The Donna’s Revenge

My baby brother was barely a month old when my father's mistress threw him off the upstairs balcony to his death. Then she turned around and said my mother had done it. And my father, the Don, took the mistress at her word and had my mother killed. That woman framed me too, and I was cast out of the house. For the next fifteen years, I clawed my way up through begging and reckless grit, until I became the Donna of the Vanetti family. Then one day, my adopted son Daniel Vanetti brought his new girlfriend to meet me. "Mother, this is Via, the Principessa of the Vitale family. I want to marry her." I looked at Via. Her face was the spitting image of my father's mistress. What a small world. The daughter of the woman who killed my mother had walked right up to my door. So I refused without a second's hesitation. "I don't approve." Chapter 1 Via was taken aback for a moment, but she quickly composed herself. "May I ask why?" I leaned back in my chair and watched her for a long while before I spoke. "No reason." Daniel panicked at once, forgetting all his usual manners, and leaned in close to my ear. "Mother, Via is a good girl. I love her." "And her father is the Don of the Vitale family. A marriage between our two families would take both of us to a whole new level." "Please, just think it over and let us be together." I looked at Via. "You're Louis Vitale's daughter? Then your mother would be Jessica?" "That's right." She lifted her chin, all smug pride. No one knew my hatred had just hit its boiling point! My mother was once the Donna of the Vitale family. It was only because she got pregnant and gave birth that my father took over the family business. As a child, I couldn't understand why my father condemned my mom to death without even listening to her side of the truth. Later I understood. As long as my mother lived, he would never hold real power. So, the very status Viya prides herself on should have belonged to my mother and brother all along. She and her vile mother of hers belonged in hell, spat on by the world. Not standing where they were now, looked up to by everyone! I took a deep breath. It took me a long moment to force everything back down. I pulled my gaze off Via and turned to Daniel. "Your wife can be anyone in the world, but never her!" Via's composure finally cracked. "Do you have something against me?" I sneered. "What? Am I not being obvious enough?" Via's face flushed red, her eyes brimming with rage as they fixed on me. "My whole life, no one has ever dared to refuse me what I wanted. You're the first. I hope you won't come to regret it." With that, she turned and left. Daniel grew agitated. "Mother, what did Via ever do to you, that you'd wound her pride like this? We respected you, that's the only reason we came to ask your blessing, and look what you've done, you've driven her away. Fine, then. Whether you approve or not, I'm marrying her. I'll announce it tomorrow!" He threw the words at me and went after Via without a backward glance. I watched him go and gave a faint smile. Not my own blood, after all. An ungrateful fool I could never win over. When I first found him, he was just a baby. Thinking of my little brother, whose life was stolen the moment he entered this world, my heart softened, and I brought the child home. I never imagined he'd turn on me for a scheming woman who wanted to climb her way to the top. The kind of fool who gets sold out and then thanks them for it. So be it. I'd deal with all the trash at once. Chapter 2 After Via left, I had my men pull together the Vitale family's finances over the past twenty years. The records showed that over those twenty years, my father Louis had opened several casinos and sunk most of his capital into real estate. Unfortunately, it had all lost money. So for all its glamour on the surface, the Vitale family had long been hollowed out. Just as I was about to read on, the door burst open. A woman walked in, flanked by two bodyguards. I looked up. She wore a wine-red velvet couture gown. Around her neck hung a thirty-carat Burmese ruby necklace. It had been the headline lot at last month's Sotheby's auction, a piece countless socialites dreamed of owning. Twenty years apart, and Jessica had certainly kept herself glowing. "So you're Daniel's adoptive mother?" "Huh. So young and already putting on such airs." She dropped her limited-edition handbag on top of the file I was reading and sat down, crossing her legs. "My daughter taking a liking to him is the greatest honor of his life. How dare you humiliate her in public. One word from my husband and the whole Vanetti family is finished, just like that!" I watched her ugly little display in silence, then tossed her bag off the desk. The Vanetti may be the newest family to rise, but I set my sights on it precisely because we deal only in the most dangerous business. On this East Coast, when it comes to ruthlessness, the Vanetti have no equal. Only the Vitale, all show and no substance, hadn't caught on yet. The next second, she actually had her two bodyguards draw their guns and aim them at me. They dared raise a hand against me, on my own territory? They must have a death wish. One flick of my eyes, and the soldiers stationed outside the door fired at once. The moment the blood sprayed, Jessica went white. "Y-you'd kill a man right out in the open. Don't think I won't drag you before the Commission!" I smiled faintly. "That depends on whether you live long enough." I tipped her chin up with my gun. Looking at that face, I thought of the despair on my mother's as she was beaten to death! I wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in her right then, but I knew a death like that would let her off far too easy. "Mother! Don't shoot!" Daniel came stumbling in and threw himself in front of Jessica. He wasn't my own, but I had raised him for a few years all the same, and seeing him shield Jessica like that sent a faint ache through my chest. "Mrs. Vitale, my mother just isn't thinking straight right now. Don't worry, I'll talk her round. I would never let Via down." Daniel promised Jessica over and over, then saw her out of headquarters himself. Jessica's legs were still trembling faintly as she left. Once they were