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Breaking Free from the Mafia Boss
NovelShort
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“Consigliere Alfredo, thank you for helping me process the withdrawal from the Family… and the divorce...,” I told him quietly. The old man who had once been my husband’s closest adviser in th...
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第1章
“Consigliere Alfredo, thank you for helping me process the withdrawal from the Family… and the divorce...,” I told him quietly.
The old man who had once been my husband’s closest adviser in the Falcone Syndicate narrowed his eyes at me, suspicion and concern mixing in his stare.
“You’re really going through with this, Valentine? Where do you plan to run once you cut ties with the Don?”
My lips pressed tightly.
What? Did he think I couldn’t survive without the Falcone tied to my name? The city is big, and if my husband wants me gone from this territory, then fine—there are other territories. As long as I can finally live like a real person.
“I have money saved, Consigliere. Seven years’ worth,” I replied. “From my own work.”
Alfredo let out a tired chuckle. He was aging, and soon his son would inherit his chair at the table.
“So this is goodbye to the most reliable Overseer our Syndicate ever had?” He pulled me into a brief hug before stepping back.
“Goodbye…”
With the envelope in hand, I walked away from the Meeting Hall—away from the life that for seven years had revolved around being nothing more than the Don’s appointed Overseer.
Who would’ve imagined I’d fall this low?
And me, of all people, someone who never quit anything in her life. All because I married a man who only needed a respectable bride to polish his public image.
On our wedding day, I thought I’d married the boy I had loved since childhood. I thought I was the happiest woman alive. I didn’t know it was the worst day of his life. To him, I was nothing more than the stand-in for the woman he truly loved.
——
“I’m back,” I called out.
Don Reynold stood at the table, plating food. Anyone else would’ve thought he was acting like a devoted, affectionate husband. But who would know the truth?
“What took you so long at the Hall? You should’ve come home first and handled dinner,” he snapped without even looking at me.
There was nothing romantic about him. He just had no other choice but to fend for himself whenever I wasn’t around. He was hungry, and there was no servant on duty because, according to him, he already had me.
“Sorry…” I murmured, stepping closer and seeing the single plate he’d prepared. Only for himself.
Not surprising. Reynold sat at the head of the table, ignoring me completely, a smug glint in his eyes. It was like... almost pleased that he hadn’t prepared anything for me.
“What do you want?” he asked, voice flat.
“Can you sign these… Don?” I pulled the documents from the envelope.
His face soured instantly. He despised seeing paperwork at home, but he also knew I wouldn’t bring Family documents here unless it was important.
“Can’t it wait?” he grumbled.
“No,” I began, but his phone rang.
His posture straightened like he’d just received a call from God. “Dahlia.”
My eyes shut as soon as he spoke her name.
My sister. The woman he truly loved but couldn’t officially be with.
“Yes, I’m coming. I always have time for you. Stay there,” he said gently.
He hung up and threw a brief side-glance at me before sliding his plate toward me. “Eat. Dahlia needs me.”
“But you haven’t signed the documents. They're important,” I insisted.
His jaw tightened. Without hesitation, he snatched the papers, scribbled his signature across each page, and slammed the pen down.
“There. And stop pushing me. Clean up before you sleep. And make breakfast in the morning. Be useful around here!”
He sounded irritated, but there was something almost satisfied in his expression as he grabbed his coat and left. He didn’t even ask what he had signed.
I slowly opened the documents. He signed the divorce letter. He signed for my withdrawal from the Falcone Syndicate. I was finally walking out of his life and his last instructions were chores.
That’s right. In this house, everything was my responsibility. Not because he wanted a home—no. Because he wanted a maid. He said he didn’t need to hire staff since I existed. That was my role.
To him, I was just like my mother, who once served in my own birth family’s mansion. No matter how I dressed or carried myself, I would always be “the help.”
Even though I was born into one of the oldest founding syndicate in the country, my blood never counted. I was the only one born without the markers of power, and in this world, that made me a curse—a liability. My parents were the ones who suggested swapping me with their maid’s daughter. That girl was blessed with the right signs, the right blood. Born on the same day as me. The daughter they chose.
They always picked Dahlia.
And Reynold, my husband... chose her too.
I was never supposed to be his wife, not unless Dahlia hadn’t disappeared that day. I was the replacement bride. The unwanted woman in this house. The useful Overseer in his Syndicate.
And now, as the envelope slipped closed again, a tear slid down my face.
Now I would be a divorced ex-Donna.
