He Let My Brother Die, so I Married Another Don

The day my only brother was cornered in a dockside warehouse by a rival mafia family, I knelt on the carpet of Damian's study and begged him. "Lend me ten men. I only need to hold until dawn, and the men I hired can get up here from the south side." He took a drag on his cigar and scoffed, "Ten men? Do you know how many people have eyes on that shipment on the north side tonight? My men aren't here to wipe up your messes." My knuckles went white where I had hold of the hem of his trousers. My phone screen lit up. A message about my brother taking a bullet, the blood a blurred smear of red. I was about to beg again when I heard him place a call over my head. His voice went soft, the way you'd soothe a child. "Go pick up the west-side shipment yourself. I'm giving you fifty gunmen to back you up. Don't be scared. If we lose men, that's on me. You just come back safe." That was the adopted sister he'd taken in. When he first brought her home she'd stuttered when she spoke. I let go of his trouser leg and got up off the carpet without a sound. Damian finally looked down at me. He smiled and wiped my tears away with his thumb. "That's more like it. Don't come crying to me every time the wind shifts. Handle your own family's business yourself. That's how the Moretti family works." I nodded calmly, walked out of the study, and dialed a number I hadn't called in a long time. "Dad, you were right. Giving up my place as a mafia princess for a man from some small family wasn't worth it. I'll marry the Don of the Gambino Family." Chapter 1 It was long dark by the time I got back. Getting my brother out had left me covered in blood the whole way from the docks to the house. In the end it was men from the family next door who couldn't stand to watch, and they helped me get him to a hospital. Damian was still on the couch, carefully picking out gunmen for his adopted sister. When he saw me come in, he raised a hand and wiped a streak of blood off my face without thinking about it. "Where have you been? Look how filthy you got yourself." I met his eyes. "Saving my brother." He hummed and turned away to prune a potted plant. I looked at that plant, which had never belonged in this house, and something in my chest went dull and heavy. My brother's life mattered less to him than a houseplant. My brother had stood alone to hold the shipment that meant everything to him, holding on until I dragged him out half dead and he was taken to a hospital. Damian said he didn't want to wipe up our messes. And that adopted sister, he sent her to the safest dock to do the simplest pickup, and still gave her fifty gunmen to keep her safe. When Damian finished with the plant, I called out to him. "Let's break up." He blinked, then scoffed, "Break up? Are you joking? Because I wouldn't lend you men for your brother?" I looked him straight in the eye. "Yes. Because of that. Fifty gunmen, handed over without a thought to a girl you've known three months. My brother has been loyal to you for three years, and when it was life or death you wouldn't spare him ten men. That's the family rule?" Damian rubbed his brow, impatient. "Vivi just got here. If I don't send enough men to make a show of it, what happens when someone pushes her around? As for your brother, I trust him. If he can't handle something that small, ten men wouldn't have helped him either." My voice wouldn't stop shaking. "He followed you through hell back when you were nobody." Damian looked down, deliberately avoiding my eyes. "If your brother is really in trouble and asks me for help, I'll send someone. Until then I'm not wasting my men." Something in me broke and I screamed at him, "He held out because he didn't want to bother you! He's already been shot, they took him to the emergency room, how is he supposed to ask you for anything?" Damian seemed to realize at last that he'd been cruel. He was quiet for a long time, then changed his answer. "I'll arrange a doctor for him." Then he lifted his arms to hold me the way he always did. That was his standard move after a fight, his way of asking for peace. I stepped out of reach. I was tired. I didn't want to gamble with my brother's life anymore, and I didn't want to spend any more of my youth betting on a man's love. "Strike my name from the family. We're done." Damian's voice went cold. "Elena, do you have to fight me on everything? I already promised to get your brother treated. If you insist on leaving the family, I'll pull every bit of medical care he's getting." The blood drained out of my lips. This was Damian's territory. If my brother didn't get treatment, he wouldn't last half a day. He knew perfectly well that my brother was the person I cared about most, and he used him against me anyway. I closed my eyes and told myself that my father had promised to send people for the two of us in three days. Three days. Then I'd take my brother