Chapter 2

A wave of bitter disgust swept through me.

Dante Moretti had been my husband for five years.

He held the public title of Don only because his mother, Donna Carmela, wanted to grant her only son dignity before her health deteriorated.

Dante was weak, vain, and utterly incompetent.

Every single smuggling route, dock worker union, and money-laundering channel was secretly run by me, Elena Vance.

I had inherited my late father's syndicate loyalists and built Dante's throne with my own hands.

Dante was merely an empty puppet living off my family's legacy.

And now, his mistress was brandishing his name in front of me like a royal crown.

"What's wrong, mute?" Chloe sneered, seeing my stillness. "Speechless now that you know my man rules this town?"

The passenger door of the Civic clicked open wider.

Carmela stepped out cautiously onto the blacktop, tapping her white cane in one hand. She held the leather harness of Barnaby, her golden retriever guide dog, in the other.

Her milky, sightless eyes turned sharply toward Chloe.

"Who did you say your man is?" Carmela asked.

Her raspy voice carried the chilling, unmistakable authority of a woman who had ordered dozens of executions.

"Dante Moretti?"

"Shut your mouth, grandma," Chloe snapped, disgusted by the old woman's tone.

"Yes, Dante Moretti. He spends every night in my bed, while his frigid wife sits at home like dead furniture."

Chloe smirked, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder.

"He bought me this Ferrari yesterday. And today, he gave me a plush little job."

"He made me the private nurse for his blind, senile mother. Fifty grand a month just to sign a log sheet and let the old bag rot."

"Dante told me the old bitch should have died ten years ago anyway. She's just hogging the family fortune."

Every nerve in my body turned to ice.

The elite caretaker Dante bragged about.

The reason he fired Teresa, Carmela's devoted nurse of fifteen years.

It was all an excuse to put his mistress on the syndicate payroll and sneak her into our private estate to sleep with her.

Carmela began to shake. Her knuckles turned white around her cane.

For thirty years, Carmela had endured bullets, poison, and gang wars to secure an empire for her son.

To hear that her only child wished her dead for a stripper's vanity shattered her heart.

"You... foul creature," Carmela whispered, her chest heaving. "You dare speak his name before me?"

"Who are you calling foul, you decaying fossil?" Chloe hissed.

She lunged forward and slapped Carmela across the face with all her might.

The sharp crack stunned the drive-thru.

Carmela stumbled, her gold-rimmed glasses flying off and shattering on the pavement.

"Mother," I cried, lunging forward to catch her.

Seeing his mistress struck, Barnaby broke into a ferocious growl.

The ninety-pound golden retriever lunged forward with bared fangs to protect Carmela.

"Rico, shoot it," Chloe screamed.

A gunshot cracked through the morning air.

Rico fired. The 9mm bullet tore through Barnaby's hind flank.

The loyal dog cried out in agony, collapsing onto the asphalt.

Blood soaked his golden coat as he dragged himself on his front paws, whining softly to curl around Carmela's feet.

"Barnaby," Carmela dropped to her knees in the dirt, her trembling fingers touching the warm, sticky blood pooling on the dog's fur.

"My boy... what did you do to him?"

The shock was too violent.

Carmela gasped raggedly, clutching her left chest.

Her skin turned paper-white, her lips a horrifying shade of blue. Her breath hitched in her throat, her pupils rolling upward.

"Her heart," I yelled, dropping beside her.

I ripped open her handbag to grab her emergency nitroglycerin spray.

A high heel came crashing down on my hand.

Chloe stomped her heel into the back of my fingers, grinding my flesh into the asphalt.

Then she kicked Carmela's bag across the lane.

The medicine bottle skittered across the concrete and vanished down the iron grate of a sewer drain.

"Oops," Chloe laughed viciously. "Looks like grandma's candy fell into the sewer."

"She is having a massive myocardial infarction," I snarled, my eyes burning with murderous fury. "She's going to die."

"Then let her die," Chloe sneered. "Save the world some oxygen. You're not going anywhere until you pay me fifty thousand dollars."

I glared at her, my voice turning deadly cold.

"I am Elena Vance, Dante Moretti's legal wife. And the woman you just slapped is his mother--Donna Carmela, the supreme Godmother of the Syndicate."

"If you don't step back right now, you won't live to see sunset."

Chloe stared at me for two seconds, then burst into shrieking, hysterical laughter.

"You? Dante's wife?" Chloe laughed until tears leaked from her mascara.

"And this blind, rotting hag in the dirt is the legendary Godmother? Rico, did you hear this delusional psycho?"

Rico spat on the asphalt, chuckling darkly.

"A Godmother riding in a ten-year-old rusted Honda Civic? Pulling a scam for grocery money? That's rich."

"The Godmother travels in armored motorcades, beggar," Chloe hissed, stepping forward and viciously kicking me in the stomach.

"Dante told me his mother is resting in a luxury villa in Lake Forest. You think you can throw around the Godmother's name to scare me? You broke, pathetic tramp."

Chloe grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. She drove her acrylic nails deep into my cheek, drawing blood.

"You want to play pretend?" Chloe sneered, slamming my head hard against the asphalt.

"Then let me show you what happens to bitches who impersonate mafia royalty."

I coughed up blood. With trembling fingers, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

I hit speed dial 1.

The line connected. Dante's impatient voice answered:

"Elena? What is it? I'm in a crucial meeting downtown. Don't bother me with domestic nonsense."

"Dante..." I gasped, trying to keep my voice audible.

"Your mother is dying. We're at the diner drive-thru on 26th... she had a heart attack... bring doctors--"

"Elena, shut the fuck up," Dante snapped over the phone.

"Stop using my mother to manipulate me. She was perfectly fine this morning. I don't have time for your pathetic little dramas. Don't call me again today."

Click.

He hung up on his mother's dying gasps.

Seeing me get hung up on, Chloe smirked with triumphant cruelty.

She pulled out her gold iPhone and dialed Dante's number right in front of me.

The call was answered on the very first ring.

"Dante, baby," Chloe instantly melted into a tearful, seductive sob.

"You have to help me. I came to pick up your breakfast on 26th Street, and two crazy homeless women crashed into my Ferrari."

"They're threatening to kill me. One of them is faking a heart attack on the ground right now. Rico had to shoot their rabid dog just to save my life."

Through Chloe's speaker, Dante's voice came through--protective, tender, and furious:

"What? Someone dared touch you, Chloe? Hold them right there."

"I'm around the corner with two Escalades full of enforcers. Nobody touches my queen and walks away alive."

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