endured the shards of a whiskey glass he had hurled at the wall when the pain made him feral, and carved that wooden cane with blistered hands so he could learn to stand again.

Now, he was the king again.

And kings did not need reminders of the days they crawled in the dirt.

Rosalie was his childhood friend from an allied family. She had arrived three weeks ago, claiming she needed sanctuary to escape a brutal arranged marriage to a rival boss.

Vincenzo had given her the master guest suite. He gave her his time, his protection, and his smiles.

I sought a measure of quiet on the upper floor, taking the sweeping marble staircase to Donna's room.

My eight-year-old stepdaughter was standing in the center of her bedroom. The pale pink dress I had spent three weeks sewing for her lay in shreds on the floor. She held a pair of scissors that gleamed in her hand.

"I am not wearing this civilian trash to the family gathering," Donna said. She lifted her chin, mimicking the haughty look Rosalie always wore. "Aunt Rosalie said a mafia princess needs to wear designer silk, not rags made by a maid."

A metallic taste, like old rust, rose in the back of my throat. I swallowed, and the high collar of my sweater scraped against my jaw like coarse sacking.

I had raised Donna since she was a toddler. I had rocked her to sleep when the sound of gunshots outside the safehouse made her cry.

Now, she looked at me like I was dirt on her shoes.

The light from the hallway was abruptly blocked as Vincenzo's frame filled the doorway. His dark eyes swept over the ruined dress on the floor and then settled on me.

"Leave the girl alone, Serena," he said. His voice was cold, carrying the unassailable authority of the Don. "Go to the kitchens. Prepare the food for the capos. You lack the grace to stand beside me tonight."

He turned, and the sound of his footsteps on the marble was the only answer.

I went down to the kitchens, a tremor starting in my hands that I could not still.

Through the large windows, I saw the soldiers toss the pieces of the wooden cane into a large industrial dumpster near the outdoor fire pit. They did not grant it the dignity of flame, treating my years of devotion like common refuse. The little heart I had carved into the wood was buried under the dross.

A shrill ring cut through the quiet of the house. A maid answered it and handed it to me, her gaze fixed on the floor tiles.

It was Vincenzo.

"Rosalie invited me to the club downtown," he said. His tone was softer than it had been in months. "Prepare a light salad for when we return."

He hung up before I could speak.

The icy tap water sluiced over my wrists. A wilted lettuce leaf broke free and clogged the drain. I did not retrieve it, merely watched as the basin slowly filled with a cloudy, rising tide.

"Ensure there is no cilantro," the maid next to me whispered. "Miss Rosalie detests cilantro."

I stopped moving.

The Don and his entire staff knew the interloper's tastes better than mine.

An impulse I could not govern drew me from the kitchen. I saw them near the front doors.

Rosalie made a show of losing her footing on the polished marble. Vincenzo caught her by the waist effortlessly, his arm securing her against him.

"Oh, I am so sorry, Vincenzo," Rosalie laughed softly, her fingers splayed against the lapel of his suit. "I am such a burden."

"It is no trouble," he answered, his attention remaining fixed upon her face.

He had never caught me when I stumbled from the bone-deep weariness of those five years. He had only ever expected me to keep standing.

And I was so tired of standing.