His Cruelest Atonement, Her Final Silence

I watched him die, my heart shredding in my chest. And I could do nothing.

Soon after, the Callahan leader captured me himself.

“Well, well,” he said, raking his eyes over me, a cruel light in their depths. “An abandoned woman. How do you want to die? In a hail of lead, or on your knees on a cold warehouse floor?”

I swallowed my fear. "You can't do this to me. I'm Killian Vitali's fiancée. Kill me, and you're declaring war."

"Oh?" he sneered. "The Don's fiancée? You look more like a cast-off plaything. I'll give you one chance. Prove it. If you're really the future Donna, I might just let you live."

He allowed me a messenger to carry my words.

But the messages I sent for help went unanswered. No rescue came from Killian.

"Shameless liar," the Callahan leader spat. "You knew the price for deceiving me."

He ordered me to be strung up in the abandoned warehouse for three days and three nights.

Each day, I begged the messenger to take one more message.

Not a single one was answered.

On the morning of the fourth day, as the first rays of sunlight sliced through the warehouse's broken window and fell on my face, he gave the order. A single bullet tore through the back of my head.

They placed my head in a refrigerated box and handed it to the messenger.

"Deliver this to Killian Vitali personally. Tell him we've disposed of the liar who tried to deceive us."

My body was thrown into an industrial waste yard in New Jersey.

My family's veteran driver, who had been searching for me relentlessly, finally found my body there and brought it back to the Caruso estate.

After Killian deleted my ninety-ninth message for help, no more messages came.

His birthday dinner was approaching. Every year, I personally selected a gift for him.

This year, his gift for me was ready.

Mine would never be delivered.

He grew restless.

He thought I'd sent men to hit Briar's car over the design of an office. In a fit of rage, he had sent me back to Long Island.

He felt no guilt. In fact, he even considered himself merciful for it—sending his most elite team of bodyguards to escort me home.

Now his men were telling him it was Briar who had dismissed that team in his name.

He must have been thinking: Absurd. Briar might be bold with my favor, but she's fragile by nature. How could she do something like this?

In his eyes, I was petty and jealous. The kind of woman who would fake ninety-nine messages just to get his attention.

Killian threw the gift he had prepared for me onto the table, his face dark. "Stanra, Stanra... When will you ever grow up?"

My soul hovered above him. My body was long gone, but the pain remained.

Briar resented me. She liked to take what was mine. Killian would only say she was young—that I should humor her.

So I did.

Again and again.

I never thought she would dare to go after the office I designed for him.

I refused, and she staged a car crash, framing me for it.

Killian pulled her from the twisted wreck. When he looked at me, the disappointment in his eyes was palpable.

"It was wrong of Briar to covet your design. But how could you be so petty? To send men to crash her car over something so small? If you had just given it to her, none of this would have happened. How can you be the Donna of the Vitali family if you aren't more generous?"

So, the girl who stole from me—who used his authority whenever she pleased—she was the one worthy of being the Vitali Donna?

That day, he ordered me to apologize to Briar.

I refused.

Even when he pressed me with his authority as the Don, I did not bow my head.

He sneered. "The biggest mistake I ever made was falling in love with someone as petty as you."

His words were a blade through my chest.

When he banished me to my own estate, I didn't argue. I packed nothing. I walked out of the penthouse in silence, his bodyguards flanking me.

My heart was already broken.