LOGINTo be with Luca, I left New York and moved to Montreal. Three years of slaving over the stove, teaching myself the books, studying every detail of how to dress—all to fit into his world. To become his Donna. I actually believed I was on my way. But tonight, at the family banquet, the woman beside him wasn't me. It was Liliana—his childhood friend. His understudy leaned in and muttered in Italian. "Don, if you're settling things with Liliana, what happens to Catherine?" Luca took a slow drag of his cigar. "I love Catherine. But for the family, my Donna can't be some nobody." "And if she finds out?" "She loves me too much to walk away. I'll give her everything but the title." My chest tightened. A tremor ran through me that I couldn't stop. What they didn't know—I'd learned Italian in secret. I caught every single word. Liliana swept in wearing a long red dress. She shot me a look from above and gestured for me to move. Luca patted my hand. "Liliana's here to hold the room tonight. Go watch the kitchen. Don't let the staff screw up." I looked into his eyes. Three years of this—and it was all a joke I'd played on myself. I turned and walked out, pulling off his necklace and letting it drop to the carpet. My phone buzzed. My father asked how much longer I'd stay away. I stopped and typed. "Three days. I'm coming back to New York." Luca, when you find out your family doesn't even hold a candle to mine... what then?
View MoreA few days later, I heard that Luca's family had sent men to drag him back to Canada. While he was gone chasing me, the entire family operation had ground to a halt. Rival gangs seized the opening and swallowed a third of their territory.On top of that, kneeling in the snow for so long had permanently worsened the old injury in his leg. The doctors said he'd be bound to a wheelchair and crutches for the rest of his life.The mafia elders couldn't tolerate a crippled Don who'd lost his mind. They called a meeting, stripped him of his title, and cast him out of power. Liliana, seeing him fall, cleaned out whatever private fortune he had left and fled to Europe overnight. No one ever heard from her again.He stayed in that wrecked estate he'd trashed himself, drinking himself numb day after day.He'd finally become everything he once despised.A weak, lonely, worthless failure.Meanwhile, I was in a top private hospital in New York, pushing through rehab. After months of treatment and re
"Luca, do you really think that just because you're willing to lower your head and apologize, I'll forgive all your arrogance like I always did?"I asked him calmly.Luca froze, tears blurring his vision."You've always been like this. Taking sides without thinking. Hurting me without hesitation. Then just assuming I'd always be there waiting."I pulled a signed check from my bag with my left hand and tossed it onto the snow in front of him, like throwing away trash."Ten million dollars.""That's for three years of being your servant, enduring your family's humiliation, and this ruined right foot."I looked at him, every word deliberate."Three years ago, you saved my life on a Montreal street. That debt is paid."Snow fell in thick flakes, quickly covering the check.Luca knelt there, shaking violently. His eyes were filled with despair, panic, disbelief."No... I don't want money, Catherine. I just want you..."He reached for my ankle. I stepped back, cold and detached."You think t
The next day, he ignored every elder's objection and cleared his entire schedule. He bought a ticket to New York.He was going to beg her. Even if it meant kneeling in the middle of the street. Even if it meant giving up his life. He was going to bring his Donna back.New York winter was brutal, wind howling, snow falling in sheets.Luca stood outside a luxury apartment building, his lips purple from the cold. His left leg, plagued by old wounds, screamed in pain from the journey and the freezing temperatures. He could barely stand and leaned on a black cane.But he wouldn't move an inch.He'd burned through every mafia contact he had, spent five full days, just to track down where I was living now. The building security recognized his face and refused him entry. So he stood in the blizzard, eyes fixed on the entrance.Day turned to night.Wall Street elites in their tailored coats passed by, staring at this disgraced mafia don like he was insane. Pathetic. Broken. Brought to his knees
He took the wheel himself, flooring it through the city, running red after red, the tires screaming against the pavement as he tore through the estate gates.He stumbled and scrambled into the villa, into our bedroom.Empty. My coats, my suits, my shoes—all gone. The cosmetics I kept on the vanity were missing. Even my white towel in the bathroom had been taken.Nothing left. Not a single trace that I'd ever been there. Like three years had been nothing but a dream he'd made up.Luca ransacked the room like a wild animal losing its mind, clawing through every corner for something, anything, I might have left behind.He yanked open the desk drawer.Empty. Just a pile of crumpled paper.His hands shook as he picked one up and smoothed it out. A wedding invitation, still faint with the scent of ink. My name and his, slashed through with heavy black strokes.He collapsed to the floor, staring at that ruined invitation, his chest caving in. The suffocation closed around him.He finally unde


















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