Second Chance with the Mafia Kingpin

My mafia husband, Vincent Santoro, was born a monster, incapable of loving anyone.

But one day, I discovered he was hiding a ‘forbidden fruit’.

A girl from the slums, Claire Murphy. Scarred by life, yet as beautiful as a wildflower growing through concrete.

For a man who'd waded through blood his whole life, she was a fatal attraction he never saw coming.

He thought he'd covered his tracks. He was wrong.

At the Santoro family's annual dinner, I confronted him about Claire, tears streaking down my face.

He just lightly frowned, then had his consigliere slide the divorce papers across the table to me.

"Isabella. Sign it. The three North Side docks and the shipping lines are yours."

I tore the papers to shreds. He just kept raising the offer.

He had me thrown into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan.

He blew up my family's distillery—the Romano family's legacy.

Finally, he took my parents. Tied them in an abandoned warehouse and made one watch as he set the other on fire.

"Sign, or watch them burn. Your choice."

I begged him on my knees, but a roar of flames consumed the world—

The heat seared my skin, the ash of my parents clinging to my face.

"No... NO!"

When I opened my eyes, I was back. Back on the day I first learned about Claire.

This time, no tears, no drama.

That night, I called my family in Sicily and set my escape in motion.

But the moment I vanished from his world… Vincent Santoro went insane.

...

In the life I lived before, I'd only ever seen a photo of Claire in Vincent's study.

This time, I wanted to see for myself what was so special about this girl… what kind of magic she possessed to make a soulless man feel something.

"Uncle Tony, I need you to get my parents to Sicily. This week. Make sure there's no trace. I'll follow when I can."

After the call, I had the family lawyer draw up separation papers.

Then I went to the South Side.

To the run-down Irish dive bar where she worked.

She was on her tiptoes under a single, dim yellow bulb, using sign language to interpret the news on the TV for a few deaf patrons.

The light, filtering through shelves of dusty glasses, dappled her skin.

A gentleness, an innocence... it had no place in this city of sin.

No wonder Vincent was hooked.

"Watch out—!"

Suddenly, the old ceiling fan overhead came crashing down.

I flinched back, but Claire lunged forward, taking the full force of the metal blades with her back to protect me.

BAM!

The rusty metal tore through her back, blood instantly soaking her cheap white shirt.

She barely winced, just turned to the terrified customers and signed:

"It's okay, just an accident."

I just stood there, stunned.

Her blood dripped onto the grimy floor, each drop a crimson stain on the filth.

Half an hour later, I was in the bar's cramped back room, cleaning her wound.

Her skin was so thin I could see the veins. A nasty old scar ran across her collarbone.

"This is...?"

She smiled and signed, "A broken bottle from when I was a kid. Doesn't hurt anymore."

But I knew. On the South Side, you treated wounds with whiskey and a prayer, if you were lucky.

She suddenly took my wrist, her finger tracing letters onto my palm:

Miss, your hands are trembling.

I snatched my hand back.

She was right. I was trembling.

Because these were the same hands that had held his; the hands of a woman married to the man who burned my parents alive.

"Wait here."

I pulled the check I'd prepared from my Hermès bag and pressed it into her hand.

"A month from now, I'll have a much better gift for you."

A month from now, the divorce would be final.

Claire shook her head, pushing the check back to me. She signed:

"I don't help people for money."

Just then, her old phone vibrated.

I only needed a glance to recognize the profile picture—

Vincent Santoro's private account.

She answered, holding the phone to her ear, but it was obvious she couldn't hear well.

On the screen, his voice was being transcribed into text.

The man's low, cold voice came through:

"Where are you hurt?"

She looked down at the screen, her lashes fluttering. The tips of her ears turned pink.

She typed back fast:

"I'm fine, just a scratch, you don't have to come…"

But the roar of a sports car engine was already coming through the phone.

From the Santoro family's nightclub headquarters to the South Side, his custom-built Maserati would make the trip in twenty minutes, tops.

He really does have eyes everywhere. Claire gets a scratch, and he's on the phone instantly.

But it seems his "eyes" only see Claire.

Not the wife he's been married to for ten years.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips.

The last time I was attacked by one of Vincent's rivals, I was in the hospital for three days.

All he did was have his underboss send a bouquet of white roses.

The card held a single, typed line.

"Don't die in the hospital. I don't have the time to claim your body."

So, it wasn't that he didn't have time.

It was that I wasn't worth it.

My mind drifted back to our third year of marriage.

There had been a brief, fragile time when he was almost tender with me.

It was the night he'd finally trusted me with his greatest secret: he was born with congenital analgesia, the inability to feel physical pain.

It was his one true vulnerability, and he had made me its sole keeper.

Then, somehow, the secret was leaked. Armed with that knowledge, his rivals set a trap during a sit-down.

They took a blowtorch and knives to his skin, searching for the crack in his composure.

He made it out alive, but his trust in me was dead.

He never accused me.

He never even asked.

He simply decided I was guilty.

From that day on, the look he gave me was the same one he reserved for traitors before sending them to the bottom of Lake Michigan.

And now, seeing the impossible tenderness he showed Claire, that old, familiar bitterness threatened to swallow me whole.

He hadn't even glanced my way.

My eyes were fixed on his back, but my whisper was lost in the bar.

"You've got company. I should go."