Too Late For Regret: The Mafia King's Despair

My twin sister Haleigh returned with a fake diagnosis of Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and a "dying wish" to marry my fiancé, Jameson Blair.

Without a second thought, Jameson, the most feared Underboss in New York, took the three-carat diamond meant for me and slid it onto her finger.

I became the spare. The obstacle standing in the way of a tragedy's happy ending.

When Haleigh planted a brown recluse spider in my room, I was the one bitten and poisoned. Yet, my brothers kicked me while I was delirious with fever, accusing me of trying to terrorize their "dying" angel.

On her birthday yacht party, a grill tipped over during a storm. My synthetic dress caught fire instantly.

As flames seared the skin off my legs, I screamed for help.

But Jameson and my brothers formed a human shield around Haleigh, frantically checking her hand for a single speck of ash while I burned alive just ten feet away.

The final straw came at the cliffs. Haleigh staged a suicide attempt to frame me for bullying her.

To teach me a lesson, Jameson bound my wrists and hung me over the edge of the abyss on a rope, leaving me dangling helplessly over the churning ocean.

They thought they were punishing a monster.

They didn't know I had a jagged rock in my hand.

As they drove away to comfort the liar, I didn't wait for them to come back.

I sawed through the rope myself and let the ocean take me.

Three years later, after discovering Haleigh never had cancer, my brothers and Jameson found me alive in Florence.

They knelt on the cobblestones, weeping, begging for a second chance.

I looked at the men who had watched me burn.

"You aren't sorry you hurt me," I said, turning to walk away with another man.

"You're just sorry you bet on the wrong sister."

Chapter 1

I watched through the rain-streaked window of the cafe as Jameson Blair, the most feared Underboss in New York, slipped the three-carat heirloom diamond meant for me onto my twin sister's finger.

My phone buzzed against the cold marble table.

It was a notification from the family calendar, a digital ghost from a future that no longer existed.

Isabella and Jameson: Wedding Rehearsal.

I swiped the notification away.

Across the street, the heavy oak doors of City Hall swung open.

Jameson stepped out first.

He looked like a king who had just conquered a new territory, his dominance absolute.

His black suit was tailored to hide the holster he wore under his left arm, but I knew the shape of the gun against his ribs better than I knew the beat of my own heart.

Last week, he had executed three men for breaching Blair territory.

Today, he was killing me without firing a single shot.

Haleigh clung to his arm.

She looked frail in her white dress, a calculated fragility that made men want to burn the world down to keep her warm.

My brothers followed them out.

Derrick, Blake, and Kane.

They were smiling.

They hadn't smiled at me in five years.

Not since Haleigh ran away to "find herself," leaving me to fill the empty seat next to the most dangerous man in the city.

I was the spare.

The seat warmer.

The cage meant to hold the beast until the real keeper returned.

I sipped my black coffee. It had gone cold, tasting of bitterness and ash.

Five years I had spent learning Jameson's moods.

Five years of soothing his temper after a hit went wrong.

Five years of wearing the clothes he liked, speaking when spoken to, and preparing to be the wife of a Mafia Don.

Then Haleigh came back two weeks ago.

She came back with a story about Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and a dying wish to marry her first love.

It was a lie.

I knew it was a lie because I had seen the glitter in her eyes when the doctor-a man on our payroll-read the fake chart.

But Jameson didn't see it.

My brothers didn't see it.

They only saw the Golden Child returning home to die.

They saw me as the obstacle standing in the way of a tragedy's happy ending.

I stood up and smoothed the skirt of my dress. It was time to play my part.

I walked out of the cafe and crossed the wet street. The air smelled of exhaust, ozone, and expensive cologne.

Jameson saw me first.

His eyes were the color of the Atlantic in winter.

Cold.

Unforgiving.

There was no guilt in them. Only a hard, possessive look directed at the woman on his arm.

Haleigh saw me and gasped. She pressed a hand to her chest, performing a perfect pantomime of shock.

Jameson's arm tightened around her waist instantly.

"Isabella," Derrick barked.

My oldest brother stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the happy couple.

"Go home."

I didn't look at him. I looked at Jameson.

"Congratulations," I said.

My voice was steady. I had practiced this in the mirror while I packed the go-bag currently hidden in a locker at Grand Central.

Jameson didn't speak. He just stared at me, his jaw set in a line of granite.

Haleigh stepped out from behind Derrick.

She reached for my hand. Her skin was warm. Far too warm for a dying woman.

"I'm so sorry, Bella," she said, her voice trembling for the audience of bodyguards and brothers. "I never wanted to hurt you. But time is so short."

She pulled me into a hug.

Her perfume was suffocating. Gardenias and decay.

She leaned close to my ear.

Her grip on my shoulders turned into a pinch, her nails digging viciously into my flesh.

"He was never yours," she whispered.

Her breath was hot against my neck, branding me with the truth.

"He was just passing time until I came back."

She pulled away, tears shimmering in her eyes. A perfect performance.

Jameson looked at me.

His gaze dropped to the hand Haleigh had touched, then back to my face.

"She is Haleigh," he said.

Three words.

That was his justification.

Because she was Haleigh-the sun, the moon, the stars.

And I was just Isabella.

The shadow.

Jameson opened the door of the black SUV.

He helped Haleigh inside as if she were made of glass.

Derrick, Blake, and Kane piled in after them.

They didn't look back.

The car pulled away, splashing dirty water onto my shoes.

I stood alone on the curb.

The rain began to fall harder, soaking through my dress.

I didn't cry.

I had cried enough tears over Jameson Blair to fill the Hudson River.

I turned and walked to the corner, my spine straight, my resolve hardened.

I raised my hand for a taxi.

"Where to?" the driver asked.

"Sotheby's International Realty," I said.

"I have an island to buy."