From Scapegoat to Donna

My adoptive father was a Capo in the Gambino family.

When his biological daughter, Emma Garcia, came home, she hated me for having the life she thought was hers. She wanted me gone, whatever it took.

She took my room, my favorite doll, even my fiancé, Luke Smith. At school, she turned my classmates against me, bullied me, and bruised herself so she could blame me for it.

She stole our parents' gold jewelry and drugged them, then pinned both crimes on me.

Father slapped me when he found out. Mother screamed that she'd been blind to adopt someone like me. Then they threw me out.

I fought my way back on my own. I became the best surgeon at the Gambino family hospital and earned a place people respected.

Emma couldn't stand it. She begged Luke to pull strings and get her into my department at the family hospital. Luke was the Don's right-hand man, and Emma was his wife. No one there dared cross her. Some even helped her torment me.

I wanted to leave, but the Gambino family didn't let people walk away alive. We knew too many secrets. We'd seen too much blood.

So I kept my head down and got better at my job. Someday, I'd be the Don's personal physician. With his protection, no one would dare touch me again.

Then Emma decided she wanted the credit for saving Elder Gotti. She used Luke's position to force her way into the surgery, though she had neither the skill nor the practice for it.

The elder's gunshot wound wasn't in a vital spot. But Emma's hands shook during the operation. She nicked an organ, and he started hemorrhaging. Less than two minutes later, he was dead.

Emma panicked and ran to Luke, playing the helpless wife. Then she pointed out that I had no connections and no one to defend me. I would make the perfect scapegoat.

Luke, the man I'd loved for three years, agreed without a second thought.

By the time I reached the OR, the elder was dead and the trap had been set. The whole hospital lined up to testify that I'd killed him on purpose.

My parents went to the family with more lies. They said I'd tried to poison them and that was why they'd thrown me out. Elder Gotti was the most respected man on the Gambino family council. He'd made the family the country's strongest mafia power, and everyone loved him.

When the news spread, family members stormed the hospital, ready to tear me apart. I fought and screamed the truth, but no one believed me.

In the end, I was hanged for the murder of the elder.

For three days before my execution, they kept me in the Gambino family dungeon. Every day, someone came to spit on me and curse me.

Later, Luke took the Don's seat. Emma became his Donna.

The night before my execution, Emma came to my cell, gloating. She waved her Donna ring in my face and told me everything. She'd sent my adopted son to the wastelands. No one knew whether he was alive or dead.

I couldn't bear to imagine what he was going through.

"You monster!"

I snapped and reached through the bars, desperate to get my hands around her throat. But the family had beaten me black and blue. I had no strength left.

I died furious, with a scream trapped in my throat and the truth still unheard.

Now I'd been given another chance.

I wouldn't take the blame for Emma again. But going to the OR meant dying. Ignoring the director's text would let them claim I'd deliberately left the elder to die.

I stood in a safe corner of the family estate and watched the riot outside.

Then it hit me. The Don had gone out to put down the unrest that day. He'd been ambushed and killed, leaving Luke free to steal his seat.

If I saved him, I'd have his protection. I could show him what my so-called family and Luke really were. Then they'd pay for what they'd done to me in my last life.

I ran toward the spot where I remembered the ambush. The place was chaos. The Don had been fighting for hours and was too exhausted to notice the gun aimed at his heart.

I gritted my teeth, lunged, and shoved him out of the way. The bullet caught me instead. I'd bet everything on that one move.