Too Late, Mafia Don: I Am Free

For three years, I surrendered my nights and bartered my own prospects to build a flawless legitimate business empire for my fiancé, Domenico, the most feared heir in the mafia syndicate.

But as I was finishing the final ledger to secure his seat as Don, a flight confirmation popped up on his phone.

He had booked two first-class tickets to a high-level mafia summit in Sicily-for himself and Lyla, the girl who had been actively trying to destroy my life.

When Domenico walked into the room, he didn't explain. Instead, he complained I was working too slowly.

He used the threat of breaking our arranged marriage as a leash, demanding I finish his work.

Lyla rushed in, playing the innocent victim, and Domenico immediately wrapped a comforting arm around her waist.

He looked at me with cold, vacant eyes and issued his final ultimatum.

"Apologize to her, and know your place, or you will be nothing to the Family."

His soldiers sneered, waiting eagerly for me to crawl back and beg for the future Don's favor.

I stared at the arrogant man I had sacrificed my youth for.

The dutiful beat of my heart, which had hammered out a rhythm for him alone, simply went still. The great, heavy anchor of my loyalty dissolved into a strange weightlessness.

I didn't shed a single tear.

I calmly stood up, walked over to the industrial shredder, and fed every single page of his commercial blueprint into the blades.

"The betrothal is dead," I told him, watching his future turn to confetti. "I owe neither of you a single word."

Chapter 1

Sienna POV

As my pen laid down the last false integer in the ledger that would secure my fiancé's seat as Don of the Cosa Nostra, a flight confirmation for two first-class tickets he had purchased days earlier materialized on the screen of the phone he had left on my desk. My eyes fixed on the illuminated text, my mind not so much racing as grinding to a halt around a single, indigestible fact. The device gave a low hum against the mahogany, a vibration that seemed to run up my arm and into my chest.

It was for two first-class tickets to a high-level mafia summit in Sicily-booked for him and the girl who had been actively trying to destroy my life.

Without the portfolio I was to finish by midnight, the Capos would find his grasp on the legitimate front of his underworld empire questionable.

For three years, I had surrendered my nights, bartering my own prospects to burnish the flawless veneer of Domenico's Ivy League business image.

He was the most feared heir in the syndicate, a man whose hands were stained with a violence I had tried to ignore, and whose presence commanded an absolute, airless terror.

I stared at the screen, and a cold dread, slow and creeping as winter frost, began to form in my veins.

A moment later, the heavy oak door of the academy classroom swung inward. Domenico entered, his suit the colour of wet asphalt, radiating an aura of cold, immense weight.

The other syndicate heirs and associates fell silent at once, their bodies shifting to form a clear path for him as if by instinct.

He stopped beside my desk, the cuff of his sleeve tapping against the face of his gold watch. His expression was a blank, polished surface.

"You are working too slowly," his voice landed on the desk like a paperweight. Following it, the threat of a broken betrothal, his usual guillotine, was held over my head. It was his favorite weapon. He used the dissolution of our arranged marriage as a leash, knowing I valued his ascent in the Family above all else.

I looked up at his cold, arrogant face.

I thought about the tickets to Sicily with Lyla, and the intricate mechanism of my devotion simply ceased to function.

The dutiful beat of my heart, which for years had hammered out a rhythm for him alone, went still. The great, heavy anchor of my loyalty to this toxic man dissolved, leaving not freedom, but a strange and unnerving weightlessness.

I drew the heavy leather binder closed, the embossed crest cool against my fingertips. Within its covers lay three years of strategic blueprints and academic forgery.

My gaze traveled from his bespoke silk tie to the hard line of his jaw, where a muscle jumped. The filter through which I had once seen him simply dissolved.

"That's fine," I said. "Let us break the betrothal. Now."

Domenico let out a harsh, dismissive laugh.

He looked down at me as one might observe a child in the midst of a tantrum, a thing of no consequence.

"Stop these games and finish your work," he said, already turning away as if the matter were beneath his consideration.

A chair leg scraped against the stone floor, a sound that cut sharply through the room's thick silence. I was on my feet.

I took up the thick stack of papers, crossed the room to the industrial shredder in the corner, and pressed the power button.

The machine's loud, grinding whir tore through the dead air of the classroom, pulling every eye toward the sound.

I held the leather binder aloft, the one embossed with his golden family crest, and felt the specific gravity of my wasted years in my hands. A new pulse, a rhythm of rebellion, hammered in my ears. Then, I fed every single page of his legitimate business front into the machine, watching the blades chew through the architecture of my life's sacrifice.

A collective intake of breath hissed from the assembled classmates, followed by a frantic rustle of whispers at my sudden sacrilege against the future Don.

Domenico froze, his jaw clenching so hard a vein stood out on his neck. His eyes, which had been dismissive moments before, widened as the reality of my action settled into him. "You are destroying my entire commercial blueprint," he roared, the sound rattling the windowpanes.

At that precise moment, Lyla rushed into the room, her eyes widening in a theatrical display of horror as she saw the confetti of paper filling the bin.

She brought a delicate hand to her mouth, a flawless pantomime of the innocent bystander.

She drifted toward me, her voice a confection of manufactured concern. "Sienna, why would you ruin all of Domenico's hard work?"

I regarded her with a cold, clear disgust; the lens of my devotion had shattered, and her manipulations were now painfully, garishly obvious.

"The performance is over, Lyla. I am no longer in the cast."

Domenico stepped into my personal space, his towering frame casting a long shadow over me.

"Apologize to her," he commanded, his voice a lethal whisper. "Your behavior has distressed her."

"The betrothal is dead," I told him. "I owe neither of you a single word."

Lyla placed a trembling hand on his chest, a painterly gesture of restraint.

Domenico immediately wrapped his arm around her waist, comforting her with a gentleness he had never once shown me.

He looked back at me, and his eyes were dark, vacant spaces.

He issued a final ultimatum, telling me this was my last chance to apologize and know my place, or I would be nothing to the Family.

"Your chances," I told him, "have run out."

I did not turn at once. First, I unpeeled my fingers from the edge of the shredder, where the knuckles had gone white. I listened to the whine of the motor dying down before my first stiff step was taken, away from the suffocating air of the syndicate and out of the classroom.

By the end of the week, Domenico took Lyla to the Sicily summit.

He posted photographs of their intimacy at a luxury villa to his private feed, a brazen monument to his new allegiance.

His soldiers and associates flooded the comments, mocking my sudden fall from grace.

My phone remained entirely silent on my desk.

My desk-mate looked at me with genuine pity, while the rest of the syndicate classmates waited eagerly for me to crawl back and beg for the Don's favor.

I picked up my phone and stared at my own reflection in its dark, silent screen. The anchor was gone. I felt nothing. I placed the device face down on the desk, and in that small, quiet action, I embraced the profound, untouchable peace of my new reality. What Domenico had yet to learn was that a woman with nothing left to lose could not be threatened back into a cage.