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My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything, But I Left
Novelix
Completed
The night before our City Hall wedding, Mafia Don Dante Marchetti froze every account I had to punish me for humiliating his favorite woman. That same night, my mother suffered a brain hemorrhage. I called him twenty-six times. He ignored every call. Instead, he handed my desperate voice messages to his mistress, who played them for a million followers and called me manipulative. By morning, my mother was dead. Dante still expected me to show up, apologize, and become Mrs. Marchetti. So I did show up. Just not to marry him. And when Dante finally learned the truth, it was already far too late.
Chapters (3)
第1章
The night before our City Hall wedding, Dante Marchetti froze every account I had under management by the Marchetti Family Office—all to punish me on behalf of his lover.
That same night, my mother suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage and was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital.
After the doctors stabilized her, the neurosurgeon told me she needed to be transferred immediately to a medical center across the city with a specialized cerebrovascular team. The insurance company’s emergency authorization still hadn’t come through, and the receiving hospital required a $180,000 financial guarantee before they could confirm the transfer.
I knelt in the stark white hallway and called Dante over and over again.
He didn’t send a cent.
Instead, he forwarded the voice messages of me begging for help to his latest favorite—Sienna Ross, a relationship columnist turned influencer.
That night, on Sienna’s late-night livestream to more than a million subscribers, my desperate sobs were edited into a “case study” and played for her audience.
“Some women are experts at using a sick family member to manipulate people into sympathy. The best way to deal with someone like that is to stop rewarding the behavior.”
Dante listened, then casually dropped a hundred thousand dollars into her tip jar.
The comments exploded, praising the two of them for being clear-headed, emotionally mature, and perfect for each other.
I stayed outside the neuro ICU, waiting for word that the restrictions on my accounts had been lifted.
It never came.
Instead, the neurosurgeon on call walked out with regret written all over his face.
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
At the same time, a message from Dante lit up my phone.
Lesson learned. Be at City Hall on time tomorrow.
I held my mother’s cold hand and canceled our marriage-license appointment for the next morning.
Marry him?
At that moment, I wanted him dead.
A funeral director had just slid a catalog of urns across the desk when Dante’s personal assistant called.
“Miss Sinclair, Don Marchetti is already at City Hall. You have twenty minutes.”
I turned the page and chose the simplest black-walnut urn.
“Tell him I’m not coming.”
Elias went quiet for a beat.
“The Don says your punishment ended last night. If you apologize to Miss Ross in person today, the restrictions on your accounts will be lifted immediately.”
The funeral director looked up. “Did the deceased have a favorite color?”
“Blue.”
My mother had worked at a community legal-aid center for more than twenty years. She was always wearing the same faded blue blouse.
She used to say blue was a quiet color. People were less likely to stay angry when they looked at it.
Elias was still trying to persuade me over the phone.
“Miss Sinclair, City Hall appointments aren’t easy to get. The Don postponed an entire board meeting this morning for this. Please don’t let one emotional moment turn this marriage into something neither of you can fix.”
“Then let it stay broken.”
I ended the call, unclasped the last piece of jewelry I had left, and placed it on the counter.
“How much can I get for this?”
The funeral director blinked.
Dante had given me the necklace for my birthday last year: a pigeon-blood sapphire surrounded by a halo of diamonds.
Sienna had once said on her show that expensive gifts created “compensatory guilt” in women.
The next day, Dante had made me transfer my small Upper West Side apartment to Sienna.
He said it wasn’t an exchange.
It was only a test of whether I was “willing to share.”
The necklace sold for eighty thousand dollars.
After the cremation and a small memorial service, I had sixteen thousand left.
I had barely stepped out of the funeral home when Dante video-called me.
He was standing on the stone steps outside City Hall in a charcoal three-piece suit, wearing the silver tie pin I had chosen for him the night before.
“Where are you?”
“Taking care of something.”
“Selene, I don’t like people wasting my time.”
Sienna laughed somewhere behind him.
“Dante, I told you. Once crying stopped working, she’d switch to disappearing.”
The camera shifted.
Sienna stood beside him in a pale-blue silk dress, holding two passports and the paperwork for our marriage-license appointment.
One of the passports was mine.
After my mother was taken to the ER the night before, I had gone back to the apartment to get my documents—only to discover that the locks had been changed.
Dante had told me I wasn’t allowed back home until I understood what I’d done wrong.
“Why does she have my ID?” I asked.
Dante glanced at Sienna.
“She picked it up for you.”
“Tell her to give it back.”
“Come here first.”
“I want it now.”
That familiar impatience creased his brow.
“It’s one passport, Selene. What boundary are you trying to draw this time?”
Sienna pressed the passport against her chest and gave the camera a soft, sympathetic smile.
