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All Chapters of I Gave Him Ten Years. Then I Took It All Back: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

11 Chapters

Chapter 1

The dinner ended, and Marco took off his wedding ring and dropped it into the car's storage compartment.I moved to the back seat without being asked. He looked at me in the rearview mirror, surprised that I had not sat next to him."What?"I understood what he meant. It was the kind of unspoken understanding we had built over ten years of hardship."We agreed on our wedding night," I said. "I would never try to take Sofia's place."Ten years ago, Sofia Conti disappeared the night before the wedding. Her parents brought me back from the countryside in a hurry, announced that I was their real daughter, and pushed me into the marriage with the Falcone family. On our wedding night, Marco drank himself unconscious and called out Sofia's name for hours.While Sofia raised champagne glasses at gallery openings in Europe, I attended the meetings Marco could not show up to during the years the family had cast him aside. I kept the allies from turning against us. While Sofia skied in the Alps,

Chapter 2

In the first year of our marriage, one of Valentina Falcone's warehouses was raided by the police. News spread fast, and the rival families started pressuring the Falcone family to give up control of several key territories.Valentina claimed I was the one who leaked the information. She said I was the only outsider in the family and I had every reason to betray them. A few of the old-timers believed her, and they demanded that Marco hand me over to prove the family's loyalty. Marco said nothing the whole time. When the family guards took me out of the room, he did not look up. I spent six hours in a windowless room that night and was not let out until morning.When I got back to the bedroom, Marco handed me a glass of warm water. "The timing is not right yet, I can’t move against Valentina openly," he said quietly. "I hope you understand."I swallowed everything I wanted to say. Later that night, I went downstairs for water and heard him on the phone outside his study."At least it w

Chapter 3

Marco did not come home that night. I was not surprised.I sat at my desk and looked at the ring on my finger. The Falcone family crest was engraved on the outside, and a thin scratch ran along one edge. It had been left by a knife during an assassination attempt years ago. I had raised my hand to block the blade, and the ring took the hit. If not for that ring, I would have lost the finger.I took the ring off and put it on the table. Then I opened my laptop and started drafting divorce papers.I had never had a choice in my life. I was swapped at birth, brought back, rejected, and forced into a marriage. The only thing I could choose was how I left.At nine in the morning, Marco called."Last night...""Marco, come eat breakfast. I made you bacon."Sofia's voice came through from somewhere nearby as he was speaking. It was the same sweet, spoiled tone I remembered from when I first arrived at the Conti house."I am not interested," I said coldly."Ginevra, do you have to be this dist

Chapter 4

"Take what? The freight lines? The docks?" Sofia came out from behind Marco, her voice sharp. "Marco built this empire. Conti's connections helped him. What did you build? Being Falcone's wife for ten years was already more than you deserved, and now you want to walk away with the businesses?"She caught herself and bit her lip. She stepped back and tugged Marco's sleeve, her voice dropping. "I am sorry, Marco. I got upset for you. I should not have interrupted. This is between you two. Please do not be angry with me."I ignored her and kept my eyes on Marco."Don, I already told you what I am taking. Keep the rest and start over with her. Clean break.""Ginevra..." He stepped toward me, fast and careful.I held up my hand to stop him."Let us make this clean. We were both using each other from the start, and now it is time to go our separate ways."Before I left, I looked at the four of them."The worst thing that ever happened to me was being found by the Conti family."If I had not

Chapter 5

I opened the link and saw the photo. Marco and Sofia were standing across from each other, his hand resting on her arm. Their faces were close, too close for two people who were supposed to be nothing more than childhood friends. He was looking down at her. She was looking up at him. The angle caught the light across his jaw and the curve of her smile. It looked intimate. It looked like a moment that was never meant to be photographed.The headline sat bold across the screen: True Love Returns. Falcone Donna Out.The comments rolled in fast.[A man at the top always goes back to his first love.][Marco stripped his wife of her authority in front of the Contis. We all saw who he chose.][I heard Sofia was forced out ten years ago. Now we know who did it.]I locked the screen. The car was already on the highway heading for the airport. Buildings thinned out on both sides. I adjusted the seat back and closed my eyes.Two black sedans appeared in the rearview mirror. One came up on the rig