and leave here forever. Chapter 2 Damian took my silence for surrender. The next day his adopted sister came back. He was delighted. He even threw her a welcome-home party. The party was grander than a wedding. Vivi stood in the middle of the crowd with him at her side, the two of them looking like a story people would tell. Nobody wondered where I'd gone. At the hospital I found my brother in critical condition, tubes running out of him everywhere, struggling just to breathe. He was still in the clothes he'd bled through the day before. No one had washed him. The bed he was lying on didn't even have a mattress. My eyes went red. I tried to call Damian and demand an answer, and not one call went through. It wasn't until my phone died that he sent me a message: Vivi's welcome party is today, handle whatever it is yourself for now. I sat on the hospital floor, staring at nothing, tears dropping slowly onto the screen. Then a dull pain spread through my stomach, so bad I nearly passed out before a nurse walking by found me. When I woke up, the doctor told me I was a month pregnant. I turned my phone back on and found social media flooded with coverage of the grand party Damian had thrown for his adopted sister. The cover photo showed him smiling as he kissed Vivi's forehead. The cold spread through me inch by inch. Damian didn't come to the hospital until that night. He looked at my brother in the bed, frowned, and gave orders for a doctor to look after him. "Elena, I got you a doctor. I have to go check a shipment with Vivi tonight, so I'm heading out." He left in a hurry. He never saw the way the doctor's face went cold the second he was gone. I caught the hem of his coat, and there was something close to pleading in the way I looked at him. Damian turned back, and something strange moved in him, as if it were telling him not to walk out of this hospital, that he would regret it. But he hesitated a long time. In the end he sighed, took off his overcoat, and draped it over my shoulders. "I'll come back and sit with you in a bit." The doctor changed my brother's dressings carelessly, asked nothing about his other symptoms, and turned to go. I blocked his way without thinking. "Damian told you to stay and treat my brother. You haven't finished, why are you—" "Oh, please. Haven't you seen the news? You don't still think you carry any weight around here, do you? The Boss is done with you. Why would I take orders from you?" The doctor cut me off, then shoved the door open and left without looking back. I wanted to argue, but my throat closed up. He was right. Everyone here treated you according to what you were still worth, and there was no way Damian didn't know it. He walked out for someone else anyway. Chapter 3 I changed my brother's dressings myself and washed him. By midnight Damian still hadn't come back. On my way home a message came in from my father. Hold on one more day and his people would be at the docks. But when I pushed the front door open, I smelled something familiar. Vivi was sitting in what used to be my seat, with candles burning across the whole table. My eyes narrowed. I knew at once where those candles had come from. They were what Damian and I had given each other when we first got together, and I had never let myself burn a single one. He'd told me he had them commissioned from a single perfumer overseas, that there was only one set like it in the world. Vivi had burned through all of them. Vivi saw me and stood up right away. "Elena, you're home." That was when I noticed the pajamas she had on. They were half of a matching set I'd given Damian. I held my anger down and stared at her, forcing my voice out of my throat. "Who said you could touch my things?" Damian came out of the kitchen and moved Vivi behind him without making anything of it. "I did. Those candles were going to waste sitting there, better that Vivi got some use out of them. She's young, she doesn't know any better. Don't take it out on her. Take it out on me." I stared at him. She was young? My brother was one year older than her, and he was lying in an emergency room with his head split open over this family's business. Vivi peered at me carefully. "Elena, please don't be angry. I'll buy you new candles. The Boss told me to wear these, I came here with almost no luggage. If it bothers you I'll take them off right now and give them back." She actually started pulling them off, and Damian hurried to stop her, then turned on me, annoyed. "What are you doing, going after a young girl?" I ignored him, went into the bedroom, and quietly started packing. Damian's face went cold. "Elena, what is this? Are you never going to let it go?" I didn't stop. Damian faltered, and something finally registered. Something uneasy crossed his face. "Tonight was my fault. I forgot to come sit with you at the hospital. But Vivi didn't do anything. You shouldn't be taking it out on her." I still said