“I can give it back to you, Selene. But first, you need to apologize to me.”
“Last night, you accused me of letting your mother die. A lot of my audience heard you.”
“I was only helping Dante set healthy boundaries in your relationship. You don’t get to blame other people just because your mother got sick.”
I tightened my grip on the manila envelope containing my mother’s death certificate.
The edge of the paper dug into my palm.
“Sienna. Who gave you that recording?”
Her eyes flicked toward Dante.
He didn’t look away.
“I did.”
“You were out of control. Sienna understands these things better than I do.”
“So you gave her a recording of me begging you for help and let her play it on her livestream?”
“She altered your voice.”
He said it calmly, as if that were some enormous act of mercy.
“And part of the livestream proceeds are being donated to a domestic-violence shelter. At least something useful came out of your experience.”
A laugh escaped me.
Sienna had made more than six hundred thousand dollars in tips that night.
Dante alone had given her a hundred thousand.
But the $180,000 guarantee needed for my mother’s emergency transfer?
Apparently he couldn’t spare a dime.
An announcement sounded from inside City Hall, calling our appointment number.
Dante checked his watch.
“Last chance. Be here in ten minutes.”
“Or what?”
“We postpone the license. The account restrictions stay in place.”
“Selene, your mother is going to need hospitalization and rehab after this. How do you think you’re paying for any of that?”
Even now, he was still using my mother to threaten me.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
Beside him, Sienna murmured, “Don’t give in. She’s waiting for you to ask how her mother is. The second you do, she wins.”
Dante immediately looked away.
“Enough. The Marchetti family is holding a pre-wedding dinner tonight. I don’t tolerate lateness.”
“And one more thing. That blue notebook your mother kept at the legal-aid center? Sienna wants to use it for her course.”
My fingers clenched around the envelope.
“That notebook belongs to my mother.”
“It’s already been sent to the office.”
“Who gave you permission to take it?”
“Your mother always said she wanted her experience to help people.”
Dante’s tone remained flat.
“Don’t turn an older woman’s generosity into another bargaining chip.”
The call ended.
One minute later, Sienna sent me a photo.
My mother’s blue leather notebook—the one she had used for more than twenty years—lay open on Sienna’s livestream desk.
Beside the yellowing pages was a brand-new promotional poster.
TONIGHT AT 8:00 P.M.
A MILLION-FOLLOWER RELATIONSHIP EXPERT TEACHES YOU HOW TO SPOT EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL
And beneath that, in smaller print:
REAL-LIFE CASE PROVIDED BY: SELENE S.
第2章
I arrived at the Marchetti estate on Long Island ten minutes before dinner began.
Not because I planned to stay.
I was there to get my mother’s notebook back.
The spacious living room was filled with the core of the Marchetti family: several capos who ran different crews and territories, an aging consigliere who handled the family’s legal problems and internal disputes, and Dante’s aunt Isabella, who controlled nearly a third of the family’s legitimate holdings.
At the center of the long dining table sat two red velvet boxes, gifts Donna Marchetti had originally prepared to celebrate our wedding.
The moment I walked in, Isabella smiled.
“There she is. I was starting to think you’d really throw away the whole marriage over a hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”
“I suppose when you come from nothing, every dollar feels like a crisis.”
Sienna sat beside Donna Marchetti, pouring her an aperitif.
“Aunt Isabella, don’t be so hard on her. Anyone would panic when their mother gets sick.”
“Although Dante already promised to cover the follow-up treatment, and she still insisted he wire the money that very night, which was… a little undignified.”
Donna Marchetti frowned at me.
“How is your mother now?”
I saw Dante glance up.
He was waiting for my answer.
But Sienna reached out first and covered Donna Marchetti’s hand.
“Mrs. Marchetti, maybe it’s better not to ask.”
“Dante only just established this boundary. If you show concern now, Selene will think the tactic worked.”
Donna Marchetti closed her mouth at once.
Dante pushed a document toward my empty seat.
“Sit. Sign.”
I didn’t move.
“Where’s the notebook?”
“At the office.”
“I want it back.”
“Sienna needs it for tonight’s livestream. You can have it afterward.”
“She doesn’t have permission to publish anything from it.”
Sienna smiled.
“Selene, your mother handled ordinary neighborhood disputes at a community center. It’s not like she was documenting family secrets.”
“I’m organizing her work and helping it reach more people. I’m giving it value.”
“She never agreed to that.”
“Dante did.”
She tilted her head toward him.
Dante tapped the document with one knuckle.
“This is Cor Nova’s content-licensing agreement for the new year.”
Cor Nova was a relationship-assessment app he had funded through the Marchettis’ legitimate businesses. As for the family’s other operations—the ones that never appeared in board packets—no one at that table spoke of them.
