All Chapters of The Don's Lost Love Was Me All Along: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"Kneel, you cheap whore! What are you looking at?"The burly man behind me slammed his rifle butt into my back.I stumbled and fell flat on the cold marble floor.My elbow hit the stone with a dull thud.Several gunmen in black beside the weapons crates chambered rounds at once.Valentino, in the seat of honor, didn't look up.He wore a subtly patterned black shirt, open at the collar to reveal his solid chest.He worked the thread with such care, you'd think he was handling a priceless treasure.The tattered teddy bear lay cradled in his palm.My mind raced as I stared at his callused hands.Ten years.Back then, in the pouring rain on a backstreet in the Naples slums, a few local thugs had dumped stolen food scraps on his head and made him bark like a dog.I'd grabbed a board with a nail in it and swung at the gang leader like a madwoman, cracking his shoulder blade.On my way back, I fished a bear missing its left eye out of a trash can and pushed it into his arms."Here, take it. D

The moment I said that, the whole chapel fell dead silent.Bruno's hand jerked in my blond hair, and he let go at once, as if he'd touched a branding iron.On the screen, Marcus leaped off the sofa, knocking over the champagne tower in front of him."Claire! What the hell are you saying, you crazy woman?!"Everyone in the European underworld knew that the shipwreck ten years ago was the one subject no one dared raise around Valentino.Anyone who said a word about it would be torn to pieces.Valentino didn't move from the carved armchair.But the air around him changed instantly.It was like watching a dormant volcano erupt.He slowly set the bear aside, stood up, and walked down from the altar one step at a time.His custom black combat boots hit the marble with dull, echoing thuds.With every step he took, the suffocating fear in the chapel doubled.He stopped at the edge of the thorns and glass and looked down at me."What did you just say?"His voice was barely a whisper, yet it pro

The blade stopped the instant it broke my skin.Valentino's knife hand shook violently, as if he'd been struck by lightning.A moment ago, his gray-green eyes had been full of murderous rage. Now his pupils shrank to pinpoints.You could have heard a pin drop in the chapel.Only the altar candles flickered in the night wind."What... did you call me?"Valentino's voice was almost unrecognizable. Every word scraped from his throat.His long fingers began to twitch uncontrollably.He could barely keep hold of the knife he'd used to kill so many people."I called you Val."I spat out a mouthful of blood. My eyes were as cold as the sea in a Naples winter."When you were 12 and got your ribs broken for stealing bread, you curled up in my arms and swore you'd be at my beck and call for the rest of your life."You never said you'd put a knife to my throat one day."There was a sharp clang.The knife slipped from his fingers and bounced twice on the marble floor.Valentino swayed as if all th

Valentino's tall frame went rigid.His knees trembled among the thorns.Those gray-green eyes, which had terrified countless mafiosi, now held nothing but panic and helplessness."Claire, I didn't mean to..."He tried to explain, his words tumbling over each other. His hands moved uselessly in the air, but he was too afraid to touch me.I couldn't be bothered to listen to his excuses.I looked past his broad shoulders at Olivia, unconscious in the doorway."Fainted from fright?"I let out a hoarse, cold laugh."She wasn't so delicate when she was waving her fan and telling me to imitate a dead woman."Valentino caught my meaning at once.He whipped around and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Olivia like a ghost come for revenge."Wake her up."A gunman in black picked up the remaining half bucket of ice water and dumped it over Olivia's face.Olivia choked, coughed hard, and opened her eyes.The moment she looked up, she saw Marcus pinned to the base of the pew in a pool of blood.Then she

The only sound left in the chapel was Bruno's heavy breathing.Valentino waved him away. Bruno pulled the dagger from his foot and scrambled out with the gunmen.The heavy cast-iron doors closed slowly, shutting out the sea wind and the screams outside.Beneath the tall statue of a saint, only Valentino and I remained.He climbed the stairs and stopped half a pace behind me, staring at the tattered bear in my arms."After you pushed me away that night, the waves carried me to a cargo ship smuggling weapons."His voice was low and hoarse, heavy with pain that had never faded."It was the old Don's ship. My fever turned into pneumonia, and I lay unconscious in the hold for two weeks."When I woke up, I stole a speedboat and went back to those waters. The local fishermen told me the smuggling boat had broken apart on the reef."They'd pulled a dozen or so bodies from the sea, too badly eaten by fish to recognize. One was a girl wearing the red shoe I'd given you."My fingers tightened aro