After Tearing Apart the Wedding Dress, I Became the Donna of Ex’s Enemy

The air went still.

Leo stopped less than half a meter in front of me. A vein at his temple twitched.

Behind the sofa, Alice wasn't screaming. She clutched the torn white fabric against her chest with both hands, eyes filling up with big, rolling tears that tracked perfectly down her made-up face.

She stepped back with exquisite delicacy, playing the wounded party to perfection. Her voice came out soft, a little broken: “Leo, please don't be angry at Charlotte. It's my fault. I shouldn't have brought up how the Ashfords need us next month. Charlotte was just stung, that's all.”

“But even if she hates me, she shouldn't have torn a gown with the Marciano crest on it. If tomorrow's engagement is called off, what does that look like for us in the press?“

“They'll say the Don can't even control his own woman. It's not just embarrassing for me. It's trampling all over your reputation.”

That hit exactly where she'd aimed. Leo's sense of power.

Leo's arm swung out. He grabbed my jaw with his rough, calloused fingers and shoved me against the wall.

“Take it back.” He looked at me with the cold gaze one reserves for a pet, hand tightening, voice coated in contempt.

“Charlotte. Don't try that cheap little-girl act on me. Do you know who you're talking to? Without my say-so, your father is dead by sunrise, and you don't even have the standing to beg on the street.”

“In this city, you are nothing without Leo Marciano. Now apologize to Alice, pick up that dress, and I'll let you put the ring back on tomorrow.”

Looking at his face, that absolute certainty written into every line of it, all I could think was how stupid I'd been.

“The Ashfords can go bankrupt and beg in the gutter before I'll take orders from a thug with blood on his hands.” I held his gaze and said it word by word.

I knocked his hand off my jaw.

The fitting room door burst open. Leo's right-hand man stood in the doorway, sweating hard, voice barely steady:

“Don. We have a problem. The current head of the Ricci family just showed up in person. They've got the whole building surrounded.”

Ricci.

Leo's eyes sharpened at the name. Ten years of territory wars between the Marcianos and the Riccis, and no love lost on either side.

The new Don of the Ricci family was brutal, unpredictable, widely considered completely unhinged.

“How many men?” Leo's voice went flat. He pulled on his jacket, covering the gun at his hip.

“Three convoys. All with heavy hardware. Don Ricci is asking, specifically asking, to see Miss Ashford.” The right-hand man shot me a timid, wary look.

Leo looked at me hard. No panic, just the confidence of a man who'd never been caught off guard. He figured this was just Ricci making a territorial move, pushing for provocation.

He flicked his jacket straight and gave a short, cold laugh. “Charlotte. Looks like your little tantrum dragged Marciano into a mess you had no business making. Stay here. Once I clean up outside, I'll come back and deal with what you pulled today.”

I smoothed out my skirt and walked around him toward the door. “I told you. We have nothing to do with each other anymore.”