Not This Time, Don Cassian Chapter 09

Not This Time, Don Cassian Chapter 09

Cassian stood outside the closed door.

Aurora’s words, “I don’t need you anymore,” were a physical pain in his chest, but he was out of words.

He went back to the estate, but his soul stayed behind in that small town.

He removed all restrictions on her trust fund and added a lump sum from his personal account.

The next day, ten million dollars appeared in Aurora’s account.

Enough for her to live the rest of her life very, very well.

He locked himself in the room that had once been her office.

For weeks, he had come here every night, a self-inflicted ritual.

He would sit in the corner chair, her chair.

He would read her ledgers, tracing the different colored notes with his fingers, trying to capture any lingering trace of her.

Late one night, the office door was thrown open.

Camilla stood there, dressed in a silk robe, clutching a document she had snatched from Antonio.

“You’re telling me to get out? For her?” Camilla’s voice was a shriek. She lunged, her nails scratching at the worn leather of the ledger. “I am carrying your child, Cassian! I am your wife!”

Cassian shot to his feet, ripping the book from her grasp and shoving her back.

“I said, get out!”

He didn’t use much force, but Camilla stumbled backward, her knee hitting the sharp corner of a table.

She clutched her stomach, her face instantly turning white.

The next second, she was screaming and curled up on the floor. Blood pooled between her legs, staining

the white silk robe red.

At the hospital, Camilla lost the baby.

She lay in the hospital bed, the hysteria gone, her face a mask of dead calm.

Cassian stood by the bed, silent.

Camilla slowly turned her head to look at him.

“I lost my child,” she said, her voice eerily flat, as if stating a fact about a stranger. “And you… you never truly had her to begin with.”

She watched the color drain from Cassian’s face and gave him a broken smile.

“You see, Cassian. In the end, we both lost everything.”

After that, Camilla left.

No arguments, no demands. She took all of her things and disappeared from the estate as if she had

never been there.

Three years later.

The name Don Cassian Vitelli became a fearsome legend in Chicago’s underworld.

He was colder and more powerful than ever before.

The Vitelli family’s empire expanded to unprecedented heights.

Mexico, Miami, the East Coast-every financial line was flawlessly secure.

The routes were all rebuilt, piece by piece, following the notes Aurora had left behind years ago.

He had everything, but he was like a king ruling over a vast tomb.

No one knew that every night, the Don would walk alone into that permanently sealed office in the main

house.

It was kept spotless, everything exactly as it was the day a certain woman had left.

He would sit in the corner chair and open the first ledger, the one that had been torn and taped back together, and he would sit there all night.

He finally saw what he wanted, but he had lost it forever.

And hundreds of miles away, in a sun-drenched Illinois town, Aurora locked the door to her small accounting firm for the day.

Paul was waiting for her, a bouquet of daisies in one hand. In the other, he held out a small, velvet box.

“Marry me, Aurora.”

She looked down at the ring, and she smiled.

The sunlight warmed her face.

Behind her was the simple, real world she had chosen.

For her, Cassian was a closed chapter.

For him, Aurora was a life sentence.