The Don’s Favorite Lover Vanished

---- Chapter 10 Vincenzo's POV Amonth. It's been a month since I sent Chiara away. She vanished. Like smoke. It was my choice. So why did this knot in my gut refuse to go away? Marco knocked and came in, a list of wedding flowers in his hand. "Boss, you need to sign off on this." I didn't turn from the window. "Give it to Katerina." "and the wine list, the music..." "T said, give it all to her!" I snapped, my voice cutting through the silence. "From now on, don't bother me with this petty shit!" Marco went silent and backed out of the room. Ishould be satisfied. The alliance is sealed.

The family's power has never been ---- stronger. So why can't I sleep? Midnight. I sat up in bed again. Katerina was sleeping soundly beside me, but all I felt was a raw, restless energy. I got out of bed. Something pulled me toward the studio that used to be Chiara's. It was Katerina's music room now. All her Russian taste. Ornate and soulless. But in the air, a faint trace of turpentine still lingered. Her smell. "Dammit." The next morning, I called for the butler. "Gut this place. Everything," I snarled, pointing at the whole room. "Rip out the wallpaper. Tear up the floors.

I don't want to smell anything in here that isn't Katerina's!" "But Boss," the butler said, his voice cautious, "Miss ---- Katerina is very fond of..." "Then she can go back to Russia and be fond of it there!" roared. "Do what I said!" They spent the whole day gutting the room. But the smell -Chiara's smell-was still there. Like it had seeped into my bones. The night before the wedding, I sat in my study, staring at a mountain of paperwork. I couldn't read a single word. Annoyed, I grabbed the bell on my desk. I rang it out of habit. "Chi..." The name caught in my throat. I froze.

Who was I about to call? The maid came in. "Yes, Boss?" "Coffee." "Of course. With sugar?" Topened my mouth, but no answer came out. ---- Three sugar cubes. In that old porcelain cup she found in Naples. These goddamn details. They were demons crawling inside my head. "Boss?" "Get the hell out!" I swept everything off my desk in a single, violent motion. Papers flew everywhere. The sound was deafening. The maid's face went white. She practically scrambled out of the room. Istared at the empty desk, a wave of suffocating panic washing over me. Chiara came to me at sixteen.

A blood pact between our families. My uncle saved her father from certain death and died doing it. The Rossi family swore loyalty. Chiara was the price. She was my tool. Mine alone. She was by my side for so long-ten years in my bed- that I forgot. I forgot she was a Mafia princess with her ---- own pride. I treated her like a thing. A warm body to use. And now that "thing" was gone, I couldn't even get a goddamn cup of coffee right. No one knew how I liked my files organized. No one knew which antiseptic to use when I got cut. No one knew which cufflinks went with my favorite shirt.

All these little, insignificant things. Someone used to handle them all. Perfectly. And I threw her away. I stalked to the bar and poured a whiskey. The crystal glass was expensive, but it felt cold and dead in my hand. It wasn't the old porcelain cup. I stared at my own haggard reflection in the glass and felt a strange, new kind of fear. My empire was about to be complete. ---- But a piece of my world had just collapsed. I picked up the encrypted phone and dialed Marco's number. "Boss?" "Find her." My voice was hoarse. Obsessed.

«Boss, we've already-" "Unleash everything," I cut him off, grinding the words out between my teeth. "Bring me Chiara Rossi." I paused. "Alive."