Keep Your Head Up The Don Cherry Story Novels & Stories

I could see it in the way his shoulders tensed, how his voice strained to stay in control. It would be way too easy to jump, let the world believe he had pushed me. Let them paint him as the villain. It wouldn't be that far from the truth. "I jump," I muttered in a voice that held no emotions. "and it’s your face on the headlines tomorrow. Wife of Infamous Mafia Don Pushed to her death!" He flinched, barely, but I saw it. "It would be a nightmare for you." "You won’t do it," he growled.

"Is something wrong?" "I received an interesting piece of information today," Dante said, closing the distance between them slowly, deliberately. "A phone call. Ninety seconds. Made from your private line to a number connected to a man calling himself Marchetti." *** The silence that followed stretched long enough that I found myself holding my breath, watching Marco's carefully composed expression for any sign of the crack we'd been searching for all week. It came slowly, not as dramatic collapse but as quiet, exhausted surrender — the particular defeat of a man who'd spent years maintaining a performance finally allowing himself to stop.

“You lose your mind and now you slander Daphne. If you hadn't rushed at her, how would the diamond have—” Something panicked flickered in his eyes. And I heard his thoughts again. [I ruined it, I ruined everything, now even the diamond Scarlett cares about most is gone!] [I don't have a single way left to keep her!] [No! I can't let her leave, whatever it takes, I won't let her leave!] He turned and shouted at the bodyguards. “Take the Donna to the basement. Let her clear her head.” Two burly men pounced on me and dragged me all the way down to the basement.

Six years ago, I took a bullet for Dante Romano, the head of one of New York’s most powerful Mafia families. The injury nearly cost me any chance of becoming a mother. At my hospital bedside, Dante swore that as long as I survived, he would never need children. Then, against all odds, I became pregnant. I was about to tell him when I heard a little girl call him Daddy in a voice message on his phone. That was how I discovered Dante had fathered twins with his former secretary, Bianca. Everyone in the Romano family knew about them. Everyone except me. Dante continued to call me the only woman he loved, even as he gave Bianca a ring and prepared her son to inherit the family. I didn’t confront

"Keep the coat, you need the money more than I do." I roll my eyes, watching her leave, sipping my scotch, silently. She pauses at the door. "Stay on your side of the territory, and you won't be added to my list, baby," She says softly. The guards keep their guns trained on her as she exists the room. "Do we let her go, Don?" "Mm," I just. "But of course. It's not worth a war is it?”I stand, looking out the window at her exiting the estate. I watch her get into it and drive away. Unauthorized, unscathed.

"Dante. Tommy. The Santoros are already upstairs. You understand my rules?" "No weapons in the room. No violence on your floor." I recited it back to her. "Good. Because whatever you're thinking about doing, don't. This peace talk benefits everyone, including Marco." She pressed the elevator button. "I'm not losing my neutrality because you can't handle your grief." The elevator rose smoothly. Tommy shifted beside me. "Are you really going to keep it together in there?" "I have to." "That's not an answer." The doors opened before I could respond.

“Faster than I expected. But good nevertheless.” My voice came out quiet. Steady. Resolved. “I’ve made up my mind.” A beat of silence. Then: a low, knowing chuckle. “Finally.”

At least two. My pulse began pounding again, harder now. The throbbing in my head matching its rhythm. “You can’t just—” My voice cracked slightly. I forced it to be steadier. “Do you know who I belong to?” One of the men snorted quietly. “Frank Costello will—” A kick to my stomach cut the sentence in half. I folded forward and screamed. Footsteps echoed somewhere behind me, lighter than the heavy boots I had heard moving around the room earlier.

Third Person's POV A month later, all of the Moretti family's assets in Newmont had been liquidated. Fiora had been arrested and was facing 13 charges. Lorenzo wasn't prosecuted, but his name had become a joke in the city. The once-powerful Mafia Don was now left with nothing. He moved out of that villa, the one where Elena had been drenched with ice water and beaten by bodyguards. Before leaving, he stood at the entrance and looked at it for a long time.

“Arabella, I just thought the bangle was pretty and wanted a look. If you didn’t want me to, you could’ve just said so… why did you push me?” The music screeched to a halt. All eyes were on us. For the past seven years, any woman who dared to challenge me was thrown out of this estate without a second thought. I once shoved a movie star's head into a freezing fountain in front of all of Chicago. She had tried to climb into Santino’s bed. "What's wrong?" Santino pushed through the crowd, pulling Fiora into his arms. He looked down at an extremely faint red mark on the back of Fiona's hand, his brows knitting together at once.