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The Donna’s Final Gift
The Donna’s Final Gift
Penulis: Peachy

Chapter 1

Penulis: Peachy
Back at the penthouse, I froze. Cassius was personally opening a vintage bottle of Romanée-Conti.

He hated the smell of liquor in the penthouse, yet here he was holding a decanter.

But this wasn't for me.

Just yesterday, Bianca had casually whined about "missing Burgundy wine."

For that one comment, the great Don flew a private jet to a French vineyard just to bring back this rare bottle.

Cassius turned and handed me a glass of the blood-red wine.

"It's our third anniversary. I opened it just for you." His tone sounded like charity. "Drink."

I stared at the swirling wine, my stomach turning.

He completely forgot that two years ago, I took a bullet to the liver saving him from an assassination. The doctor strictly forbade alcohol. It would trigger blinding pain.

The one who actually loved to drink was Bianca.

Swallowing the bitter chill in my chest, I kept a straight face and pushed the glass away.

"What?" He frowned, annoyed. Like I was being ungrateful.

I didn't argue. I just pulled two black folders from my bag and tossed them onto the marble island.

"My stomach hurts. Just sign these first." I forced my voice to stay steady.

They were business transfer papers.

But hidden under the thick inventory lists was our divorce agreement.

Cassius glanced at the cover and tugged at his tie impatiently. "I hate talking business at home. You've been managing these properties fine. There's no rush."

He grabbed a gold pen from the table, ready to just sign and get it over with.

Right as the pen touched the paper, his secure phone rang.

It was Bianca's custom ringtone.

Cassius's eyes changed instantly.

He stood up so fast he knocked over a heavy statue next to the table.

The metal base smashed right into my calf. I gasped in pain.

A bone-crushing ache hit me. Blood seeped through my stockings and dripped onto the carpet. It looked awful.

But Cassius was glued to his phone screen, completely blind to my bleeding.

He turned his back, answered the call, and spoke with a sickeningly jealous tenderness.

"Bianca, what's wrong? Don't cry, I'm here."

I stood there, watching my leg bleed. I couldn't breathe. The blood froze in my veins.

Fifteen solid minutes.

He patiently coaxed the woman on the phone, entirely forgetting his bleeding wife behind him.

When he hung up, he didn't even look at the papers. He just grabbed the pen and signed the last page.

Then, he smoothly pulled his gun and slipped it into his shoulder holster.

"Tell the maids to clean the carpet. Go patch yourself up." He strode toward the door. "Bianca's scared being alone in her apartment. I'm not coming home tonight."

The door slammed shut, locking all the cruelty and lies outside.

I looked at the closed door and let out a bleak laugh.

He didn't even know that what he just blindly signed were my divorce papers.

I grabbed some tissues and pressed hard on my leg. The pain kept me perfectly sharp.

Twenty-five years ago, the Family took me in as an orphan. I went through hellish training just to be the shadow and meat shield for Bianca, the real Mafia princess.

She soaked up everyone's love at the estate, while I dragged myself through the mud for her.

But later, a DNA test ripped the family secret open.

I was the true bloodline. Bianca was a bastard, swapped by a nanny.

When she found out, my mother came to me with red eyes. She said Bianca grew up spoiled, and if word got out she wasn't the real princess, she'd be ruined.

Covered in scars, I was forced to suck it up.

Then, right before her engagement to Cassius, Bianca met a Wall Street hotshot in Hawaii.

The night before the party, she bailed on the wedding in the name of "true love" and ran off to the West Coast with her jewelry.

Facing a fatal broken alliance, the Family put a gun to my head. They forced me—the daughter who gave up everything for them—to take her place.

I married him.

I spent three years running his businesses and taking bullets for him. I thought I could warm his cold heart.

He did give me absolute power and trust. I was foolish enough to think that was love.

Until recently. Bianca got dumped by the Wall Street guy, and came running back in tears.

Cassius was instantly hooked again.

To keep her happy, Cassius let her flip through the Family's secret ledgers—books only I was allowed to touch. When she got cornered by the press over a scandal, he used the Mafia to lock down the city, leaving me alone to face the D.A.'s interrogations.

I closed my eyes. All I could see was what I walked in on at the estate gardens recently.

Bianca was kissing him, giggling. "When are you going to kick her out? It's been three years. Don't tell me you actually fell for her?"

Cassius's reply was colder than the meat locker.

"Impossible. She's just a handy knife. Good for taking bullets. Once I take back the properties she manages, you'll be the only Donna by my side."

A knife.

My three years. My life. All for those three words.

A tear finally hit the back of my hand, but it would be the last one I ever shed for him.

Ledger Entry 66: He left me to die.

I'd had enough.

I tossed the bloody tissue in the trash and locked the signed divorce papers in the safe.

Then, I opened a drawer, pulled out a clean satellite phone, and dialed a number I hadn't called in three years.

