Chapter 1

Jo POV

The night I decided to end my marriage, New York slept outside our penthouse windows.

Only the cursor on my laptop stayed awake—blinking beside the words Divorce Agreement.

I was about to type my name when the door slammed open.

Giovanni Romano—heir to New York’s most feared Mafia family—stumbled in, smelling of whiskey and someone else’s perfume.

But for once, he was smiling.

And not at me.

At our son.

“Come here, kid,” he said, his voice rough, uneven.

Leo froze, clutching the little airplane I’d found at a thrift store last week.

Then he ran to him—because children always run toward the people who hurt them most.

Giovanni lifted him up.

It was the first time in seven years I’d ever seen him hold his own child.

Leo’s voice trembled. “Mom… why’s Uncle Gio smiling?”

Uncle. Always Uncle. Never Dad.

I forced a smile that stung my lips.

“Because, sweetheart,” I said softly, “the woman he loves just came back.”

He blinked, confused. “Then… we should leave, right? So we don’t bother him?”

My throat tightened. “Yeah, baby. We should.”

That night, after Leo fell asleep in the guest room, I sat in the dark and stared at the glowing screen.

Seven years—married in name, separate in practice; sharing a roof like strangers while silence and his family’s men kept watch.

I’d married into a Mafia dynasty—not for power, not for protection, but for love.

A love that had rotted long before our wedding rings lost their shine.

I was about to type my name when the door creaked open again.

Leo stood there barefoot, holding his little airplane.

“Mom… are we really leaving? Because… Uncle Gio gave me this. Doesn’t that mean he likes me now?”

I froze.

The same man who refused to hold him in public—afraid someone might see he had a family—had given him a toy tonight, probably to quiet his own guilt.

“Sweetheart…” I started, then stopped. What could I say?

That the toy wasn’t from him, but from the woman who had just returned from Paris?

That his father smiled tonight because she did—because happiness had finally come home, just not to us?

So I lied. Like I always did.

I tucked him in, kissed his forehead, and whispered, “Sleep now, baby. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Then I sat beside him until his breathing evened out.

When the tears came, I didn’t stop them.

Not because I still loved Giovanni, but because I didn’t know how to tell my seven-year-old that his father’s heart had never made room for him.

I learned that truth the hard way.

Leo was two when it first happened.

We were walking through the crowded market in Little Italy when he called out, “Daddy!” by mistake—soft, innocent, unaware of what that word meant in our world.

Giovanni froze. Then, without a word, he let go of Leo’s hand and kept walking, pretending not to hear.

By the time a stranger led Leo back to me, his little hands were shaking.

He never called him Dad again.

When he turned four, he begged to go to the amusement park. Giovanni agreed—but disappeared into a phone call the moment we arrived.

An hour later, I found Leo sitting alone on the curb, hugging his knees, too scared to cry.

That was the day something inside me went quiet—and never came back.

Now, years later, Leo was old enough to sense the truth but still too gentle to face it.

He held the little airplane close, his voice barely a whisper.

“Mom… can we give him three chances? If he still doesn’t like us after that… we’ll leave forever.”

My chest cracked open.

Three chances.

The same number of times I’d forgiven Giovanni before I stopped expecting him to change.

I brushed a tear off his cheek.

“Okay, baby,” I said quietly. “Three chances.”

Inside, I already knew—

He’d fail them all.