My Ex's Regret: Married To His Enemy

For eight years, I was the Falcone mafia's top fixer and the Don's secret fiancée, taking bullets to keep his syndicate alive.

But when my mother was crashing from heart failure, he refused to authorize her lifesaving surgery.

I dropped to my knees in the middle of the crowded ballroom, begging him to make the call.

Instead, Kieran didn't even flinch. He sat there meticulously folding a paper bird for his new favorite, Elena.

"You are causing a scene, Sienna," he scolded me coldly. "And you completely forgot to pick up Elena's custom gown today. I am not rewarding your tantrums."

He then publicly stripped me of my executive rank, gave my hard-earned Underboss title to Elena, and made a show of praising her-while the vintage diamond ring he had chosen in her favorite style still sat on my finger.

I had died on the operating table three times to build his empire, yet he was willing to let my mother die over a delayed dress.

The desperation in my gut congealed into a block of ice, and my lingering love completely burned away.

I took off the ring and walked straight out of the Falcone estate into the freezing night.

Outside, the Matriarch of his deadliest rival was waiting in an armored SUV.

"My clinic can save her," she said smoothly. "But you know the price."

I didn't even hesitate.

"I will marry your son."

Chapter 1

Sienna POV:

The light from the crystal chandeliers in the Falcone ballroom was a physical weight, pressing down until one's eyes ached. It caught in the facets of champagne flutes and the polished teeth of underworld elites, a low, dangerous hum of conversation filling the air. I stood in the shadows near the grand staircase, my phone pressed so tightly to my ear that my knuckles ached.

"Sienna," Serena's voice cracked through the receiver, choked with hysterical sobs. "Mom is crashing. The doctors say her heart is failing. They need authorization for the experimental bypass, but the clinic won't proceed without the Don's financial clearance. She is dying, Sienna!"

The murmur of conversation, the clinking of glasses-it all receded, replaced by the low, insistent thrum of blood in my ears. "I am getting him right now," I breathed, my voice a tremor in the sudden quiet of my own head. "Hold on."

I shoved through knots of Capos and politicians, my eyes frantically searching the opulent room. I found Kieran sitting at the head of the VIP velvet booth. He wasn't discussing syndicate business. He was leaning in, his broad shoulders angled protectively toward Elena. She was laughing softly, her delicate hand resting on his forearm.

I rushed forward, my heels sinking into the thick carpet. "Kieran," I gasped, stopping right in front of the table. My face was bloodless, my chest heaving. "Kieran, I need you. Mom is crashing. She's dying. I need your clearance for the Romano clinic right now."

Kieran didn't even flinch. He slowly finished his sip of bourbon, his dark eyes sliding toward me with a chilling disinterest. He picked up a thick cocktail napkin and, with an excruciating slowness, began folding the corners, his fingers meticulously crafting a small paper bird.

"You are causing a scene, Sienna," he said, his voice a low, reprimanding drawl over the swell of the classical music. "And you completely forgot to pick up Elena's custom gown from the tailor this afternoon. She had to wear this off-the-rack dress because of your negligence."

I stared at him, the logic of his words failing to connect in my brain. "My mother is dying," I repeated, my voice raw and cracking. I dropped to my knees, right there in the middle of the VIP section. "Please. Just make the call. I will do whatever you want later."

Elena shifted uncomfortably, looking down at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Kieran, maybe you should-"

"No," Kieran cut her off smoothly, placing the finished paper bird on the table. He didn't look at me. "I am not rewarding insubordination and tantrums. You will learn to prioritize the Family over your personal melodrama. Go handle your mess quietly."

He turned back to Elena, completely and utterly ignoring my existence. The woman who had bled for him for eight years, who had kept his books clean and his smuggling routes open, was begging for her mother's life, and he was folding paper birds for another woman.

I looked down at my trembling hand. The heavy diamond engagement ring on my finger caught the chandelier's light. It was a vintage cut-Elena's favorite style, I suddenly realized with a sickening lurch of my stomach. He hadn't even bought a ring for me; he had simply purchased the ring he once intended for her.

The desperation did not so much evaporate as it did congeal, turning to a block of ice in my gut. I looked down at the ring, at the facets of the diamond. They were just pieces of cut glass. The warmth of the metal against my skin was gone, leaving only the cold, dead weight of it. I slid the ring off my finger and let it fall onto the velvet booth. I stood up slowly. I didn't say another word. I turned my back on the man I had loved for eight years and walked straight out of the ballroom, out of the estate, and into the freezing night air.

A sleek, black armored SUV was idling near the gates. The window rolled down, revealing the sharp, calculating eyes of the Romano Matriarch-the Falcone Family's greatest enemy.

