30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 02

30 Days Before Divorce: Mafia Don’s Regret Can’t Win Me Back Chapter 02

Monday. The Camorra family headquarters in Caserta.

The family lawyer placed the divorce petition on the conference table.

Andrea filled out his section quickly, then pushed the form toward me with his Montblanc fountain pen.

The same limited edition I’d spent three months tracking down with the sales rep before last Valentine’s Day.

When he’d unwrapped it, he barely glanced at it.

“You keep the box,” he’d said. “I’ll use the pen at the office.”

He gave the pen to his Underboss. What remained was the box.

Looking back now, the irony was almost poetic.

I signed my name with a cheap ballpoint from the pen holder in the center of the conference table.

The family lawyer collected the forms without expression.

“Thirty days,” the lawyer said flatly. “Once the waiting period expires, both parties must appear again to finalize the proceedings.”

Outside, the biting November wind of Sicily cut into my collar.

I pulled my coat tighter.

The black down coat was oversized, puffy, like a fortress shielding everything beneath it.

Elena had helped me pick it out two months ago.

“Perfectly hides the bump. No one will notice,” she’d said, crouching outside the fitting room, passing different sizes through the curtain.

Andrea stood in the parking lot, hands shoved in his pockets, watching me.

“Want me to drive you back to the estate?”

“No.” I pulled out my phone and called my driver.

He suddenly stepped close. “Chiara, have you… put on some weight lately?”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Too much tiramisu,” I said.

The black Maybach pulled up in front of me. I opened the rear door.

Before getting in, I looked back at Andrea one last time. Not out of longing.

I just wanted to burn this image into my memory.

Him standing in front of the family headquarters, autumn wind tossing his hair.

Confusion written across his face. An expression the ruthless head of the Camorra family had never worn before.

In three years as his Donna, this was the first time he’d ever looked at me like that.

It wasn’t regret. It was confusion.

He couldn’t understand why I’d so easily given up the privilege of standing beside the king of Caserta’s underworld.

Day three of the waiting period.

I was in the master bedroom, packing.

The clothes in the walk-in closet were folded neatly by season, six rows total.

The left two rows were mine. The right four were his.

I’d ironed his shirts hundreds of times.

Pale blue for family business meetings. White for arms dealers. Gray for late nights at headquarters, presiding over the disposal of traitors.

His collars and cuffs never had a single crease.

I took down my two rows, folded everything carefully, and packed them into suitcases.

There wasn’t much. Two suitcases. That was all.

Three years of marriage, and everything I’d brought into the Camorra family fit into two suitcases.

But everything I was leaving behind in the estate…

The abstract painting in the living room, bought at a gallery exhibition. I’d hung it.

The tulips in the garden. I’d planted them.

The storage baskets beneath the dining console, the labeled wine bottles in the display cabinet, the organic vegetables arranged by production date in the fridge.

I had filled every hollow corner of this house with my own hands. I’d maintained everything a Camorra Donna was supposed to maintain.

But none of it would leave with me. It all belonged to the cold estate. Not to me.

The phone rang. Andrea’s mother, Greta.

I hesitated, then answered.

“Chiara, I heard you two are getting divorced?” Her voice was almost gleeful. Like she was finally shaking off a burden.

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s for the best. You’re still young. Finding someone new won’t be hard.”

She paused, her tone dipping slightly.

“Oh, by the way. That black card under your name, what’s the limit again? Five hundred thousand? Make sure you pay it off and cancel it.”

I said nothing.

That card didn’t belong to the Camorra family. It was under my personal name.

Over three years, the balance had reached a hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

A hundred and twenty thousand of that had gone toward her beauty treatments and various luxury indulgences.

“Understood,” I said. “If that’s all, I’m hanging up.”

After I ended the call, I crouched beside the suitcase for a long while.

I wasn’t sad. I just felt a strange lightness.

Like I was finally setting down something that had weighed on me for years.

The baby kicked.

I lowered my head, gently soothing: “Mommy’s taking you with her.”