nothing. Damian's pride wouldn't let him bend to me a second time. He held his temper and walked straight out. I crouched on the floor putting everything into a suitcase and realized how little I actually had. As little as the year I'd been stubborn enough to walk away from my family and follow Damian for a love that turned out to be nothing. Back then Damian had promised he would fill my bags with the best of everything in the world. All these years later I still had the same few pieces. I pulled up the handle of the suitcase and started for the door. Damian blocked me, frowning. "What, you're going to threaten me by running away from home again? You still haven't apologized to Vivi for snapping at her." I had no more words to waste on him. "Move." He stared at me, his face like iron. "You're not going anywhere until you apologize. And I'll have them stop your brother's treatment." I lowered my head, my nails digging into my palms. "Fine." I let go of the handle and walked over to Vivi. She stood behind Damian with half her face showing, timid, her eyes still red, as if I'd frightened her badly. "Elena, I really didn't mean to..." Her voice caught on a sob. "Don't be angry at the Boss. It's all my fault." My voice came out flat. "I'm sorry." Damian stood to the side and murmured, "It's all right now.". Vivi sniffed, came out from behind him, and took a step toward me like she wanted to say something. Then her foot caught and she pitched forward at me. I reached out on reflex to catch her. My fingers hadn't even touched her sleeve when she threw herself backward and hit the floor with a heavy thud. "Vivi!" Damian rushed over and scooped her up. Vivi clutched her stomach, her face white as paper, tears rolling down in fat drops. "Boss... my stomach hurts so much..." Damian's expression changed in an instant. He shoved me aside, then carried her out the door without looking back, without sparing me a single glance. Chapter 4 I hit the floor hard. Then a warm, dragging pain spread low in my belly, like something being torn loose from deep inside me. I pressed my hand there. My palm came away wet. I looked down. It was blood. I walked out of the Moretti house alone and flagged down a car to the hospital. The driver kept glancing at me in the mirror like he wanted to say something, and in the end he just drove faster. By the time I got there I couldn't stand up straight. A nurse helped me through the exam, and the doctor frowned. "Early pregnancy. Did you fall? We can't save the baby. You'll need a D and C." I nodded. I didn't have the strength left to cry. "Can I go see my brother first?" The doctor agreed. I pushed open the door of the emergency room. It was empty. The blanket had been thrown back in a heap, and an IV line still hung there with the needle in it. I grabbed a nurse walking past, my voice shaking apart. "Where's my brother? The... the man who was in that bed?" The nurse glanced at me. "The patient went into cardiac arrest, but his doctor was called away. Some emergency case the Boss brought in himself." My knees gave out. I stumbled and ran for the emergency wing. At the end of the corridor Damian stood with his back to me, holding Vivi's hand, his head bent to say something in her ear. A few doctors crowded around the bed, examining her. I ran over and grabbed his sleeve. "Damian, save my brother..." He turned. His brows drew together and his eyes moved over my white face and the blood down the front of my clothes, and something painful flickered through them. He reached to steady me without thinking. Then Vivi moaned and his attention snapped away. He turned his head, and the pity in his eyes was replaced by nothing at all. "What are you doing here? Vivi is still being examined. Don't make a scene." "My brother's heart stopped." I looked up at him, my voice gone to gravel. "His doctor was called away, there's nobody with him. Send them back. Please, just this once..." Damian shook my hand off, anger rising in his eyes. "Elena, is there no end to this? Vivi is in bad shape and you still want to make it a contest with your brother? I don't want to see you right now. Get out." Several bodyguards came forward and hauled me out. They dumped me in the corridor. I tried to claw my way back to beg him and they caught me again. Then I heard the hurried footsteps of a nurse behind me. "Family! The patient in bed sixteen has been pronounced dead. We need a family member to sign." I froze. Every drop of blood in me drained away at once. Bed sixteen was my brother. I took the form. My fingers shook too hard to hold the pen. Blood ran down between my legs and soaked into my shoes. From inside the emergency room came Damian's gentle coaxing. "It's all right, it's all right. The doctor says it was just a mild shock, you can rest at home." I turned slowly, my body stiff, and walked step by step out of the hospital. My phone rang. It was my father. "Ellie, I'm at the docks."