"Nikolai... Cassius and I will be done in a month. When the time comes, get me out of here, okay?"
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  • The Donna’s Final Gift   Chapter 18

    Cassius’s POVI don’t know how I crawled back to the penthouse.The apartment was dead silent. No lights. Cold as a tomb.Once, there was a warm lamp she left on for me. A hot soup waiting. A gentle smile.Now, there was nothing.I dragged my broken, bleeding leg across the expensive carpet, leaving a long, dark smear.I crawled into the master bedroom, into the walk-in closet, and opened her side.Empty.I had no more tears to cry.All I could see was the image of her in a wedding dress tomorrow, walking toward Nikolai.“Camilla… my Camilla…”My hand trembling, I pulled the gun I’d used to kill Bianca from my coat pocket.I had nothing left.My pride, my love, my child. I had destroyed it all myself.I was a cripple with nothing. A joke living in an endless hell of regret.I slowly put the cold barrel of the gun in my mouth and closed my eyes.A final, desperate tear slid from the corner of my eye.BANG.A muffled shot broke the silence of the penthouse. Blood and brain matter splatte

  • The Donna’s Final Gift   Chapter 17

    Camilla’s POVTwo weeks later, the night before the wedding.New York was hit by the storm of the decade.Fierce winds and torrential rain slammed against the windows of the Costa estate.I was sitting in the warm walk-in closet, looking through the last few wedding dress lookbooks flown in from Paris.My Enforcer, Roy, hurried in, his expression conflicted. “Ma’am. There’s someone outside… they’ve been kneeling in the storm for four hours.”My hand paused. “Who?”“Cassius Marino. He’s been stripped of his title. Kicked out of the family’s inner circle.” Roy lowered his head. “He says… he just wants to see you one last time. Say one thing to you. Then he’s ready to die.”I closed the lookbook and walked to the security monitors.Outside the estate’s massive, black iron gates, a man was leaning on a crude cane.He was kneeling in the mud and rain, soaked to the bone, looking like a stray dog.It was the once-untouchable Cassius.He was so thin his cheekbones jutted out. His once-perfect

  • The Donna’s Final Gift   Chapter 16

    Camilla’s POVUnlike the blood and despair of the underground hospital, a transfer of power was taking place at the same moment in the Costa family’s lavish, Sicilian-style fortress on the Upper East Side.The grand dining hall was thick with cigar smoke. A dozen grizzled capos, their faces scarred from years of violence, sat on either side of a long table.These were the old guard, the men who had built the Costa empire with their own bloody hands. Their eyes were wild and untamed.At the head of the table sat the Costa family’s iron matriarch, Valentina.She wore a black velvet gown, her fingers slowly turning a string of blood-red prayer beads.The murderous glint in her eyes was more terrifying than that of any man in the room.I walked forward, hand-in-hand with Nikolai, dressed in a sharp, black silk gown.“So you’re the one. Camilla,” Valentina said, stopping the motion of her beads, her eyes scanning me up and down. “You sign divorce papers with the Marino kid, then you publicl

  • The Donna’s Final Gift   Chapter 15

    Cassius’s POV“Cassius! I was wrong! Please, forgive me!”Bianca finally understood the game was up. Her mask was shattered.She crawled across the floor like a dog and clutched the leg of my bed.“Cassius, I may have done those things, but I truly love you! I was just jealous of my sister because I love you so much, I wanted to be with you… Please, after everything we’ve been through, forgive me just this once!”Looking at her disgusting face, listening to her lies, made my stomach turn.“Don’t touch me with your filthy hands!”I roared, grabbing the heavy brass lamp from the nightstand and bringing it down on her head with all my strength.“AGH!” Bianca shrieked as the lamp split her forehead open. Warm blood poured into her eyes.She clutched her head, saw the murder in my eyes, and knew that begging was useless.She had nothing left to lose. She scrambled to her feet, her face a bloody mess, and let out a shrill, mocking laugh.“Cassius, who are you to judge me? You think you’re st

  • The Donna’s Final Gift   Chapter 14

    Cassius’s POVDozens of high-definition photos and documents spilled from the file onto my blood-stained hospital bed.I looked down.The moment my eyes hit the pictures, my world exploded.In the photos, Bianca—the same Bianca who acted so pure and innocent with me, blushing at a single touch—was in the grimy back rooms of Paris’s red-light district, wearing skimpy lingerie and straddling fat, old men.The next photo showed her being stripped naked and beaten in the street by a few burly Europeans after she was caught stealing from a client.She was bruised and naked, kneeling on the ground and begging for mercy like a dog in heat.But the worst were the medical receipts from a black-market clinic in Paris.Her name was printed clearly on them, next to the procedure: “Virginity Restoration.” Three separate times.“What… what is this… This can’t be real…”I was shaking violently, my fingers crushing the disgusting photos.“That is the pure, innocent fiancée you swore to protect!”Clari

  • The Donna’s Final Gift   Chapter 13

    Cassius’s POVThe underground mafia hospital in Manhattan reeked of antiseptic and blood.I jolted awake on the hospital bed, my forehead slick with cold sweat, my heart squeezed tight by an invisible hand.I tried to sit up, but a tearing pain shot through my right leg, and I collapsed back onto the pillows.“Boss, you’re finally awake.”The man standing by my bed was North America’s top black-market surgeon.He pulled off his blood-stained gloves, his face grim.“What’s wrong with my leg? Why can’t I feel anything below the knee?” I demanded, my voice a raw rasp.The doctor took a deep breath and delivered the sentence. “That shot from Nikolai’s man was nasty. The bullet only went through your calf, but the bone fragments acted like razors. They completely severed the main nerve. And because you forced yourself to stand on it back at the estate, you missed the window for a successful repair…”“Shut up! Just give it to me straight!” I roared, grabbing the glass of water from the night

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