Home / Romance / Chosen By The Don / Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

All Chapters of Chosen By The Don: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

120 Chapters

A Woman With No Name

The room went quiet in a way that had weight to it, like the air itself had thickened."Say that again," Damiano whispered into the phone, though I could already tell from his face that he'd heard it the first time and simply needed to hear it fail to change.I sat down across from him without being asked, my legs not entirely trustworthy. The study around us suddenly felt smaller, the walls pressing closer, the ticking of the antique clock on the mantel louder than it had been a moment ago. Twelve years. A grave his mother visited every month, flowers replaced on the same schedule the way some people kept appointments with a doctor. A nineteen-year-old boy who'd spent over a decade believing he'd let his little sister drown because he looked away for thirty seconds too long, who'd built an entire empire of control and distance partly, I was beginning to understand, because control was the only thing that had ever made the guilt bearable."Where," Damiano said, and then, sharper, "

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Maren

"Before who knows we're here?" Damiano's voice had dropped to something raw, barely contained, the words coming faster than I'd ever heard him speak. "Sofia. Is it you? Look at me. Tell me it's you."The lady in the doorway flinched at the name like it was a physical blow, her whole body recoiling an inch before she caught herself. For a second I thought she might shut the door in our faces, lock it, pretend none of this had happened, pretend we'd knocked on the wrong room and would simply walk away if she stayed quiet long enough. Instead her shoulders dropped, slowly, like something inside her had finally given up the fight it had been holding for twelve years, and something in her face crumpled into twelve years of held breath finally let go all at once."It's me," she whispered, her voice cracking down the middle of the word. "It's really me, Dami."The nickname seemed to break something open in him. I watched it happen in real time — the careful control he wore like armor crack

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Glass

The sound came first, a sharp crack followed by a thousand smaller ones, and then the spray of glass caught the lamplight like something almost beautiful before it rained down across the carpet in a glittering arc. I hit the floor before I'd consciously decided to move, some animal part of my brain doing the thinking my mind hadn't caught up to yet, my knee striking the carpet hard enough that I knew it would bruise, my palms flat against the rough fibers, the smell of dust and old upholstery filling my nose as I pressed myself lower, every muscle locked rigid with an instinct older than thought.For one suspended second, nobody moved. The room held its breath along with the three of us, the curtain still swaying faintly where the bullet had passed through it, a thin curl of evening air sliding through the broken glass and across my cheek, cool against skin gone hot with adrenaline."Down, stay down—" Damiano was already covering Sofia, pulling her flat against the side of the bed, h

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

The Black Sedan

The car didn't move. It just sat there at the corner of the building, engine idling low, a deep, patient rumble that carried across the lot despite the distance, the kind of stillness that felt far more threatening than if it had simply come at us full speed."They're waiting for the sirens," I whispered, my voice barely audible over my own ragged breathing. "They know they're out of time. They want to see what we do next. This is them deciding whether one more shot is worth the risk now that help is coming.""Then we don't give them anything to see." Damiano kept one arm braced around Sofia, the other hand pressed flat against the gravel like he was anchoring all three of us to the ground by sheer will, his eyes never leaving the dark shape of the sedan. "Stay behind the car. Don't move until I say. If they want a shot, I want them to have to work for it."Sofia's breathing had gone shallow and fast, her good hand pressed hard against the wound on her arm, blood seeping between her f

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Bloodwork

"Sit down," is rarely a phrase that precedes good news, and I felt my stomach drop before the doctor had even gestured toward the two chairs against the hallway wall, the kind of cheap waiting-room chairs that seemed designed more for endurance than comfort.Damiano didn't sit. He stood with his arms crossed, jaw tight, every line of him braced for another blow, his shoulders set in a way that reminded me of the first night I'd met him, that same rigid, unyielding stance, except now I understood it as armor rather than simple coldness."Tell us," he said.The doctor glanced at the folder in his hands, then backed up, choosing his words with the careful precision of someone who'd delivered difficult news before and had learned exactly how much cushioning helped and how much only delayed the impact, drawing it out into something crueler than directness would have been. "Your sister's bloodwork shows elevated levels of a sedative compound, consistent with long-term, controlled administr

