All Chapters of The Don Regretted It Five Years After I Left: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

The woman and I were barely acquaintances, but everyone in the LA underworld had heard the story of me and Dante.She'd been typing fast on her phone until she got a good look at Lily's face. Then she froze and deleted the message without sending it.“You... got married? And you have a kid?” Her throat worked. “Who's the father? Please tell me it's not that old creep from the underground bar.”Lily tugged at my skirt and looked up at me. I smiled politely and moved to step around her.Yet she caught my wrist, blood-red nails digging in.“Mia, listen to me. Dante's more powerful now than he ever was. The whole East Coast port network answers to him. He spent years looking for you. He put the word out: say the word, he'd break off the engagement that same day. Without Camille, she's done. She'll never be Donna of the Moretti family.”She watched my face. Nothing moved in it. Her voice dropped.“Or I could pretend I never saw you. Take the baby, go smooth things over with Dante. The posit

Chapter 2

My father fled when I was seven.He'd been a fringe associate of the Moretti family, someone they kept around for odd jobs.Then he lost big at a card table, and what he'd lost wasn't his own money. He'd skimmed it from one of the family's smuggling operations.So he cleaned out our apartment, and the man who'd sworn he'd protect our family forever abandoned my mother and me and fled.The family showed up the next morning to collect. The guy leading them patted me on the head. “She's gonna be a real beauty when she grows up.”They moved us from a decent apartment to a rental at the far end of South Side. Overnight, my mother went from a lady of means to a poor woman struggling to survive in the slums.That night, she held both my hands. “Mia. Girls like us, pretty isn't a gift. Remember that.”That neighborhood was one the police and the priests both stayed out of.You didn't have to do anything. Just lean out a window and the catcalls started below.The worst was a night someone tried

Chapter 3

Not long after, Dante's coming-of-age banquet was held at an estate in Long Island.It was his first official appearance as heir, and he insisted I come as his date.I wore the black dress I'd been saving up for three years.When Dante knocked and saw what I had on, he frowned. “I sent over three gowns. Why aren't you wearing one of them?”“This is fine.”“Mia. You know what tonight is. That dress is...” He paused. “It looks cheap.”“That's exactly why I'm wearing it. I was a girl who carried trays at a dock bar. I'm not going to pretend to be someone I'm not. Your gowns would look out of place on me. Too conspicuous. Too wrong.”He didn't care what I thought. He made me change into the red dress he'd picked: fitted, low-cut, everything wrong for my face.I stared at myself in the mirror and said nothing.When we reached the estate gates, he took my hand and looked at me with that careful sincerity. “Whatever anyone says tonight, just stay by my side. All you need to know is that I lov

Chapter 4

I found out later that “business trip” was a private dinner Camille's father had hosted somewhere in Southern Europe. Dante attended as the future son-in-law.Then my mother had a cardiac episode. The surgery would cost half a million dollars, and without the deposit, they wouldn't operate.Half a million. Even if I emptied every account I had and worked the rest of my life, I'd never get there.I stood at the emergency entrance for a long time, phone in my hand.My mother had always told me: don't ask people for things. Ask once, and you're in debt forever.But I had no choice.I scrolled to Dante's name and stayed on it.Not a loan, I told myself. This was nothing to him. Emergency funds. I would pay back every cent with interest.I called.He hung up immediately.I called again. And again. Twenty times. Nothing.My mother's condition was getting worse. I stared at the screen, hands starting to shake, and kept dialing.On the fiftieth call, someone picked up.I almost exhaled with re

Chapter 5

After my shift that night, I got a call from the hospital.My mother had a second cardiac event. They needed payment before they could continue treatment. Thirty minutes. That was all the time they'd give me.I was on my motorbike and moving before they finished the sentence.Then a black SUV came tearing out of a side street and hit me straight on.I went over the handlebars, landed on my back with my skull catching the curb. Everything went white. Blood on the asphalt.My phone landed a couple feet away, teetering at the edge of a drainage ditch.I got my arm under me and tried to push toward it. I knew my mother was waiting.Then a pair of heels stopped in front of my face. Red-soled.I tilted my head back.Camille.She crouched down and met my eyes.Then she stretched out one foot and nudged my phone into the ditch with the toe of her shoe.Then she raised that same shoe and stepped down on the hand I'd just reached out, slow and deliberate.Bones shifted. The sound was small.I pu

