The Billionaire's Regret, The Heiress's Revenge

I knew my husband, Alessandro De Luca, was the Don of the most powerful Famiglia on the East Coast. What I didn't know was that our five-year marriage was built on another woman's grave.

On our anniversary, I found his hidden safe. The code wasn't our wedding date or our birthdays. It was August 14th—the day his first love, Isabella, lost her family.

Inside was a shrine to her: photos, dried flowers, and a love letter promising her a "castle in the clouds." There was nothing of me, not a single trace of the five years I'd given him. When he found me, he crushed her locket in his fist and threw it all into the fireplace. "Are you done now?" he asked, as if my heartbreak was a tantrum.

He offered a trip to Sicily to "fix" this, then sneered that I had nothing without his name or money. But it was worse than that. He brought Isabella back, gave her my position at the charity I built, and paraded her at our annual gala, publicly claiming her as his own.

He humiliated me in front of our entire world, siding with her after she staged a scene to make me look jealous and unhinged. He roared at me, "Caterina, what the hell is your problem?" while he comforted her.

So I showed him. I walked over, poured a glass of champagne over his head in front of everyone, and said, "That is my problem."

Then I walked out of the ballroom, out of his life, and sent him the separation papers. This wasn't a fight for his love anymore. It was war.

Chapter 1

Caterina "Cat" POV:

I knew my husband, Alessandro De Luca, was a killer, a king, the Don of the most powerful Famiglia on the East Coast.

What I didn't know, until our fifth wedding anniversary, was that our entire marriage was a monument built over another woman's grave.

His study was the one room in our sprawling estate that felt entirely his. Dark wood, the scent of old leather and his cologne, a silence so heavy it felt like a presence.

I was never supposed to be in here.

But tonight, the silence was a taunt. He was late, as usual. Our anniversary dinner, the one I'd spent all day preparing, sat cold and untouched in the dining room.

My fingers traced the spine of a leather-bound book on the shelf. It didn't move. None of them did.

But a cold knot was tightening in my stomach, a whisper of intuition I'd spent five long years ignoring.

I pushed harder, and a section of the bookshelf swung inward with a soft click, revealing the flat, dark face of a hidden safe.

My breath caught. Alex was a man of secrets, but they were meant to be business secrets-numbers, names, territories. This felt different. Personal.

The keypad glowed, waiting.

A wave of guilt washed over me. This was a violation, a betrayal of the vows I'd made. But it was quickly drowned by the bitter taste of five years of loneliness. Five years of being the perfect, dutiful wife to a man who looked at me like I was a beautiful piece of furniture.

My fingers trembled as I typed our wedding date. ACCESS DENIED.

His birthday. ACCESS DENIED.

My birthday. ACCESS DENIED.

A humorless laugh escaped my lips. Of course.

Then, a memory surfaced-sharp and unwelcome. A conversation I'd overheard two years ago, one of his Capos speaking in a hushed, reverent tone. "...a tragedy, what happened to Isabella's family... August 14th."

The day the rival Rossi Famiglia was wiped out. The day his first love, the girl he was supposed to marry, lost everything.

My blood ran cold. No. He wouldn't.

My fingers moved on their own, typing the numbers. 0814.

The safe clicked open.

It wasn't filled with cash or documents. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, was a small wooden box. A shrine.

I lifted the lid. There were photos of him with a dark-haired girl, both of them young and laughing, so full of a life I'd never seen in him that it hurt to look. There were dried flowers, a silver locket, and a faded, handwritten letter. His handwriting.

I read the words he'd never said to me. He promised her the world. He promised to build her "a castle in the clouds."

I searched desperately for something, anything, that belonged to me. A photo from our wedding. A note I'd left him. A trace of the five years I had given him.

There was nothing. I was a ghost in my own marriage.

The sound of the study door opening made me freeze.

Alex stood there, his tall frame filling the doorway. He took in the scene-me, the open bookshelf, the open safe, the box in my hands. His handsome face, usually a mask of cool control, forged itself into something cold and dangerous.

"What are you doing?" His voice was quiet, possessing the deadly calm of a coiled snake.

I met his gaze, my own face numb. "I'm leaving you, Alex."

The words hung in the air, foreign and impossible. The wife of a Don does not leave.

For a moment, he just stared. Then, with a sudden, violent movement, he strode forward and snatched the box from my hands. His fingers closed around the silver locket, crushing it in his fist. He turned and hurled the ruined contents into the cold fireplace.

He wiped his hands on his trousers, his eyes fixed on me.

"Are you done now?" he asked, his tone dripping with contempt, as if my heartbreak was a childish tantrum he simply had to endure.

"Yes," I said, my voice steady. "I'm done."

He sighed, an exasperated sound. "Don't be dramatic, Caterina. I'll take you to Sicily next month. We'll forget this happened."

He thought a trip could fix this. He thought he could erase her, erase his betrayal, with a plane ticket.

"It's over," I repeated.

His patience snapped. The mask fell away, and the Don looked out at me.

"And how exactly do you plan to survive?" he asked, a cruel smile touching his lips. "Without my name? Without my money? You have nothing without me."

He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and walked out of the study, leaving the anniversary dinner to grow even colder.

For the first time in five years, I didn't follow him.

I finally understood. He never meant to give me his heart, because it was never his to give.