The Don’s Favorite Lover Vanished

---- Chapter 12 Vincenzo's POV Three hours later, the church reeked of blood and gunpowder. The stench was sickening. The wound on my chest was still bleeding, but the pain was nothing compared to the agony in my soul. Two of my men held Katerina on her knees before me. The dagger lay on the stone floor beside her. She was trembling, her blonde hair matted with blood and dust. The princess was gone. "Vincenzo, please... don't kill me..." she sobbed, trying to crawl toward me. "Dimitri made me do it! I love you, I was just so scared..." "Love?" I looked down at her, my voice quiet.

"Your love is setting a six-month trap with your family to put me in the ground?" I crouched, grabbing her chin and forcing her to meet my eyes. "Your love is planning an ambush to get rid of Chiara?" ---- My voice trembled with suppressed rage. "Do you know you almost succeeded? Do you know I... I pushed her right into the explosion you designed?!" Iwas shouting the last words. Every word was a knife twisting in my own heart. A flicker of fear crossed Katerina's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by venomous jealousy. "She deserved it! She was a ghost who wouldn't leave you alone!

I just wanted her to disappear!" "Disappear..." I let her go and stepped back. I laughed. A hollow, self-loathing sound. I was the biggest fool. The executioner. I didn't do it myself. I turned to Marco. "Take her to the " Confession Room' underground. I don't want to see her, and I don't want to hear her voice ever again." We called it the 'Confession Room.' It was a black hole we threw our worst traitors into. One they never climbed out of. For a pampered princess, it was a fate worse than death.

---- Her screams and curses faded as they dragged her away, disappearing into the depths of the dungeon. Two days later, Marco reported in. "Boss, Katerina... she's gone. The lock on her cell was picked. The guards were killed. Must have been Petrov's loyalists." T listened without expression. "Did you send men after her?" "We did, but..." "Forget it," I cut him off, my voice weary. "Let the bitch run. I don't give a damn. Bring everyone back. Find Chiara. " Marco froze for a second, then nodded. "Yes, Boss." On the third day, I locked myself in her old studio.

I smashed every piece of Russian decor, tore down the curtains, shoved over the piano. As I broke through a section of the wall, I found it. A hidden safe. T punched in her birthday. ---- Click. It opened. No weapons, no intel. Just a black, leather- bound notebook. I opened it to the first page. Her neat handwriting. "Jan 15 - Something's off with the Petrov family's money flow." "Feb 20 - Intercepted Russian comms. They're talking ' cleanup.' Target... us?" "Mar 10 - It's confirmed. The marriage is a trap. They 'want to swallow the Russo family." My hands started to shake.

"Mar 22 - The engagement party is soon. I have to warn Vincenzo. But he doesn't trust me anymore." I flipped to the last page, dated the day before I exiled her. "Apr 1 - Last chance. I have to tell him tonight. I have to protect him, even if he hates me for it." "But if he really chooses to trust them..." At the very bottom of the page, in smaller script, was the ---- final line. "T give up. Vincenzo, I don't love you anymore." The notebook slipped from my grasp. A folded piece of paper slipped out. It was a sketch. Her dream for our future-the manor she loved, filled with our children...

She knew. She knew everything all along. She was trying to warn me. And I... 1 treated her like a traitor. An obstacle. A piece of trash to be "cleansed." Ihad pushed away the only person trying to save me. I had pushed her into hell. "No... No..." I collapsed among the ruins, a wounded animal that couldn't even howl. Ten years. Ten years of loyalty. ---- Ten years of protection. What the fuck had I done? "CHIARA!" A gut-wrenching scream tore from my throat, filled with nothing but regret and agony.

Islammed my fists into the floor again and again, until my knuckles were a mess of blood and bone, mixing with the dust. But the pain was nothing. Not even a fraction of what was tearing me apart inside. Tlost her. Tlost her forever. I grabbed my walkie, my voice a raw whisper from hell. "Marco." "Here, Boss." "Bring me," I finally rasped, each word a shard of glass in my throat, "every last person who had a hand in shaming her." ---- Marco was silent for a beat. "...Yes, Boss." I sat in the wreckage, clutching the notebook, and waited.

Waited to use their blood to mourn the love I had buried with my own hands.