Chapter 6

All of that was five years ago.The pain fades. Five years later, I was done surviving the slums.Dante showed up that same afternoon.I'd just gotten Lily down for a nap when the hotel suite buzzer went off.Five years. He looked like himself, just older, like something had worn him down.“Mia.” His voice was tight. “I heard you were back.”I stayed in the doorway. I didn't invite him in.“I've been looking for you for five years.”“What happened back then, that was on me.” He took a step forward. “The night Camille hit you, I was wrong. I can break off the engagement today. Right now. Just come back to me, and I'll make the entire Moretti family kneel at your feet.”I looked at him, then laughed.“You said the exact same thing five years ago.”“Mia—”“Mr. Moretti, I'm married.” I cut him off. “My daughter is five years old.”His face went still for a moment, then shifted through disbelief, embarrassment, and something angrier.Through the door behind me, Lily slept on, completely und

Chapter 7

The meeting came to order.The chair called the investor representative to the table.I stood up, took off my glasses, and walked to the head of the long table.Dante's coffee cup hit the edge of the table with a sharp crack. Camille's crossed leg froze in midair.“...Mia?” Dante was on his feet. “What are you doing here?”I didn't look at him.I pulled out the chair and sat down, opening the file.“Cross-border financing. Two billion dollars. I represent the investors.”“You represent them?” Camille let out a short laugh. “On whose authority? Which firm was blind enough to send you?”I didn't argue. I turned to the first page.“Item one. I've reviewed the asset collateral list submitted by the Moretti family.”“Three of the berths at Long Island Harbor have title issues.”“Five years ago, laundered proceeds from a smuggling operation were used in the acquisition of those three berths.”“This stain is unacceptable to the investors.”The documents in my hands were detailed, specific, ex

Chapter 8

I turned around.Rafael walked toward us, suit sharp, one hand holding Lily's. She'd just had a bath and her hair was still damp.The moment she spotted me, she pulled free and launched herself at me. “Mommy!”I caught her.Rafael came to stand beside me, his hand settling on my shoulder, easy and natural.He looked at Dante, unhurried.“And you are?”“Dante Moretti,” I said. “The investor meeting today. His family.”“Ah.” Rafael gave a polite nod. “Rafael Kavin. Mia's husband.”Dante took him in: the suit, the watch, every inch of him. Nothing about Rafael read as underworld. No tells. No weight.What Dante saw was a civilian. A man with some money and a lucky break. The kind of man he could crush without a second thought.“Mr. Kavin.” Dante's smile didn't reach his eyes. “Are you aware that your wife used to belong to me?”Rafael raised an eyebrow.“I'm aware.” A beat. “I know everything about her. And I know that you held another woman while she bled out in the street.”Dante's expr

Chapter 9

The next three months were rough on Dante.After the financing collapsed, he tried other channels, and every one of them fell through at the last minute.He tried liquidating the family's European port holdings. Buyers pulled out at the final stage.He called in old favors. The people who used to bow their heads and pick up on the first ring stopped answering.Blocked at every turn, every door closing before he could get his foot in.He never figured it out, that every one of those dead ends led back to Rafael. The civilian he'd written off.The Moretti name, once capable of making half the East Coast hold its breath, became a red flag on every risk assessment sheet in the city.With nowhere left to turn, Dante did what cornered men always do. He found someone to blame.He decided it was Camille.She was the one who'd hit me that night, he told himself. She'd crippled my hand. She'd been the voice on that call. And because of what she'd done, I'd come back with a grudge and buried the

Chapter 10

My story with Rafael starts the same place everything does: the night of that crash, five years ago.After Dante drove away with Camille, I lay in the street and thought I was going to die.Rafael happened to be passing by.He pulled over, crouched down beside me, and pressed his jacket hard against the back of my head.I couldn't speak anymore.I remember he asked one question: “Is there anything you can't let go of?”I used the last thing I had. “My mother — hospital—”He made the call immediately and covered the full surgery deposit on the spot.When I came to, he was sitting in the chair beside my bed.“I tracked down all twenty-one people you borrowed from. I paid back every one of them.”“From today, you only owe one person.”I found out later that Rafael was in the middle of his own crisis that night.The Kavin family was working a cross-border acquisition: eight layers of money laundering traps laid by a competitor, and the whole thing was about to go sideways. Everyone around

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP