Four Parting Gifts, Don Falcone

I was the Falcone family's top consigliere. Their brain. And today, I was walking away—handing over the books to every legitimate business I ran, severing my final tie.

My protégé couldn't understand. "You're the future of this family, Aurelia. You can't just leave."

I shook my head with a bitter smile.

They didn't know. I'd been secretly married to the Don, Vittorio Falcone, for three years.

I thought my looks, my mind, and everything I gave him would be enough to win all of his love.

A hit at the docks three months ago showed me the truth.

I took a bullet. Emergency. I needed the family surgeon—which required Vittorio's direct order.

I called him over a dozen times.

But when he finally answered, all I heard was a soft, breathless voice on his end.

"Vittorio, we haven't cut my birthday cake. Will you hold my hand and cut it with me?"

That voice. My best friend. The woman Vittorio once had a crush on. Carina.

In the safe house, weak from blood loss, I dug the bullet out myself and had one of my men rush me to a family clinic.

Right before they wheeled me into the OR, Vittorio burst in—carrying Carina. Twisted ankle. Needed a doctor. Now.

My surgeon was dragged away.

The antibiotics came too late. The wound got infected. I fought for my life for a week.

When I woke up, I stared at my phone. Not a single message. The tears finally came.

I understood. I was just the woman he'd been forced to marry after he was drugged and slept with me. A scandal averted.

All he cared about was my value and his reputation.

And me? The secret princess of the Rossi family, who gave up everything to build his empire. All for nothing.

So I prepared four parting gifts. A celebration of our mutual destruction.

Then he'd never see me again.

When I found out my secret husband, Don Vittorio, was sleeping with my best friend, Carina, I decided to leave him.

I pushed open the door to his study, divorce papers clutched in my hand. Vittorio was there, gently polishing a Padparadscha sapphire.

The tenderness in his eyes was a look he’d never once given me.

It was hard to breathe.

Vittorio was never the romantic type. Two years ago, at an auction, he’d mocked some tech billionaire for bidding on a diamond necklace for his wife.

"Stones like this are assets," he'd scoffed. "A currency. But a gift for a woman? Pointless."

Now, he was treating that stone like the most precious thing in the world.

What really choked me was a memory. Carina’s latest Instagram post: Whoever gives me a Padparadscha sapphire, I’ll marry him without a second thought.

It was a punch to the gut.

Three years. He’d never bought me so much as a cheap trinket. I’d even bought our wedding rings myself. In secret.

Seeing me, Vittorio stood up, placing the gem gently on a