“I was wrong, Papa,” I sobbed. “I was so foolish. Please forgive me.”
“I’m not crying for him. I’m crying for my baby who died.”
My father gently wiped away my tears, the authority of the iron–fisted Don melting away in the presence of his daughter.
“My heart. You are my only treasure, my most precious jewel. Of course I forgive you.
“Papa, I want them to pay. All of them.”
Don Romano sat on the edge of the bed, his voice low and filled with deadly intent.
“Rest assured, Alessia. Vito Falcone is a dead man. I will make the entire underworld remember what happens when you cross a Romano.”
I thought back to years ago, when I had just come of age, tired of the suffocating life under my father’s iron–clad protection. I ignored his warnings and escaped family fortress.
That’s when I met Vito. He was the first man to make my heart race. I was
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completely captivated by his charisma.
Driven by a naive desire, I followed him like a shadow, shedding all my dignity.
Even when he tried to push me away, I clung to him relentlessly.
Eventually, we got married.
I thought I had won Vito. I thought it was love.
In the beginning, whether it was genuine or not, Vito would humor me, take care of me, until I became pregnant.
Then he stopped pretending altogether.
From that moment on, the love I’d nurtured since my girlhood, the marriage I thought would be beautiful, became nothing but a tomb.
He never knew my true identity. He never knew I was the sole heir to the Romano family, their principessa.
In his eyes, I was no different from any other ambitious woman trying to climb the ladder.
He never trusted me, convinced I was just using the child to control him and secure my position in the family.
After Vito’s brother died suddenly, he allowed the widow, Scarlett, to invade our lives, all to fulfill some misguided promise to his brother and carry on the family
name.
Throughout my pregnancy, he had watched me with icy suspicion, offering his lawful wife precious little warmth.
But I sensed, in his occasional small gestures, that he was looking forward to his child.
So I kept telling myself that maybe, once the baby was born, everything would change.
But we never even got that chance.
Chapter 5
Perhaps the child he was always waiting for was never ours.
The Vito who once loved me was long dead.
And the weak, naive Alessia he knew was gone, too.
I stood on the cliff’s edge, overlooking the sea, a small white box in my hands.
Inside were the baby clothes I had prepared for him. A simple memorial.
I buried him at the highest point of the family cemetery.
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From there, you could overlook the entire Mediterranean, a tranquil world embraced by the azure sea, a sanctuary symbolizing freedom.
I wanted my child to be free from the shackles of this world, far from its hatred and pain.
To find peace in heaven, at least.
“Rest in peace, my sweet baby. Mommy will get justice for you.”
I wanted to destroy them with my own hands, the people who killed my child, my
enemies.
My father’s empire controlled the financial lifelines and power of nearly every crime family in North America, its tentacles reaching across the ocean to the old–world powers of Europe.
I was his sole heir.
My father told me that from now on, I had to learn to be a true Romano, to be ast ruthless as he was, to become the true queen of a world of power and darkness.
The entire Romano kingdom, all the territories and businesses, would one day be
mine.
I began to study every detail of the family business.
The financial empires, the trade networks, the political connections.
My father’s advisors taught me how to manipulate the stock market.
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How to make an enemy self–destruct without ever knowing who was pulling the strings.
“True power isn’t violence,” my father told me.
“It is the art of making your enemy beg you for the mercy of death.”
I just didn’t expect Vito to discover the truth about the body so quickly.
Whispers were already spreading through the underworld.
After learning of my “death,” he didn’t follow the usual customs for burial.
Instead, he had the body dressed and preserved, keeping it by his side at all times. He ate with it. He slept with it.
The rumors stunned me..
When a month passed and the body showed no signs of decay, he knew something
was wrong.
When Marco burst in with the DNA results proving the body was a fake, a faint, almost relieved smile touched Vito’s lips.
He was relieved. His Alessia was still alive.
He would use all the power of the Falcone family, spare no expense, to find me.
“Put the word out. Ten million dollars, cash, to anyone who can give me Alessia’s exact location.”
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