gone, I turned to my men. "Look into Jessica's personal accounts." Chapter 3 It wasn't long before my men brought me the file. Just as I'd thought. At a glance, her accounts looked clean. But the cleaner they were, the more wrong it felt. After all, the outfit she'd just worn could buy half a city block. Yet as far as I knew, the two docks the Vitale were proudest of had been seized by other families a year ago. On top of that, they'd made plenty of enemies, and the families that held the shipping rights were deliberately blocking them. So no matter how many guns and drugs the Vitale had, there was no way to move any of it. Where would a family on the edge of ruin find spare money for luxuries like that? Unless Jessica was rich in her own right. But that was nearly impossible. Because before she married my father, she was a whore. I clenched my fist and gave a cold snort. One way or another, I'd make them cough up everything they'd swallowed! That night, I got a call. It was my father. Louis. Twenty years. Hearing that voice again, my heart still blazed with a hatred I couldn't control. "So you're the boss of the Vanetti family?" On the other end, his voice carried a note of condescending scrutiny. "I am." "Hah. Just a slip of a girl, and you dare turn down my daughter and gun down my man in the open? Aren't you afraid I'll wipe the whole Vanetti family off the map?!" I let out a scornful laugh and answered without mercy. "Big talk, Mr. Vitale. Last I checked, the Vitale have lost more than half your shipping rights and you're sitting on a pile of junk you can't move. With that Soviet-era garbage nobody wanted, you think you can wipe me out?" A mafia family that's lost its shipping rights is a fish on the chopping block, there for the taking. So even though the Vanetti were smaller than the Vitale, I controlled the three most important docks. "You... you arrogant little nothing!" Louis cursed at me in a fury. My smile only deepened. "Isn't the arrogant one you? A dozen years warming the head's chair and you really think you've made yourself one of the elite? Ha." Back then, it was my mother who pulled him out of the fighting pit and trained him up herself. If not for her, he'd have been a meal in some beast's jaws long ago. The thought of how he'd had my mother beaten to death made me dig my nails into my palm! Only when I'd clawed bloody marks into my palm did some of my reason come back. But on the other end, Louis had lost his composure. "Who are you?" I sneered. "It doesn't matter. All you need to know is that your time is almost up." With that, I hung up. Early the next morning, one of my men rushed into the office, his face grim. "Boss, the Commission has sent a letter. The Vitale family has filed against us. The Chairman wants you there tomorrow. All the families mean to put you on trial. What do we do?" "Tell the Chairman I'll be there as agreed." "No, Boss, you can't go. Those people have had their eyes on your docks for ages. If you show up, they'll do everything they can to blow this up, and if something goes wrong..." Before he could finish, Daniel shoved the door open and walked in. "Mom, you're going to go apologize to Mr. Vitale right now and beg him to drop the charges!" Chapter 4 Daniel stormed up to me and laid into me without pause. "I just don't get it. Why do you have to push this to the brink?" "Don't you realize, the moment you set foot in the Commission you'll be convicted, and you'll drag the whole Vanetti family down with you. Then how am I supposed to marry Via?" At first, I thought he was worried about me. Turns out it was all for that little bitch. "I've already worked it out with Mr. Vitale. He says as long as you go apologize and accept Via, he'll drop the case." "Mom, for my sake, just go and apologize..." Before he could finish, I scoffed. "Your sake? What's that worth?" Daniel froze. "Mom, what do you mean?" I stood, walked up to him, and slapped him hard across the face! The blow sent him staggering a step, and then he stared at me in disbelief. "Why did you hit me?" "Because you're blind and witless... someone should have taught you better long ago." I raised my hand and patted his cheek, again and again. "The thing I hate most in this world is an ungrateful creature like you." "I gave you a second life, gave you glory and power beyond measure, and you turn on me for some worthless dogs who mean nothing to us." "Fine. Then go run off and play house with your little bitch." "Pass the word down. As of today, I sever all ties with Daniel Vanetti and cast him out of the Vanetti family. From now on, anyone who dares help him will be shot!" Daniel's eyes went wide. "You're disowning me?" I didn't bother answering him. I just waved a hand. Two men rushed in at once and pinned Daniel between them. "Mirabelle! You can't throw me out of the Vanetti family!" "I'm the next heir to this family!" The next heir? Big talk. Just a stray dog I picked up off the street. Give him a few years of easy living, and he actually thinks he's the master of the house. The same breed as Louis, ungrateful wolves who bite the hand that feeds them! "Go. Tell the Chairman I'll be there on time tomorrow." My men, seeing they couldn't change my mind, withdrew. I sat back down at my desk and took an old, yellowed photograph from a side drawer. It was a picture of the three of us, taken just after my mother had given birth to my brother. I traced my mother's face gently, and my eyes stung with tears. "Mom, twenty years. I've finally gotten my chance for revenge." That night, I hardly slept a wink. In the small hours, I heard movement outside my door. Gun in hand, I edged toward the door one step at a time. I opened it, but there was no one there. I went straight to the security room, where the man on the monitors told me some signal interference had come out of nowhere and turned all the footage to static. I sneered. Did these people really think Mirabelle had spent the last twenty years doing nothing? I dismissed my man and typed a few lines of code into the computer. It was a top-level surveillance system I'd set up myself in case anyone tried to sabotage me. No one knew about it but me. In moments, all the missing footage came back up. I never expected it to be him!