The Don’s Crown Was Built on My Father’s Grave

They all said the youngest Don in Sicily never lied. That when Salvatore said he loved me, he meant every word of it.

But now, all of it made me sick.

I stared blankly as I helped him into the armored car. Salvatore collapsed onto my lap, the hard line between his brows finally smoothing as he drifted off, looking for all the world like an innocent child.

But now, all of it feels disgusting.

"Carmela… why… why. It should have been me."

At last, I could finally make out the name he'd whispered in countless drunken dreams.

Carmela Vitale. The woman who ruined my life. His first love, the one he could never forget. I had been so naive, underestimating how deep his fixation on Carmela ran. Even after all these years, he was still obsessed with her.

A satellite phone stamped with the gold Marchetti lion slipped from the pocket of his tailored suit. When I picked it up, an encrypted message glowed across the screen.

"Thank you for settling tonight's sit-down between the three Families, Don. But I can't accept the Sicilian territory you promised me. It's too valuable!"

Right beneath it came a post Carmela had set for one pair of eyes only: "Only a true queen deserves the crown."

Attached was a photo of a ruby-set ring, an old relic passed down from the oldest Family in Sicily. That ring meant absolute power.

I knew Carmela wanted me to see it.

Only last week, Salvatore had been shot during a brutal clash between Families. The bullet had gone clean through his chest. He'd barely been able to stand, and still he had boarded a plane overseas soon after, ignoring my pleas to rest. I had thought he was risking his life to defend the honor of the famiglia.

But I was wrong. He had gone for Carmela's coronation.

Even with a bullet wound, he had fought for that ring, for the crown, just to lay it at the feet of his first love.

My hands trembled as I keyed in his private passcode. My breath hitched when the last digit fell into place and the screen unlocked. It showed Carmela at her birthday party. He had made her photo his wallpaper.

Of course.

Salvatore never let me near his private phone. Said it was "the Don's business." Her face filled the screen now, smiling radiant in a gown that must have cost a fortune. No wonder his gaze softened every time he woke that phone.

I opened his gallery. I opened his photo folder. There were albums he had named after her:

Carmela at the Opera House. Carmela in the Vineyard. Carmela's Coronation.

Thousands of pictures of Carmela, taken at Family gatherings and grand affairs, smiling, laughing, glowing. There's not a single photo of me. Not even of him. Only Carmela. Because from the very beginning, his heart had always belonged to her.

The car turned into the drive of the old estate. A chill settled into my bones as I stared through the tinted glass at the darkened doors of the underground vault.

Once, that room had held my father's crest and the evidence he had gathered across twenty years buried undercover in the underworld. Seeing it always made me feel as if my father were still out there somewhere, finishing the mission he never got to finish. Then one morning, all of it was gone. The polizia said the evidence had been destroyed by an unknown hand.

Salvatore had held me while I broke apart, staying awake three days straight, refusing to leave my side.

Now I know. It was him all along. He was the one who destroyed the last traces of my father's legacy.

A new message surfaced on the screen:

"Don, as you instructed, the papers signing over the empire are finalized. All of your Sicilian assets and the right of succession will pass to Miss Vitale upon your confirmation."

"We wait only on your signature."

"Sandra, I swear it on my honor as the Don of Sicily. I'll protect you. I'll give you a home, and everything I have is yours."