The Don's Unfit Collateral

My family owed a life debt. To repay it, I signed a marriage contract with Cillian Rafferty, heir to Chicago's notorious Rafferty crime family, and became his wife in name only.

In seven years of marriage, I remained barren. Cillian, meanwhile, had impregnated eighteen different women. Each day was a fresh torment, marked by the arrival of yet another stack of abortion records his men left on my doorstep.

I couldn't bear it any longer. I went to him.

"Let's end our marriage."

He stared at me, his eyes cold. "What's the angle this time?"

Gazing at his composed features, I didn't erupt in the familiar storm of rage. I just shook my head. "There's no angle."

After seven years of honoring that contract, my pride had long been ground to dust.

I had once sobbed at his feet, begging him to consider my family's honor, pleading for a scrap of decency.

But each time, Cillian would just gaze down at me with contempt and ask:

"You're collateral. Do you really think you're worthy of respect?"

Then he would turn and walk away.

That alone should have been enough for me to give up, shouldn't it?

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1

When the next pregnant woman appeared on our doorstep, a bone-deep weariness washed over me.

Not anger, not sorrow—just a profound numbness. In seven years, this scene had replayed itself far too many times.

Cillian arrived moments later. Without so much as a glance at the woman standing aside, he ordered his men to "take care of her."

He strode straight to me, took a red Cartier box from his assistant, and held it out. His tone was uncharacteristically gentle.

"Seraphina, don't be upset."

"Look, any woman can get pregnant with my child, but being Mrs. Rafferty—that's always yours. No one can ever take that away."

His words were a thousand tiny needles, each one pricking relentlessly at my heart.

I glanced at the red box in his hand. I didn't need to open it to know it was another piece of expensive jewelry.

This was his playbook. Every time he knocked up another woman, he'd use these kinds of trinkets to buy my silence.

All of Chicago's high society was laughing behind my back. They called me shrewd, the one who ultimately won in this arrangement. His mistresses tried everything and got nothing, while I supposedly reaped all the rewards.

But they didn't know I'd long grown weary of this life.

I spoke softly, "Cillian, let's end our marriage."

Hearing this, Cillian froze. "End the marriage?" He let out a low, humorless laugh. "Seraphina Callahan, what kind of joke is this? Your family came crawling to us, offering you up to settle their debt. You think you can just walk away now?"

At this, his fingertips brushed my cheek. "You're talented and beautiful; you were always the perfect match for me. Isn't being Mrs. Rafferty enough?"

His words sent me reeling back seven years.

Back then, my father's life had been saved by Cillian's father, the Don of the Rafferty family, Declan. To repay a life debt that money couldn't measure, and to solidify the alliance between our families, I agreed to marry Cillian.

I had carried the weight of that gratitude for seven years, and I had been willing to spend those seven years repaying it. My sole duty was to produce an heir for the Rafferty family.

I knew that a family like the Raffertys needed an heir to carry on the bloodline.

But I was the one who couldn't give them one.

Now that the seven years were over, I had no reason to hold the title of Mrs. Rafferty any longer.

I took out my encrypted phone, found Declan's contact, and sent him a message:

"Don Rafferty, thank you for your protection seven years ago. The Callahan family's debt is paid. I wish to leave the Rafferty family, and I ask for your permission."