“No one ever chooses me…” I whispered, staring at the plate meant for him, shoved toward me like scraps.
“I choose myself this time, Reynold. By leaving you.”
第2章
I never had a pleasant life. Like, at all. Or maybe I did, but it vanished when I was fifteen.
“You’re not my daughter. You belong to the elder bloodline of the Lombardi Familia.”
Those were my mother’s final words before she died.
She confessed everything in front of the very people she claimed were my true parents. I didn’t even get a moment to mourn.
The truth broke open and the Lombardi elders heard it, along with a ranking member of the Commission who happened to be present.
To contain the scandal amongst ourselves, they confirmed the story and fed explanations I never asked for. Nothing eased the shock in my chest, or the anger boiling beneath it.
“We had to set you aside, Valentine,” said Dina, the woman who gave birth to me. “Our family holds influence. We had to protect our name, and that meant presenting Dahlia as the legitimate Lombardi heir.”
“We couldn’t let someone without standing represent this Familia. You wouldn’t want to be the reason we became a joke, right?” my father added, as if discarding me had been a favor. “And this truth must stay buried.”
I said nothing. My heart had already gone cold.
“Does this mean you’re taking her back, Dad?” Dahlia asked. Her tone was calm, but her calculating eyes were sharply locked on me. She was always like that. Sweet mask, with venom underneath.
“No,” my father replied. “We can’t do that. It would unravel everything we’ve spent years covering.”
Then he turned to me and took my hand. “But we’ll support you. We can send you to school, Valentine. We’ll cover everything.”
That moment told me everything. They would never claim me as their daughter, be it publicly or privately. Still, they funded my schooling. I convinced myself that was enough.
I used to envy Dahlia. She had everything. My bloodline. My rightful place. Even the man I loved.
She and Reynold were meant to be. Childhood first-love turned to real lovers. Their engagement was already celebrated between the Lombardi and Falcone families. The wedding was supposed to seal the alliance. But the night before the announcement, Dahlia vanished, and the Lombardi elders had to play their last card for the Falcone deal.
Me.
Now I was here. Trapped in a loveless arrangement. A Don’s wife treated like a glorified house servant.
But today, I end it all.
I packed my clothes and belongings. What mattered fit into a suitcase. Everything else was left to be thrown out. All of it had to disappear before I walked away.
“What’s all this?” Reynold’s voice came from behind.
He’d just returned—from Dahlia’s residence, where he’d spent the night.
“They’re things I don’t use anymore,” I said, referring to the clothes he bought for me out of obligation.
“You’re getting rid of them? That’s not like you,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
Of course he'd notice. I had been raised like a maid’s daughter to never waste anything.
“I’ll donate them to your foundation’s charity. Good for your public image, especially with your new partnership with the city council.”
Reynold's expression shifted in surprise. I’d never spoken like that. Then he slowly nodded, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
I thought he might thank me. But another voice cut through the room.
“My sister is such a saint. So thoughtful and selfless.” There she was. Dahlia. Wearing a dress I once thought Reynold had bought for me.
She smiled sweetly as she approached him. Then she rushed the last steps and jumped into his arms, bumping a nearby vase.
It fell and shattered just like that.
I gasped. That vase was one of the Falcone family’s most prized heirlooms!
It was a wedding gift from Reynold’s father, etched with our names and joined hands. A symbol of unity between the Lombardi and Falcone.
I always kept it spotless. I planned to bring it with me. Even if my husband was cruel, his parents had once treated me with kindness.
But now it was completely shattered into pieces.
Reynold didn’t react. He didn’t even glance at it. If it meant nothing to him, why should I care?
“Are you hurt? Dahlia, I’m sorry,” he said instead.
He checked her arms for scratches. Apologizing to the very woman who broke it.
“Oops… sorry,” Dahlia murmured, glancing at me.
I swallowed and nodded.
“It’s nothing,” Reynold said. “We can always buy another.”
I pressed my lips together. “No need. It was just your father’s wedding gift. I was planning to auction it anyway.”
I only said it to cut him. It worked. His face shifted—from surprise to anger. “You’d auction that? Our wedding gift?”
“But she broke it,” I replied calmly.
Silence. He remembered. It wasn’t me. It was Dahlia who caused trouble this time.
“Sorry, Valentine. I really didn’t mean to,” Dahlia said softly now.
Why was she even here? To make a scene?
