I Took Mafia Don’s Empire Chapter 08

I Took Mafia Don’s Empire Chapter 08

A few months later, the receivership of Rinaldi Group completed its final transfer.

The day of the divorce was cloudy.

Outside family court, Matteo stood in a wrinkled suit.

The collar had an oily sheen.

It had only been a few months, but he had lost a shocking amount of weight. His eyes were sunken, and rough stubble darkened his jaw.

Lucia stood beside him, stripped of her old arrogance and left with nothing but bitter resentment.

Bianca didn’t come.

I heard she had moved out the month before. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

“Celeste.”

Matteo’s hand was still shaking when he signed.

But his mouth still refused to soften.

“Don’t get too smug.”

“The South Harbor dock project is still in my hands.”

“Once I build it up, the Whitmore Family will regret this.”

I tucked the final divorce decree away, too calm to waste another word on him.

Beside me, my attorney adjusted his glasses and spoke in an even tone.

“Mr. Rinaldi.”

“The city permits, operating licenses, and private security contracts tied to South Harbor are currently frozen due to qualification issues with the operating entity.”

“Without a new qualified entity taking over, the project can only remain suspended.”

“And you personally have no qualifications, no capital, and no usable collateral.”

“More importantly, the Rinaldi Family has already been removed by the family council. No old family is willing to back you.”

“So how exactly do you plan to ‘build it up’?”

Matteo’s lips trembled.

He couldn’t say a word.

Lucia’s eyes went red with rage. She pointed at my face and cursed, “You jinx!”

“You ruined my son!”

“Without Matteo, I’d like to see who would ever want you!”

“A divorced woman with a child is nothing in old-family circles but—”

My mother stepped forward and blocked me from her.

“Say that again.”

Lucia met my mother’s eyes.

Her voice died instantly.

Her lips moved a few times, but in the end, she only muttered under her breath and shut her mouth.

I took Ivy’s hand and turned to leave.

Matteo’s voice came from behind me.

Hoarse. Dark. Like a desperate man clinging to the last of his resentment.

“Celeste. You’ll regret this.”

I didn’t look back.

Everything that happened after that came to me secondhand.

Matteo lost Rinaldi Group. Then he lost the estate. Even the car he had driven for three years was repossessed by the bank.

In the end, he moved Lucia and Enzo into a run-down two-bedroom apartment on the edge of the city, with yellowing walls and a stairwell that always smelled faintly of mold.

Lucia told everyone she met that I had destroyed her son. That the Whitmore Family had bullied them with power. That one day, she would sue and take everything back.

No one listened.

The people who used to orbit the Rinaldi Family were long gone.

Several Rinaldi capos pulled their men out that very night, and the

family council officially removed Matteo from the main table.

When Bianca left, she also transferred out the last bit of savings under Matteo’s name.

Enzo cried for Mommy.

Matteo chased her downstairs, but all he saw was the taillights of her cab disappearing around the corner.

Lucia stood in the hallway with Enzo in her arms, spitting blame at anyone she could name.

First the Whitmores.

Then Bianca.

Then Matteo, for being too useless to keep any of it.

Matteo crouched on the steps, smoking one cigarette after another.

He couldn’t say a word.

The South Harbor dock project was frozen, just as expected.

No permits. No funding. No qualified operator. And no old family dared to touch that burning mess at a time like that.

The people who used to follow Matteo around and call him “Mr. Rinaldi” disappeared one by one.

He called them.

He always started with the same line.

“The South Harbor route…”

They gave him a few empty words and hung up.

Later, no one even bothered with the empty words.

After that, I heard he took a job as an executive consultant at a small company.

The salary was low.

In the past, it wouldn’t even have covered one of his custom ties.

Now, he had to support three people with it.

Someone said he once got drunk and sat on the curb crying.

When a patrol officer helped him up, he kept muttering, “I’m Matteo Rinaldi.”

“I’m the head of Rinaldi Group.”

No one recognized him.

As for us, we were doing well.

My parents gradually handed the overseas business to me. I took my team across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. I flew hundreds of thousands of miles in a year.

It was exhausting. But it felt solid.

Every contract, every port line, every energy infrastructure project was something I had taken back with my own hands.

Ivy stayed with my parents while I traveled for work.

They gave her all the love she had been denied before. My mother

taught her piano, and my father taught her chess.

She learned everything quickly. She was even sharper than I had been at her age.

On weekends, I went back to the Riverside villa to spend time with her.

Every time, she ran to the door to greet me.

She would lift her little face and say, “Mommy, I missed you!”

Then she would take my hand and chatter about everything that had happened at school that week.

“Mommy.”

“I drew a picture today.”

“It’s our whole family.”

“Show me?”

She ran inside and came back holding a wrinkled sheet of paper.

There we were in bright crayon: Grandpa, Grandma, me, Ivy, and a cat.

No Matteo.

No Rinaldi name anywhere.

I looked at the picture and suddenly smiled.

Children understood better than adults who their real family was.

That night, after Ivy fell asleep, I sat on the balcony and let the wind

brush over me.

My mother came over with a cup of warm milk and sat beside me.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing.”

She looked at me and said softly, “It’s over.”

I nodded.

“It’s over.”

The river wind swept in, carrying the chill of fall.

But it didn’t feel cold.

From the living room came the sound of my father turning the pages of his newspaper.

On the TV, Ivy’s favorite cartoon was still playing.

I took a sip of warm milk, sweet and quiet on my tongue.

For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I had lost anything.

I had my daughter.

I had my family.

I was home.