The Broken Don: Losing My Only Queen

ss Mafia Don-stitching his gunshot wounds, surviving gang

was forged in blo

e crawled back to the ci

of syndicate money to buy back her ancestral estate. He abandoned me in a bridal boutique for twelve hours-just to go hang a vintage c

the blood pooli

. Alone. I signed the surgical consent forms myself while he d

his knees and clutching my bloodied c

d into a studio on the East Side. Started de

he underworld reduced to a ghost with ruined shoes. He thinks I'l

s w

rophy in my hand and a good man on one knee. And when I catch a gl

is is a story of what happens when a q

pte

n's

ded in my lap

y engagement ring in the lamplight, when my p

ke. Alone. Beautiful in that fragile, f

ady circling like vultures,

jaw. "Your childhood flame just crawled back to

but I was already asking the wrong ma

ckle vibrated through my cheekbone, warm and dismissiv

ond on my finger-the one he'd slid there s

ieved

me fever medicine when we were nothing but two nobodies in a safe house. The man who had

s wounds. Five years of lo

into the silk gown we'd chosen for tonight's

into the living room

t the city lights. Smoke curled from his fingers. The

old slid do

e velvet cushions whe

ce up. Screen

't. But my fingers were already reach

g alert. Confir

illion

a holding titled with the coor

: Reclaiming

ed to cement

illion.

was just a gutter rat with bloody knuckles and nothing to lo

ney-our money, Family money-to buy back t

sn't ve

ion wearing a r

e you lo

ctly behind me. Low. Res

taught me one thing: never flin

d. I placed the phone face-down on the gl

I t

rched my face. Ca

aid. My voice didn't waver. "For to

at me for one

d the room in three strides, pulling me against his chest wit

with you," he murmured into

o his chest and li

rhythm that had lulled me

illion-dollar question

time I buried the

n't be t