After the Don Cheated, I Became His Rival’s Donna

Ethan and I met at a soup kitchen in the slums. We were fighting over half a moldy bread roll.

I only learned his story from other people later.

His father was the head of Lorencio's largest crime family, killed in a bloody power struggle from within. His mother took a payout and vanished.

My father was an accountant for another family. He was framed for cooking the books and shot dead.

Same story, same wound. That was what brought us together.

We clawed our way up from a crumbling slum to the marble halls of the Lorencio crime families, until finally Ethan took his seat as Don of the Valeria Family.

Nine years of marriage. No church. No proposal. Not even a proper cake.

Then one day, out of nowhere, Ethan said he wanted to get me a diamond ring.

"We had no church and no priest when we got married. I've been meaning to do this properly for a long time. And there'll be more to come."

I stared at the custom diamond in the display case, enormous and flawless, and felt something close to happiness.

The sales associate smiled and complimented his taste, mentioning that another couple had just ordered a ring too. They'd walked out minutes ago, planning a proposal for tomorrow.

"Nine years together and still this in love. That's everything."

I reached for his hand. He stepped away, said he needed to take a call.

I hadn't heard his phone ring.

I followed.

Down the hallway, I watched him press a woman against the wall, his mouth on hers. His voice was sharp with jealousy. "You actually agreed to let him propose to you?"

"Break it off. I'll buy you the ring."

I stood frozen. My chest caved in.

Then a pair of hands pulled me into a fitting room alcove. A man's breath was close, warm in the dark. A low voice, almost amused:

"Your husband's sleeping with my fiancée. Why don't we give it a try too?"

The sales associate had been waiting ten minutes for my signature. My palms were sweating, my hand too unsteady to hold the pen. She finally said, gently: "Ma'am, just your signature and it's yours. Right next to your husband's."

Ethan smiled, that easy warm smile, his chin resting on my shoulder. "Moved?"

I said nothing.

He wrapped a hand around my wrist. "Too much, too fast?"

"You've walked through gunfire without flinching. A signature shouldn't be this hard. Treat it like signing a contract. Relax."

His tone was patient. Indulgent. Performed.

All I could think about was the hallway.

We'd survived everything together. Stealing food off the street. Running weapons through the casinos. Fifteen years of living by the blade. At our worst, we were being hunted down by enemies with half a box of bullets between us, and neither of us would load our own clip because we kept trying to give the rounds to the other.

Later, when hitmen came for me, Ethan