“Sign it, and I’ll remove the restrictions on your accounts. Sienna will delete last night’s replay too.”
I opened to the first page.
The license covered not only the relationship-assessment model I had helped develop, but also more than twenty years of my mother’s mediation case files.
Term: perpetual.
Licensing fee: one dollar.
“This is theft.”
Dante’s voice cooled.
“The company has paid you a salary for three years.”
“My salary bought my working hours. It didn’t buy my mother’s entire life.”
Isabella scoffed.
“You’re about to become Mrs. Marchetti. Why are you drawing such hard lines between yours and his?”
“Dante is willing to marry you. That’s the greatest security he could possibly give you.”
I looked at him.
“Is that what you think too?”
He didn’t deny it.
“After we’re married, you’ll be a beneficiary of part of the family trust.”
“You’ll be taken care of.”
“So first you turn my property into yours, then decide how much of it you feel like giving back?”
Dante set down his wineglass.
“Selene, don’t make a normal prenup arrangement sound ugly.”
“You don’t have stable income right now, and your mother is going to need long-term rehabilitation. Who else is going to take on that burden?”
Something heavy pressed against my chest.
My mother had died terrified of becoming a burden to me.
And here he was, in front of an entire room, calling her exactly that.
The butler brought in the final soup course.
Sienna suddenly stood and draped a blue silk scarf across her lap.
I recognized it instantly.
My mother had dyed it by hand the year before.
The first time she met Donna Marchetti, she had worried that buying an expensive gift would look like she was trying too hard to impress the family. So she stayed up for three nights, using simple plant dyes to make a clean, understated blue scarf.
Donna Marchetti accepted it.
Then gave it to Sienna.
I walked over.
“Take it off.”
Sienna touched the scarf.
“Mrs. Marchetti gave it to me.”
“My mother made that.”
“You don’t ask for a gift back once you’ve given it away.”
She smiled as if I were being impossible.
“Selene, why are you trying to take everyone else’s things tonight?”
I reached for it.
Dante caught my wrist first.
His grip wasn’t hard, but it stopped me cold.
“Enough.”
“You’re going to make a scene in front of the whole family over a scarf?”
“Give it back.”
“Sienna needs it for the livestream.”
“I said give it back.”
Dante stared at me for two seconds, then suddenly pulled the scarf from Sienna’s lap.
For one ridiculous moment, I thought he was finally going to hand it to me.
Instead, he placed it back in Sienna’s hands.
“Put it on.”
Sienna lowered her head and tied it around her neck. The blue silk rested against her white dress like a piece of my mother had been peeled away and placed on someone else.
Dante released me.
“Selene. Sit down.”
“Sign the agreement, and I’ll pretend none of this happened.”
I looked at him.
“And if I don’t?”
“You’re suspended. Your access to the apartment is revoked. The restrictions on your accounts remain.”
“And the wedding?”
His expression softened slightly, as if he finally thought I was surrendering.
“That depends on how you behave.”
Even now, Dante Marchetti believed the thing I feared most was losing the chance to become his wife.
I picked up the agreement.
He offered me a fountain pen engraved with the Marchetti crest.
“That’s better.”
I didn’t take it.
Instead, I pulled a red marker from my purse and drew a thick X across every page of the contract.
Sienna’s smile faded.
Dante stared at the red marks.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
I placed the ruined document back in front of him.
“And you should know this: my mother’s notebook does not belong to you.”
Then I turned and walked out.
Dante didn’t follow.
He only spoke when I reached the foyer.
“If you haven’t apologized by nine tomorrow morning, I’ll have legal classify that notebook as company work product.”
I stopped.
Dante leaned back in his chair, completely certain of himself.
“Then you won’t even have the right to take it back.”
第3章
The next morning, my employee badge wouldn’t open the turnstiles at the office.
Rebecca at reception stood awkwardly.
“Director Sinclair… the system says you’ve been suspended.”
The curved video wall in the lobby was playing a preview for Sienna’s new course.
She wore my mother’s blue scarf. The blue leather notebook sat beside her hand.
“Today, we’re going to examine a classic example of a highly controlling woman.”
“She combines motherhood, illness, and marriage into one emotional weapon, then uses it to force compliance from her partner.”
An altered recording began playing through the speakers.
It was my ninth phone call to Dante from the hospital hallway.
“Dante, please.”
“Just authorize one card. Please. That’s all I need.”
“The doctor says we can’t wait any longer—”
The audio cut off.
Sienna looked into the camera.
“Notice that she never provides verifiable medical documentation. She only repeats that time is running out.”
“That is textbook emotional pressure.”
People in the lobby had started recognizing me.
Whispers rose from every direction.
