He Chose Her, But I Inherited His Empire Chapter 11

He Chose Her, But I Inherited His Empire Chapter 11

I used to imagine my mother coming back.

I thought about it whenever Blair bullied me, whenever my father punished me without asking for my side of the

story.

But as the years passed, I stopped daring to hope.

I slowly came to believe what my father said, blaming the six-year-old girl I used to be.

I even thought my mother would never forgive me, either.

That night, my mother squeezed onto the smalled had

slept in for ten years, held me close, and told me she was

sorry.

She told me she had never truly been part of Los Angeles’s world.

She had been born into the Bellandi family of Sicily.

More than a decade ago, to save relatives trapped in an old blood feud, she had come to Los Angeles as a negotiator to finalize a ceasefire agreement.

That was where she met my father.

Their marriage wasn’t a transaction. They fell in love, and

then they had me.

On the day she went to pick up my birthday gift, the ceasefire in Sicily suddenly collapsed.

The Bellandi family took her back to ensure that my father and I, left behind in Los Angeles, would not become targets on a retaliation list.

The terms of the new truce forbade her from having any

contact with us.

Under that agreement, she could never return.

But she could never let us go.

She missed me, and she still loved my father.

So she surrendered her inheritance in the Bellandi family and her seat on their council, promising to never again interfere in Sicilian affairs in exchange for her freedom.

She lost her position, but not her Bellandi blood. The agreement also guaranteed that she could return to Los Angeles safely with two of her own bodyguards.

“Mom, you’re not leaving again, are you?”

I clutched her hand.

“I’m not.”

She looked down at me.

“Mommy will stay with Genevieve.”

A faint sound came from outside the door.

It was my father.

My mother glanced toward the doorway.

Then she tucked the blanket around me.

“Go to sleep. From now on, every time you wake up, Mommy will be here.”