No More Blood for the Don

Vincenzo Lombardi, the Mafia Don, was a cold-blooded monster. The women who orbited him usually ended up dead or crippled. Yet, he kept me—his loyal cleaner—by his side.

I had taken a submachine gun bullet meant for him; the shrapnel remains permanently lodged in my shoulder. I'd drunk poisoned wine for him at a negotiation table, surviving only after three stomach pumps.

I foolishly thought my sacrifices would earn a shred of his tenderness.

After all, I gave birth to his heir, Ethan. More than that, the entire Mafia family saw me as his talisman. As long as I was beside him, he would survive any hit—or so the superstitious capos believed.

But when he finally seized ultimate power and took the family legit, he carried another woman into the manor.

It was my adopted sister, Vanessa.

When I smashed our vow-symbolizing wine glass, he had me locked in a damp, pitch-black confinement room to listen to their wild night.

When I slapped Vanessa, he mercilessly shattered the knees that had once danced entirely for him. Then, before all the capos, he slipped the family signet ring onto Vanessa's finger, crowning her the new Donna.

His punishments grew increasingly brutal until he threatened my adoptive mother Phoebe's life. That was when I finally learned to behave.

Satisfied, he pinned me down, his hot breath grazing my ear. "Don't be petty. Vanessa is pure and innocent. She isn't hardened by the streets like you."

"She isn't here to replace you; she's just joining the Lombardi family."

Even Ethan, the son I risked my life to bear, took Vanessa's side.

"Are you done throwing tantrums?! Vanessa is so kind and fragile. Why do you always have to make her cry?"

Yet this "flawless" Vanessa secretly orchestrated a nightmare.

Just because she pleaded for me, Vanessa had her own biological mother—my adoptive mother, Phoebe—held down and coldly slit her throat.

Stepping over her mother's pooling blood, Vanessa locked me in a walk-in freezer at twenty degrees below zero.

When Vincenzo finally shoved open the heavy iron door, his eyes held no pity. He just snapped, "Vanessa is pregnant and shouldn't be startled. Since you're done playing dead, crawl over and beg her forgiveness on your knees."

I sluggishly wiped the blackened, bloody ice crystals from my mouth and looked at him.

"Vincenzo..." The words scraped from my frozen throat in a broken rasp. "I'm dying."

Vincenzo froze for a second before disgust flashed across his eyes.

Without hesitation, he dragged me out of the freezer like garbage and threw me into the underground torture room. My shattered knees slammed against the concrete, sending agonizing spasms through my body.

Before I could gasp for air, his massive hand clamped around my throat.

"Aurora! How many times have I warned you against provoking Vanessa?!" 

"Threatening me with your death? Believe it or not, I will have your pathetic bitch of a mother buried alive right now!"

Choking in his iron grip, my damaged lungs convulsed. I coughed up a huge mouthful of dark blood and ice chips, splattering it all over his leather shoes.

I looked at the man I had once loved with my life, eyes filled with absolute despair.

"Do whatever you want. Phoebe is already gone anyway."

"Vincenzo, your perfect little saint slit her throat with her own hands yesterday!"

Vincenzo's chest heaved, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

"To slander Vanessa, you'd even curse your only living relative!"

"It seems shattering your knees wasn't enough to make you behave!"

With a swift backhand, he drew a dagger. I had wrestled this exact blade from an assassin while covered in my own blood to gift him.

Once, when someone dared to insult me, Vincenzo used this very dagger to slit the bastard's throat.

But now, it was his cold blade pressing hard against my wrist.

As the steel bit into my skin, drawing blood, he sneered cruelly. "Didn't you love using this hand to shoot and protect me?" With a quick, vicious slice, the blade came down.

Blood sprayed out in an instant. He had personally severed the tendons in my wrist.

After destroying the legs I used to dance for him, he had now completely ruined my right hand—the hand that held the gun.

Now, an ousted cleaner stripped of my lethal edge, the last shred of my usefulness was crushed to dust.

My ten-year-old biological son, Ethan, stood right there. He watched my mutilated, bleeding wrist without shedding a single tear. He didn't even show the slightest intention of stopping it.

Mimicking his father's arrogant posture, he glared down at me coldly.

"Mom, when are you going to stop throwing fits? Even a kid knows lying is wrong!"

"Vanessa is pregnant, and Dad says seeing blood brings bad luck. Yet, you just have to pull these bloody, crippling stunts! Your endless clinging is so embarrassing!"

A bitter laugh forced its way out of my lungs.

This was the son I suffered ten agonizing months of pregnancy and a horrific labor to bring into the world!

When Vincenzo had enemies everywhere, I took Ethan on the run, shielding his tiny body in my arms through countless hails of bullets. And now, he condemned his birth mother to defend a murderer!

I gasped sharply, suddenly vomiting another clot of blackened, necrotic blood.

With that foul blood went every ounce of feeling I ever held for this father and son. The desperate love and maternal instinct were violently stripped away. No more heartbreak—only a dead, ashen apathy.

The heavy iron door swung open again, and Vanessa walked in, draped in a pure white, haute-couture wedding gown.

Seeing the puddles of blood, she let out a piercing shriek. Feigning terror at my "vindictive" gaze, she stumbled back and threw herself into Vincenzo's arms, sobbing and trembling violently.

"Vincenzo! She's glaring at me! Did you see the way she just looked at me?"

"Yesterday, she threatened to ruin my face so she could destroy our wedding! I'm so scared..."

Vincenzo immediately pulled her in tight. Her tears ignited his protective, sadistic nature.

He looked back at me as if he were staring at a vile, filthy monster.

"Since you want to ruin her face, I'll destroy that pathetic jealousy of yours along with it."

To appease his bride, Vincenzo grabbed a bottle of concentrated industrial acid—used to scrub bloodstains from the basement.

Like a cold-blooded executioner, he hurled the entire bottle of caustic liquid right at my face and neck.