The Mafia Don's Regret: Torturing His True Savior

My husband crushed the metacarpals of my left hand—my drawing hand—with a heavy leather-bound book. This was Punishment Ninety-Six. The offense? I had missed a single phone call from my stepsister, Joyce. According to Don Austen Ballard, ignoring the woman who allegedly saved his life fifteen years ago was akin to high treason. "Discipline is the highest form of love, Alana," he whispered, watching the violet bruise spread across my skin. He calls shattering an architect's hand "love." He believes Joyce dragged him from a burning building when he was a boy. He treats her like a living saint and me like a punching bag to pay his life debt. But it is all a lie. Fifteen years ago, Joyce was at a cheerleading camp three towns away. I was the one in that crawlspace. I was the one who found the bleeding boy in the dark. I was the one who called him "Stellen" because he was too terrified to tell me his real name. He has spent our entire marriage torturing his true savior to please a fraud. Tonight, the pain finally burned away my fear, leaving only cold resolve. I didn't cry. I waited until the house was silent, then I retrieved a burner phone hidden in a false bottom of a box in the bathroom. I dialed the number of his sworn enemy, Don Dalton Underwood. "I have the blueprints," I said, my voice steady despite the agony in my hand. "And I have the controlling shares of Ballard Industries. I'm ready to burn his kingdom to ash."

Chapters

Chapter 5

Alana POV

I arrived at my father's house looking less like a daughter and more like a car crash survivor.

My ribs were bound tight with tape, restricting every breath.

My hand was a throbbing mess.

Although my dress hid the bruises on my torso, my walk was a dead giveaway.

Robert McNeil opened the door.

He looked at me with unmasked disdain.

"Fix your hair," he hissed. "You look like a stray dog. You're embarrassing the Don."

"Nice to see you too, Dad," I muttered, limping past him into the foyer.

The dining room was set with gleaming crystal and china.

Austen sat at the head of the table.

Joyce sat to his right.

My mother's seat.

Diana, Joyce's mother, was fawning over them like a court jester.

"Alana," Joyce smiled, fingering a massive sapphire necklace. "You made it. Did you trip on the way here?"

"Something like that," I said, gripping the locket in my pocket as if it were a lifeline.

I sat down stiffly.

"Show us your little purchase," Joyce said. "The million-dollar tin can."

I didn't move.

"Show us," Austen commanded, his voice cold and detached. "Since you spent my money on it."

Reluctantly, I pulled the locket out.

Joyce snatched it from my hand before I could react.

"Oops," she said.

She let it slip from her fingers.

It hit the floor with a dull clatter.

Before I could move, she smashed her stiletto heel down on it.

The soft silver crumpled.

The hinge snapped.

"Oh no," Joyce giggled, feigning shock. "Clumsy me."

Something inside me snapped.

The tether that held my sanity to the earth finally broke.

I stood up.

I swung my good hand with everything I had left.

Crack.

My palm connected with Joyce's cheek with a force that vibrated up my arm.

It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

The room went deadly silent.

Joyce touched her face, eyes wide.

"She hit me!" she shrieked. "Austen! She hit the Savior!"

Austen stood up, his face thunderous.

"Alana!"

Diana shoved me hard.

I stumbled back, tripping over the edge of the rug.

I fell backwards into a glass sculpture on the side table.

It shattered.

Shards sliced into my back through the silk of my dress.

"Get her out of my sight!" Robert roared. "Lock her in the basement until she learns respect!"

Two of my father's guards grabbed me.

They dragged me toward the basement door.

"No," I pleaded, digging my heels in. "Not the basement. Please."

It was where Robert used to lock me whenever I got better grades than Joyce.

It was dark. Damp.

Full of spiders and memories.

They threw me down the stairs.

I tumbled, landing hard on the concrete.

The door slammed shut above me.

The lock clicked.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

My breath came in short, panic-stricken gasps.

The smell of mold triggered it.

Flashback.

Fifteen years ago.

The crawlspace.

The choking smoke.

The boy bleeding next to me.

"Don't let them find me," he had whispered, his voice trembling.

"I won't," I had promised. "I'm your Little Star. I'll shine for you."

I curled into a ball, rocking back and forth on the cold floor.

"I won't let them find you," I whispered to the empty room.

Time dissolved.

I didn't know how long I was down there.

Suddenly, the door at the top of the stairs exploded inward.

Light flooded in.

Austen stormed down the stairs.

He looked frantic.

"Alana!"

He scooped me up into his arms.

He smelled like rain and gunpowder.

"I've got you," he said, his voice rough. "I'm here."

He was playing the hero again.

Saving me from the hell he had allowed to happen.

I was delirious with pain and fear.

I looked up at his face.

The shadows made him look like the boy in the crawlspace.

I reached up and touched his cheek with a trembling hand.

"It's okay," I whispered, my voice slurring. "You're safe now, Stellen."

Austen froze.

He stopped halfway up the stairs.

His body went rigid as stone.

He looked down at me, his eyes wide with shock.

"What did you call me?"

"Stellen," I murmured, closing my eyes. "Your real name. The one you only told the Little Star."

I felt his heart hammer against my chest.

Joyce had never known that name.

Nobody knew that name.

Only the girl in the crawlspace.

The girl he had been torturing for five years.

"Alana?" his voice broke.

But I was already drifting away, leaving him alone with the truth that was about to destroy him.

