The Don’s Dead Bride Chapter 01

The Don’s Dead Bride Chapter 01

The Romano family took me in when I was nothing. But I was Don Luca Romano’s darkest secret.

To protect his fiancée, he told everyone I was his adopted sister. The one person in the whole family he claimed to hate the most.

But when the house went quiet and the city lights went out, he came to my room.

He played with me until I trembled, until he forced the words “I love you” from my lips.

He said, “Elena, you belong to me forever. Don’t even think about running.”

Later, to save his fiancée from her leukemia, he said I had to donate my bone marrow.

I begged him, tears streaming down my face. “Luca, I’m pregnant. The surgery will kill the baby.”

He looked at me with empty eyes. “A bastard child doesn’t mean anything. Isabella can’t wait.”

Something inside me shattered when they strapped me to the stretcher.

The nurse turned her back. I struck a match and lit the alcohol-soaked cotton.

The flames went up in an instant.

I sent Luca one last text: [Luca. We’re even.]

They say he went crazy after that. They say he dug through the rubble with his bare hands for three days, his fingers swollen and bloody, until all he found were burned remains.

***

“Sign it.”

The papers hit my face like a slap, the sharp edge cutting my skin.

Luca sat cross-legged in his leather chair, a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers.

Smoke curled around his face—the face I’d loved for ten years, now cold and cruel.

I picked up the file, my hands shaking.

Bone marrow donation agreement. Recipient: Isabella Rossi.

“Luca, I can’t sign this.”

I moved my hand instinctively to my flat stomach, my voice trembling.

“The doctors said my health isn’t stable. And—”

“And?”

He stood up, crossing the room until his shadow swallowed me whole. The smell of gunpowder and expensive whiskey hit me.

“Elena, don’t ever forget who you are.” He grabbed my chin, hard. “The family raised you. You don’t get to negotiate.”

I looked up at him, tears burning in my eyes.

“I’m pregnant!”

The words tore out of me like I’d used up every ounce of strength I had.

“Luca, the baby is yours! The anesthesia will kill our baby!”

He went quiet.

I searched his eyes for something—shock, regret, anything.

But there was nothing.

When he heard the word “baby,” his face twisted with something close to disgust.

“A baby?”

He let out a laugh, then let me go and wiped his fingers with a handkerchief.

“You think you deserve that?”

“A bastard has no place in this family. It doesn’t mean anything.”

My heart clenched like someone had squeezed it with pliers, ready to burst.

I stared at him, disbelief freezing my blood. “A bastard? This is your blood—”

“Isabella can’t wait.”

He cut me off, his voice final.

“Tomorrow morning at nine. My men will take you to the hospital.”

“Don’t run. You know what happens.”

He turned away, like looking at me one more second would stain his eyes.

I collapsed to the floor, clutching the crumpled ultrasound in my hand.

I’d gotten the results this afternoon.

I thought it would be a gift for him.

Now I understood. In his eyes, I wasn’t worth one of Isabella’s hairs.

The door slammed shut.

The force rattled the framed photo on the wall—the only one we ever took together. He’d ordered it hung in the darkest corner.

In it, I was smiling like an idiot, my eyes full of him.