003

I walked out of the factory with my men following behind me. I never went anywhere without them. I shaded my eyes with a pair of dark sunglasses… but not from the sun. The eyes held so much emotion and I wasn't about to let my men see that side of me.

“Where is she?” I asked Nikolai, my right-hand man, as we got into the car.

“She's safe in the estate. Still unconscious as of when I left her.”

“I hope you didn't hurt her, Nikolai. I swear to God if I see as much as a scratch on her body—”

“She's fine, Don. Didn't stress us one bit,” Nikolai said, adjusting his shirt from where I grabbed him.

Typical Tessa. She was gentle, compassionate, and the most loving person I had ever come across. My body ached painfully with the need to see her finally after ten long years. The need to touch her, and feel her smooth skin and soft blonde hair again.

I leaned my head back on the car seat and shut my eyes, memories of us in our childhood days flooding my head like I was dying.

“Don? I'm afraid you should see this,” Nikolai said, handing me a brown envelope.

I grabbed it from him and hurriedly pulled out it's contents. In it were Tessa's information: pictures, written findings, and everything my men used to track her down.

My eyes opened wide, and I blinked frantically as I went through the documents. She still looked the way I remembered her, only a little older and more mature. I saw everything: her address, her job, her best friend, family, and even fiancé.

She was engaged to get married next month. My heart dropped to my stomach as I sat paralyzed. The woman that haunted my sleep and thoughts for ten years now had moved on from me. She was getting married.

I don't know why I couldn't accept it. I shouldn't have expected less. She couldn't possibly wait ten years for me, but I was hurt still. Did she even think of me half as much as I did? If my men hadn't found her when they did, she would have been married. I'd still take her anyway, but I was hurt. I couldn't help but feel angry.

I needed to smash something. To kill someone. I turned and fixed my gaze on Nikolai, who almost shrunk beneath my deadly stare.

Nikolai was my most trusted man. He was the closest to me since I inherited my current position from the Don Alejandro, who took a liking to me back in prison years ago.

I looked away from him and placed my head on the window glass beside me, watching the world move by fast.

I was twenty when I was arrested for the first time in my life for a crime I knew nothing about. I was framed for it and pleaded to be heard out, but everyone turned cold shoulders to me.

I cried and tried to break free from the hold of the numerous officers who grabbed me like I was the most notorious criminal on earth. I cried and pleaded. Pleaded to be heard out.

My family stood there and watched me being taken away without a word. They hated me. They saw me as a black sheep who constantly got into trouble, threatening to drag my ‘esteemed’ family name down the mud.

My heart was shattered. The hurt I felt when my father always punished me for the littlest mistakes, or when my mother treated me like a plague, or when they warned my younger siblings to abstain from me because I was a bad influence, didn't amount to the pain I felt watching them give me icy stares as I nearly ran out of breath crying for help.

I tore my eyes from my family to the only person who mirrored my hurt. She wailed and ran after me, screaming my name. My girlfriend, whom I had dated for years. She was my childhood friend first, the only person I had. The only person who comforted me, treated the injuries inflicted on me by my father, and didn't laugh or judge me for being weak.

She never spoke bad of my family despite knowing how much they hated and treated me badly. I loved her so much, and that fateful night of my arrest was the last time I set my eyes on her.

I was released from jail after two years of loneliness, brokenness, and crying myself to sleep every night, after waiting each day for someone to visit. She didn't come and neither did my family.

On returning home, my family had moved on. They forgot about me and clearly didn't want me back. I went to look for Tessa and found out she had relocated that same year I was arrested. Where to? I didn't know. I was beyond hurt. I had nobody except Don Alejandro, the Italian Mafia boss I met in jail. I went with him to Italy and let him mold me. Eventually, he adored me even more and fondly called me Riccardo. The anger and pain in my heart combined and coated my once weak heart in steel.

I became ruthless. More dangerous and feared than Don Alejandro himself. I killed without remorse and became his most loyal trustee, running his illegal business without fear and doing it ten times better than he could. I needed to keep busy anyway. I needed to forget my old life.

He made me his successor before his mysterious passing. And now, I was Don Pierre Riccardo. The most ruthless and feared mafia Don who was slowly dominating a vast number of syndicates across various other countries.

But a part of me couldn't forget Tessa. So I set out on a mission to find her. And finally, I did.

“Arrange for a beautiful woman for me,” I instructed Nikolai when we arrived at my estate in New York where Tessa had been kept.

I needed to fuck this anger out of me before meeting the one and only love of my life.