After My Brother’s Girlfriend Tried to Extort 500,000 from Me, I Revealed I Was the Mafia Donna Chapter 11

After My Brother’s Girlfriend Tried to Extort 500,000 from Me, I Revealed I Was the Mafia Donna Chapter 11

I withdrew all Moretti Family support from Luca’s restaurant.

Marco left with the core team.

The suppliers, liquor distributors, security staff, and most of the private clientele followed soon after.

I hadn’t ordered any of them to leave.

The clients, suppliers, and connections that came with the Moretti name had always been the restaurant’s biggest advantage.

Without them, the restaurant’s real limitations showed almost at once.

It shut down in less than six months.

Meanwhile, I had Marco open a new restaurant in Chicago’s River North.

No Family crest.

No mention of my name.

Just business.

Six months later, it had become one of the industry’s most consistently successful high-end restaurants.

Sofia teased me about it.

“See? With Luca out of the way, your restaurant actually runs like it should.”

I laughed too.

“At least nobody’s charging half a million for the air anymore.”

As for Luca, he used the last of what I’d left him to try his hand at a few small businesses.

Every one of them failed.

In the past, he’d spent without ever looking at the figures.

He’d always assumed that all he had to do was mention the Moretti name and someone else would sort every problem out for him.

Once that status was gone, he finally learnt what life looked like without it.

Outside the Family, no one cared what kind of car he’d once driven or what kind of house he’d once lived in.

None of it earned him special treatment anymore.

From time to time, Sofia heard bits and pieces about him.

Apparently, he’d waited tables at a bar, hauled equipment for an events company, and even worked as a food courier.

Once, outside a nightclub, he ran into the same group of friends he’d used to spend all his time with.

They recognised him.

One of them gave a mocking laugh.

“Luca Moretti? Doing your own deliveries these days?”

Luca didn’t rise to it.

He simply lowered his head and walked away.

After Sofia told me, she asked, “Do you regret cutting him out of the Family for good?”

I shook my head.

“No. I only regret taking so long to admit what sort of man he really was.”

For more than a decade, I’d kept telling myself that if I gave him enough patience and enough chances, he would eventually become someone worthy of the Moretti name.

But resources couldn’t build character, and endless tolerance wouldn’t magically teach someone responsibility.

After that, whenever anyone on the Family Council tried to use the fact that I was a woman against me, I stopped explaining myself.

There was nothing left to explain.

I controlled the Moretti Family’s legitimate businesses, the council votes, the core security detail, and every major external partnership.

They didn’t have to like it.

They didn’t have to accept it willingly.

But the rules weren’t going to change just because they hated seeing a woman in the seat of power.

One bright afternoon, Sofia and I sat at a table near the terrace of the new restaurant, drinking coffee.

Through the glass, we could see the Chicago River.

A man in a delivery jacket stopped outside, wheeling an electric bike beside him.

He took off his helmet.

I recognised his face.

Luca.

He was much thinner than before and looked much older too.

When he looked up, he happened to see me.

We held each other’s gaze through the glass for several seconds.

There was a tangle of emotions in his eyes.

Shame.

Wounded pride.

And the quiet resignation of someone who had finally accepted reality.

He didn’t come over or call me his sister.

He simply put his helmet back on, took the order out of the insulated delivery box, and carried it into the office building next door.

Sofia followed my gaze.

“Is that him?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t want to say anything?”

I looked away.

“There’s nothing left to say.”

Sunlight spilled across the table.

The Chicago River glittered so brightly it was almost dazzling.

I lifted my cup.

“Not a bad day, is it?”

Sofia smiled.

“Not at all.”

I looked out the window and didn’t look back again.

I used to believe that family meant responsibility.

Later, I learnt that responsibility didn’t mean carrying the consequences of every choice another grown adult made.

I am Isabella Moretti.

Donna of the Moretti Family.

And I am my own person.

This time, at last, I am responsible for no one but myself.