"I heard about your mother, child," the Matriarch said smoothly. "My clinic can save her. But you know the price of Romano blood."

I took one last look at the Falcone mansion, a glittering cage receding in the night.

"I will marry your son."

It took me exactly three seconds to answer. The door of the armored SUV closed with the dense, final sound of a vault being sealed. I was inside.

The Romano Matriarch gave a single, curt nod. She tapped the glass partition, and the driver sped away from the Falcone estate, leaving my old life behind in the dust.

Within the hour, I was standing outside the sterile, unforgiving glare of an operating room in the heavily guarded Romano private clinic. The Matriarch had mobilized her surgical team the moment I'd said yes. Above the double doors, their porthole windows dark, the red light clicked on.

Serena ran down the hallway, her face blotchy and stained with tears. She threw her arms around my neck.

"You did it," Serena sobbed into my shoulder. "Kieran actually pulled through. He used his connections. He saved Mom."

I pulled my sister back, gripping her trembling shoulders, and looked her dead in the eye.

"Kieran did not do this," I said, my voice completely flat. "Kieran is no longer our family. Do not ever say his name to me again."

Serena stared at me in shock. She opened her mouth to ask questions, but I held up my hand.

"The wedding date remains the same," I told her. "But the groom has been replaced. I am marrying Enzo Romano."

As Serena covered her mouth with her hands, I turned my back to the operating room doors. I stared at the blank white wall opposite, tracing a crack in the plaster with my eyes until it burned a permanent, jagged line onto my retina.

Three days later, the doctors transferred my mother to a secure recovery suite. She was stable. The Romano medical team had pulled her back from the edge of death.

I left the clinic and drove straight to the Falcone Syndicate's headquarters, a monolith of smoked glass and steel that devoured the morning sun.

The moment I walked into the lobby, the men straightened up. Capos and soldiers nodded at me with deep respect. I was their top fixer. I was the woman who had kept them alive when the old Don died.

"Congratulations, Boss," a scarred Capo said as I stepped into the elevator. "We heard the news."

I ignored him, stepping out onto the executive floor. My team was gathered near my office, their faces bright with expectant smiles. They thought I was finally getting the official Underboss title I had earned with my own blood years ago.

The twin doors of carved mahogany, their brass handles worn smooth by the hands of powerful men, swung open, and Kieran walked out. He wore a dark, tailored suit, and his sheer physical presence seemed to alter the density of the air. He halted as if he'd walked into a wall of glass when he saw me.

"You are late," Kieran said, his voice a sharp crack down the hallway.

I searched his face for some trace of the man I had known, but found only the familiar architecture of his features, now inhabited by a stranger. No anger. No heartbreak. Just a cold, empty distance.

"You have been absent for three days without my explicit permission," Kieran said loudly, his voice pitched for every soldier on the floor to hear. "You abandoned your post."

"My mother was dying," I said simply.

"Everyone has personal problems, Sienna," Kieran snapped. "We are the Mafia. The Family comes first. You let your emotions cloud your judgment."

He took a step closer to me, looking down at me from his towering height.

"Effective immediately, you are stripped of your executive privileges," Kieran announced. "You are demoted back to Capo. Your syndicate shares are being transferred."

The hallway went dead silent. The men around me shifted uncomfortably, their eyes finding sudden interest in the scuffs on their shoes.

Elena walked out of the conference room right behind him. She was wearing a soft pink dress, a splash of pastel fragility among the hardened killers in the room.

"Elena will be taking over as the new Underboss," Kieran said. He placed a possessive hand on her lower back. "She has the clear head this Family needs right now."

Elena smiled at the men. It was a sweet, innocent smile. A sour wave of bile rose in my throat, hot and acrid.

"Hi everyone," she said softly. "I am still learning about all these investments and things. I hope you will all be patient with me."

Kieran watched her with undisguised admiration.

"Sienna," Kieran said, turning his cold attention back to me. "You will organize a formal welcoming ceremony for Elena tonight. It will be your first task under her command."

I looked at Elena. I thought about the nights I had spent in freezing warehouses with a gun in my hand. I thought about the three times my heart had stopped on an operating table to keep this very syndicate from getting torn apart by a federal RICO case.

I felt a dull, agonizing ache in my chest as I watched this woman effortlessly steal my crown.

I took a slow, steadying breath. I turned my head sharply and looked my Don dead in the eye.

"No," I said.

Kieran frowned, a muscle knotting in his jaw. "Excuse me?"

"I resign," I said. My voice was steady and loud enough for the entire floor to hear. "I forfeit my oath. I am done."