“That’s her, right?”
“I heard today was supposed to be the day she became Mrs. Marchetti.”
“Using your own mother to force a man into marriage? That’s insane.”
A security guard approached me.
“Miss Sinclair, the Don wants you on the twenty-seventh floor.”
When the elevator doors opened, Dante was studying the livestream analytics.
Preorders for Sienna’s course had already passed fifty thousand.
In a ten-minute preview, my crying had been isolated and replayed six times.
“Turn it off.”
I walked over and killed the screen.
Dante looked up.
“Who gave you permission to walk in here and touch my things?”
“Make Sienna take down the recording.”
“We have something else to discuss first.”
He pushed two documents toward me.
The first was my suspension notice.
The second was a written statement.
It claimed I had fabricated my mother’s condition due to pre-wedding anxiety in an attempt to pressure Don Marchetti into releasing a large amount of money.
I stared at the word fabricated.
“Did you verify anything with the hospital?”
“Sienna called the nurses’ station.”
“They wouldn’t give her details about the patient.”
“So you decided I was lying?”
Dante leaned back.
“At minimum, there was no proof your mother actually needed an emergency transfer that night.”
“I sent you a photo of the critical-condition notice.”
“Images can be manipulated.”
“I gave you the attending physician’s number and told you to call him back.”
“Medical scams happen every day.”
Suddenly, I didn’t have the strength to argue anymore.
He didn’t want to believe me.
Which meant every piece of evidence I gave him would simply become part of the “performance.”
The office door opened.
Sienna walked in holding the blue leather notebook.
Pink sticky notes covered the pages.
She flipped to one at random.
“Selene, your mother wrote something really good here.”
“‘Overgiving teaches people to take.’”
“I want to use it at the end of the course. A reminder to women not to raise daughters like you.”
I reached for the notebook.
She immediately stepped back.
Dante moved between us.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
“What did she put on my mother’s pages?”
“They’re just notes.”
“Take them off.”
Sienna gave me an apologetic look.
“The adhesive is pretty strong. It might damage the paper.”
As she spoke, she yanked one of the notes free.
The corner of the yellowed page lifted with it.
A faint tearing sound cut through the room.
My breath stopped.
That page held the last mediation case my mother had ever recorded.
At the bottom, she had written a note to me.
Selene, listen to your own heart before you let anyone else tell you how to live.
Now half of that sentence had been torn away.
I shoved Dante aside and grabbed the notebook.
Sienna stumbled backward and hit the corner of the desk.
She clutched her arm, eyes immediately filling with tears.
“Selene, I know you don’t like me.”
“But you can’t punish me just because Dante chooses to trust me.”
Dante snatched the notebook from my hands.
“Apologize.”
I stared at the torn page in his grip.
“Give it back.”
“Apologize to Sienna first.”
“I didn’t push her.”
“There are cameras in this office.”
“Then pull the footage.”
Sienna spoke softly. “Forget it. Don’t upset her more. Her mother is still in the hospital. Maybe she really is under too much stress.”
The more understanding Sienna pretended to be, the colder Dante’s expression became.
“Selene. Last time. Apologize.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out a formal notice.
“Perfect. I came to see you too.”
Dante took it.
My attorney had drafted the termination notice for Cor Nova’s intellectual-property license.
The app’s core relationship-assessment model was jointly copyrighted in my name and my mother’s.
Three years ago, I had licensed it to Dante for a symbolic one dollar.
One condition was explicit: the model could not be used to humiliate, manipulate, or publicly expose any real individual.
Sienna’s livestream the night before had triggered the termination clause in full.
Dante finished reading without a flicker of emotion.
“You’re threatening me with this?”
“The license terminates in seven days.”
“That model has been updated more than twenty times.”
“The underlying question bank and scoring logic have never changed.”
Sienna laughed.
“Selene, you don’t actually think the company collapses because you take away a few worksheets, do you?”
I looked at her coldly.
“Let’s find out.”
Dante tore the notice in half.
“One letter from a lawyer doesn’t make something true.”
“Tomorrow night, you’re attending the sponsors’ public seminar. You’ll clarify your mother’s condition in front of everyone and apologize to Sienna.”
“If you refuse, I’ll report you for stealing company data.”
Then he locked the blue leather notebook in the safe behind him.
Click.
I stared at the closed steel door.
“Dante. That belongs to my mother.”
“When you learn to take responsibility for your behavior, I’ll give it back.”
He pressed the intercom and called security.
“Escort Miss Sinclair out.”
As I stepped into the elevator, I heard Sienna ask softly from inside the office,
“Do you really think she’ll come tomorrow?”
Dante gave a quiet laugh.
“She will.”
“Her mother still needs treatment. Selene won’t last long.”