Continue to next part

Alyssa Hart is out of options. Drowning in medical debt, with her mother's life hanging in the balance, she's desperate for a solution. When an unexpected email offers her an interview at the mysterious Valentino Enterprises, she doesn't hesitate. But what she walks into isn't a job opportunity... it's a marriage contract. The powerful and feared Valentino Crime family needs a wife for their heir, Stephano Valentino. Cold, ruthless, and utterly uninterested in love, Stephano has discarded every woman his parents have introduced him to. They don't expect Alyssa to be any different. The deal is simple: marry Stephano, bear his heir, and in two years, she'll be free, with enough money to ensure her mother's survival. There's only one rule: this is not a real marriage. Stephano can do as he pleases, but Alyssa is bound to him alone. She should hate him. He gives her every reason to. But the longer she stays, the more she begins to see through the cracks in his armour. Beneath his icy exterior is something broken, something she can't help but want to fix. And Stephano, who swore he would never care, finds himself drawn to the woman he was never meant to love. But in their world, love is a weakness, and breaking the rules always comes with a price...

Mafia Modern Romance

7.4

Bloody Love

7.4

Vivian Harrison used to be an ordinary nurse at the hospital, but she had the rare Rh-negative blood type. Three years ago, she saved the life of the king of the underworld, Archie Palmer, who had been on the brink of death, with her blood. From that moment on, she had completely fallen for him. However, when Archie awoke, he just coldly handed her a marriage contract. "I never owe anyone a favor." The marriage, in the name of repaying a favor, became a gilded cage that confined Vivian for three years. Archie made Vivian his wife, yet he gave all his tenderness and devotion to a vivacious and innocent woman-Cassie Fuller. He would drive across half the city on a stormy night just to stay with Cassie because she was afraid of the dark. He would spend a fortune at an auction to acquire a piece of priceless jewelry, because Cassie said she liked it. Yet, all he ever offered Vivian was endless indifference and suspicion. When Cassie suffered even the slightest grievance, he would unhesitatingly lay all the blame on Vivian and even torment and punish Vivian in the cruelest ways. "Your blood disgusts me as much as you do, Vivian." Later, when Vivian took a fatal bullet for him and lay bleeding on the ground, he walked coldly past her, holding the frightened Cassie in his arms, without sparing Vivian even a glance. At that moment, Vivian finally understood that this marriage was nothing but a joke from the start. She decided that she would no longer play along with Archie. But when Vivian, her body battered and broken, resolutely left Archie, and Archie, who had always claimed he never loved Vivian, for the first time felt his eyes sting, and frantically searched for her all over the world.

Mafia Modern Romance

7.5

Divorcing the Don: And Then I Took Everything

7.5

For six years, Isabella Rossi used her family's immense wealth to save her husband's Mafia empire from bankruptcy while he fought on the front lines. Her reward? Don Damien Moretti returns with a mistress, a secret son, and a demand: Accept them, and keep paying the bills. He expects her to swallow her pride. Instead, Isabella closes her checkbook. She demands a divorce, cuts off their funding, and leaves his "glorious" empire to starve. But a Queen stepping down draws wolves. Enter Giovanni Falcone-the ruthless, untouchable King of the New York Underworld. He doesn't want her money; he wants her. Now, her ex-husband is begging for her back. But Isabella? She's too busy building her own empire-and watching his burn.

Mafia Modern Romance

9.0

Protected By The Enforcer: My Ex-Husband's Regret

9.0

The rejection letter from the private security school arrived on a Tuesday. It stated clearly that the single slot allocated to my son, Danny, had been filled by another boy. My husband, a high-ranking Capo, had signed away our son’s protection to make room for his mistress’s bastard. He sneered at me, calling Danny "soft," and sent him to an unguarded cabin in the north to toughen up. Three days later, the Russians took him. When the courier arrived, there was no ransom demand. Just a package containing a shred of blue cotton with a green T-Rex, soaked in black, stiff blood. Tom didn't shed a tear. He poured a scotch, stepped over me as I wept on the floor, and blamed me for coddling the boy. Overwhelmed by the silence of a house that would never hear my son's laughter again, I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills to escape the pain. But the darkness didn't last. I woke up gasping, my heart hammering against my ribs. Sunlight hit my face. "Mommy?" Danny stood in the doorway, wearing his dinosaur pajamas, whole and alive. I looked at the calendar. It was May 15th. The day the letter arrived. The grief in my chest calcified into cold rage. I knew about the skimming. I knew about the fake widow status. I knew exactly how to bury my husband. I picked up the phone and dialed the one number no wife was ever supposed to call directly—the Enforcer. "I have evidence of treason," I said. "And I'm bringing the proof."

Mafia Modern Romance

9.8

Runaway Nurse: The Mafia King's Remorse

9.8

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.

Horror Mafia Modern

7.9

The Dead Bride's Vicious Mafia Comeback

7.9

A year ago, my husband Marco traded my life for a political alliance. I watched his mistress's taillights fade into the dark as the freezing waters of Lake Michigan swallowed me whole. They called my drowning a tragic accident and burned a fake body before anyone could demand an autopsy. Tonight, Marco is marrying that same mistress, Isabella, in a lavish ballroom filled with Chicago's underworld elites. They even conceived a child during my mourning period, a deadly sin in our traditional Mafia family. They thought I was rotting at the bottom of the lake, completely forgotten. But they didn't know I had survived, bleeding through brutal underground training just to crawl my way back. When the wedding venue plunged into darkness and a single spotlight hit me standing there in a white mourning gown, Marco dropped his glass. "Arabella? No... you're dead," he choked out, his face draining of blood. Isabella shrieked, looking like she had seen the devil himself. Did they really think a little water could wash away our sacred vows? They stole my life, my name, and my family, expecting me to stay a compliant ghost forever so they could secure their power. I smiled coldly as I handed the Mafia Don a decree of absolute protection from The Commission. I am Arabella Stark, and my vendetta only ends when they drown in their own blood.

Mafia Modern Romance

The Mafia Don's Regret: Torturing His True Savior

Chapter 5

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