My Mafia Husband Said He Was Broke

The day I married Santino Connor, he went from the infamous heir of a mafia fortune to a broke nobody.

When he handed me a plastic ring in a shabby basement and asked if I would start from scratch with him, I looked at the man I had loved since I was a girl and nodded without a second thought.

"Santino, as long as it was with you, I would do anything."

For him, I worked more than ten hours a day until my stomach bled from the stress. Our son, from the moment he could walk, trailed me from one odd job to the next.

I thought my love could eventually build us a life in the sun.

Until, at a lavish banquet where I was serving the elite, he showered me with cash from his seat at the head of the table.

"What's that thing crawling on the floor? It's blocking my view!"

"Take the money and get out of my sight!"

When I saw the woman by his side, her face an eerie copy of my own, I finally understood. To him, this was just a game, and I was the only one playing for keeps.

If he was going to go to such lengths to deceive me, then it was time for his game to end.

What he didn't know was that one month later, he would be tearing the world apart to find me.

The day I married Santino Connor, he announced he was leaving the Family, and as a result, all his accounts were frozen.

Believing his promise to "go straight and start over," I spent five years chained to a sewing machine in a cold, damp basement, my fingers scarred from countless needle pricks.

Our son, Luca, dressed in oversized T-shirts from a thrift store, was digging through dumpsters with me for scrap cardboard by the time he was three.

But then I discovered that my supposedly broke husband, the man I thought was earning an honest living, had taken his place as the Don of the Connor family.

This time, something inside me broke for good. In one month, I would be gone from his world completely.

On Luca's fifth birthday, a torrential downpour soaked the city. I had just pulled an all-nighter to finish a rush order.

Drenched to the bone, we stood at the gates of a sprawling private estate, clutching a newly finished sample tuxedo.

This was an urgent job, and the pay was enough to cover Luca's tuition for the next semester.

A man who looked like a butler tossed a towel at me. "Get inside before you dirty the carpets. The Don is meeting with important guests. You two can use the dog door over there."

"You're here to discuss the tuxedo with the staff. Don't disturb the Don and his guests in the main hall."

The thought that this money was one step toward a clean break gave me the strength to go on. I took