“I’ll have someone clean this,” Reynold muttered. “In the meantime… Dahlia will stay in this room. Just for a week. She needs sunlight, and this one gets the most.”
Then he looked at me like it was nothing. “You’ll move to the guest room, Valentine.”
And just like that, Reynold pushed me out of my own room. Out of what little space I still held in this house.
第3章
“Surely you won’t refuse your sister’s request, right?” Dahlia leaned against my husband’s shoulder the moment Reynold dropped that bomb on me.
My chest tightened. I knew Dahlia wanted me to snap and make a scene in front of him, but I said nothing Instead.
Request?
No. That wasn’t a request. It was an order. One that didn’t need my agreement.
We never shared a room like real spouses in the mafia world do. He never wanted that. He once told me we could use my room if I ever wanted him as a husband, but never his. He said he didn’t want his space “contaminated” with anything intimate.
But he didn’t know I already knew the truth.
He brought Dahlia to his room every time I returned late from a Commission meeting. Or when I was asleep, too tired to hear their whispers and footsteps.
“It’s only for a week, Valentine. You’ll get your room back when—”
“Fine. She can have it,” I cut him off with a nod. I turned away and continued packing.
“O…kay?” Reynold echoed, thrown off.
I shot him a cold glance. He expected me to fight for it the way I used to. He expected tears, begging, anger. But there was none of that left in me.
Why fight for something that was never mine?
“I’m giving it to her. Like you asked,” I said calmly.
Dahlia squealed in triumph. “See, love? My sister always understands.”
Reynold didn’t look pleased. For a second, I thought my indifference unsettled him. But instead of checking on me, he walked off, pride straightened on his shoulders.
Dahlia, of course, stayed behind. She never left without getting the last word.
“How does it feel being his wife only on paper?” she asked, smirking. “Oh wait—do you two still sleep together? Does he even touch you anymore? I doubt it. He’s with me every night. He can’t get enough of me. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember what you taste like.”
I stayed silent.
She laughed at my quiet. “Pathetic. That’s what you get for stealing my life. It was never yours. Everything belongs to me, Valentine.”
She stomped her heel inches from my foot, irritated that I wasn’t reacting.
“Your husband’s staying in this house tonight,” she added, smug. “But he’ll be in my bed. And the poor Donna? She’ll be alone, invisible, while the Don's wrapped around me.”
Just like that, the nightmare became real.
I passed by my room… and I heard them.
Her moans. His voice. Their pleasure echoing through the walls. The bed frame rattled—mocking me. The room that once felt like the only place I could breathe in this mansion was now a shrine to my humiliation.
He never touched me like that. Never kissed me like that. When he did fulfill his “duties,” he wouldn’t even look at me. I was nothing but a contract. A political arrangement.
“You’re the only woman who can make me feel this way, Dahlia,” I heard him say.
And that was it.
I stopped walking. A sob escaped before I could stifle it. I froze. Only then did I realize I was crying.
I was still hurting. Still hoping. That was the cruelest part.
With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and walked farther away from the noise until their pleasure was only a dull echo behind closed doors.
I opened a number I saved long ago. One I never deleted.
[Damian, I’m divorcing Reynold. Pick me up after a month.]
That was the message I sent to the only man who never turned me away.
Seconds later, my phone rang.
I answered, already breaking. “Damian…”
“He made you cry again?” he said, voice cold. “That's why you’re finally going through with the divorce this time?”
Shame washed over me. I had tried to leave Reynold in the past.
I had promised Damian before. But I never followed through. I stayed with the man who never chose me. yet, Damian waited, only to get hurt by my cowardice.
“I mean it this time,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for what I did… but please, help me one last time.”
I heard his deep exhale. The kind that carried more than disappointment.
“It should’ve been me, Val,” he said—the name only he and my mother ever used. “It should’ve been me, so you wouldn’t be living like this.”
I broke down. I wasn’t only hurting, I had hurt him too. I chose Reynold. And now I was drowning in the consequences.
“I’ll wait,” he said after a pause. “But in a month, no matter what you decide, you’re leaving with me. You’re divorcing him. And you’re marrying me.” His words were final.
I clutched my chest, staring toward the room soaked in betrayal.
Reynold had his happiness. Why couldn’t I have mine?
“I won’t change my mind, Damian,” I said, firmly now. “Once the divorce agreement is processed, I’m marrying you. I promise.”
If I could love a man like Reynold so deeply… Then maybe loving Damian would be easier.
This time, I will choose the man who would choose me back.