Chapter 6

By the time the plane landed, the news had already cycled through a new round. Falcone Donna Ambushed on Highway. The photo showed my face lit by the flashes. Hair disheveled. A thin line of blood at the corner of my mouth. I did not open the comments. I had more important things to do.A friend had an empty office in the suburbs. It was not large. A desk, a chair, a window facing a quiet street. I sat down, opened my laptop, and logged into the legitimate business accounts I had built. I reassigned the permissions one by one, all back to my own name.The books I had managed for the Falcone family. The trade channels I had set up. The port personnel I had placed in key positions. Every line of it was mine. I had written it all.My phone rang. The lawyer's voice came through low."Ginevra, Mr. Falcone insists on meeting with you in person. He says he is willing to compromise.""What is he offering?""Your return as Donna. He will sign over the operations to you if you come back."I put

Chapter 7

Marco came in and closed the door behind him. We looked at each other across the desk for a long moment. He looked around the room. White walls. Metal filing cabinets. A desk covered in papers. The port cranes moving outside the window. He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes."You look like you are doing well."I did not answer. I picked up my glass, took a sip of water, and looked back at the papers in front of me. He stepped closer and stood beside the desk, glancing at the names on the documents."About everything that happened. I am sorry.""For what?" I did not look up."For all of it. I remember everything you did for me. I would not have made it through those years without you. The negotiations you attended for me. The assassinations you stopped. The children you lost. I never forgot any of it."His voice dropped."What I said at the Conti house, I said because you told me you regretted marrying me. I know you had every right to regret it. You gave so much, and I never thanked

Chapter 8

Marco's expression shifted. Something had landed. He opened his mouth, but I spoke first."Don, you forgot something. Ten years ago, I heard you say that Sofia would never have been able to handle what I handled.""Ginevra, I was young then." His voice tightened. "Ten years changes a person. Can you not see how much I have changed?"I looked up at him. "Because you changed, I am supposed to pretend none of it happened? If Sofia had not run away, would you have sent her to those negotiations, into those assassinations, to take the hits I took?"He did not answer. His hand pressed against the edge of the desk. His knuckles went white."Ginevra, does it have to be like this?"I nodded and gave him a dry smile. "Calling those ten years a transaction is fair for both of us."He took a deep breath, holding something back. "You never let anyone in. I thought we had something real."He turned and walked out.He did not know that in the hours he spent driving away, five men were assembling guns

Chapter 9

I stayed in the office until three in the morning. The car with the unknown plate had stopped at the side gate for forty minutes and then left. The dockworker said one man got out, walked the perimeter of the warehouse, and did not approach the main building. He was checking the layout.I sent the plate number to a security firm owner I knew. He said he would have an answer in two hours.At six in the morning, the sky was still gray. Port air came through the window crack, carrying the smell of rust and saltwater. I wore an old coat and sat in the hard chair, flipping through the contracts I had signed the night before.My phone buzzed. The security firm had a name. The car was registered to a shell company with cash inflows over the last three months tracing back to a gallery account. I remembered that gallery. Sofia had held several shows there while she was in Europe.I stood up and walked to the window. The cranes were not moving yet. The whole port sat quiet like a sheet of gray s

Chapter 10

Three days later, I was reviewing the port's monthly volume report. A notification appeared on my phone. I read it and sat up.Lorenzo was back. Marco's half-brother had been hiding on the East Coast since he was pushed out of Chicago. Now he had surfaced with a will that was supposedly signed by the old man before his death. It said sixty percent of the Falcone assets should go to Lorenzo because the old man had changed the distribution a month before he died, and Marco had used his authority to hide the document.Lorenzo did not go to the tabloids. He went to an underground financial journal that specialized in digging up family accounts. The report included screenshots, file numbers, and a memo from a law firm. It looked real.Within hours, Falcone stocks started slipping. The banks that had stayed quiet began calling. Marco's people said the will was forged, but no one believed it. Lorenzo's material was too detailed. The kind of detail only someone close to the old man could have.

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