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Terms

I read the message three times before the words stopped rearranging themselves into something less frightening than what they actually said, the hallway suddenly feeling smaller, the fluorescent lights overhead too harsh, too bright for the kind of fear settling into my chest."He knows we're here," I said. "He knows about the bloodwork. He knows about the memory thing, the — what did the doctor call it, suppression. How would he know that already? We only just found out ourselves, twenty minutes ago, in a private house Damiano said wasn't on any record Marco could access.""Because he's likely had someone monitoring her for years, and that someone almost certainly reported back the moment she started missing doses, or showing signs of clarity, or doing anything that suggested the chemical leash was slipping." Damiano's jaw had gone tight enough that I could see the muscle working beneath his skin, a small, steady pulse of restrained fury. "He's not guessing. He's confirming somethin

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

What My Father Knew

"I don't know what he means," I said, and hated how small my voice sounded admitting it, the words barely louder than a whisper in the quiet of the room. "I knew my father borrowed money. I knew the restaurant was failing, watched it fail in real time for years, watched him come home later and later, watched him stop meeting my eyes at the dinner table. I didn't know there was anything else to know. I thought I'd already learned every painful thing there was to learn about him.""Marco doesn't make idle threats. If he's implying there's more to your father's debt, there's more to your father's debt." Damiano's eyes had gone sharp, calculating, but there was something careful underneath it too — like he was watching for my reaction as much as he was processing the information itself, his attention split between the puzzle and the person standing in front of him trying to solve it. "Did your father ever mention Marco by name? Before any of this happened? Think carefully. Even somethin

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Two Signatures

The car went quiet except for the hum of the road beneath us, the white lines on the asphalt flicking past in steady, hypnotic rhythm, the only visible thing in a darkness that otherwise pressed close against the windows."Say that again," Damiano said, his voice carefully controlled in a way that told me he was holding something back from showing too much in front of me, the same controlled stillness I'd learned to recognize as the calm before something significant broke loose in him."Your father's signature, sir. Antonio Marchetti's loan agreement. It's countersigned by both your uncle and your father. Dated eight months before Mr. Rosetti senior passed away." A pause on the line, uncomfortable, the kind of silence that suggested the man on the other end was bracing himself for whatever reaction might follow. "I can have it scanned and sent to you immediately, or wait until you're back to show you in person. Your call.""Send it now."We pulled off onto the shoulder of the dark hig

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Thirty-five Years

"That's not possible," I said, staring at the photograph until the edges of it blurred, the two young men's faces swimming slightly in my vision. "My father never married into anything. He married my mother. I would know if there was someone else, some other arrangement, thirty-five years ago. She would have told me. Someone would have told me.""Would you, though?" Sofia's voice came gently from the back seat, careful in a way that suggested she was speaking from hard experience rather than idle speculation. "I spent twelve years believing things about my own family that turned out to be carefully constructed lies. Sometimes the people closest to us protect us from the truth precisely because they think we're better off not carrying it. My own mother visited a grave every month for over a decade. People can build entire lives around things that aren't real, especially when the alternative feels too dangerous to risk."Damiano set the phone down on the dashboard, his jaw working as

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

Alone, No Police

The silence after the screen went black lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like something that could have swallowed an entire night, the dark highway stretching ahead of us suddenly feeling endless in a way it hadn't a moment before."He has her," Damiano said, his voice gone flat with a kind of controlled fury I hadn't heard from him even in the parking lot under gunfire, something colder and more absolute than the heat of panic. "He has my mother, and he wants us to walk into wherever he's holding her with absolutely no protection, after everything that's already happened tonight.""It's a trap," Sofia said immediately, her voice sharpening despite the exhaustion still etched into her face, leaning forward as far as her injured arm would allow. "Dami, you know it's a trap. He's not going to let any of us walk back out of wherever he's holding her, not after tonight, not after I started talking, not after Elena threatened to expose everything he's built. He has too much to lose n

Last Updated : 2026-08-02

1 2 3 4 5 6

...

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP