She Jumped: The Mafia King's Eternal Regret

I spent five years protecting Grafton Mcleod, the ruthless King of Chicago. Not because I loved him, but because I swore a blood oath to his dying brother to keep him alive.

On the day my contract ended, I placed my resignation on his desk.

Grafton didn't just refuse it; he laughed.

"You don't resign, Cayla. You belong to me."

He thought I was a jealous, obsessed assistant in love with him. He let his cruel fiancée, Cherrelle, torment me daily.

He forced me to drain my own blood to save her after she faked an accident.

He threw me into a freezing fountain when she lied about me pushing her.

But the final straw came when he dragged me to a syndicate gala. He didn't take me as a guest. He put me on stage, in a silk dress and a collar, and sold me to his enemy for five million dollars.

"This is what happens to property that misbehaves," he sneered as the gavel came down.

I escaped that night, but I didn't run away. I drove to the bridge where his brother died.

I left my phone on the railing and let the icy water take me, finally free of my debt.

It was only when Grafton stood on that bridge, holding my cracked phone, that he learned the truth.

He unlocked it and saw my wallpaper. It wasn't him. It was his dead brother.

And the diary inside revealed that the woman he was about to marry was the one who had ordered the hit that killed him.

Chapter 1

Cayla POV

I signed my death warrant the moment I placed the cream-colored envelope on the Don's desk.

It marked the end of a five-year blood oath that had reduced my soul to ash, yet the ink hadn't even dried before the devil demanded one last sacrifice.

The paper looked stark white against the dark, polished mahogany.

Grafton Mcleod didn't look up.

He was scanning a report on the new shipment coming through the docks, his brow furrowed in that specific way that used to make my heart ache.

Now, it just made me exhausted.

"What is this?" he asked, his voice a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards beneath my feet.

"My resignation," I said.

My voice was steady. It had taken five years of brutal practice to strip it of any tremor.

Grafton finally looked up.

His eyes were the color of a stormy sea-beautiful, destructive, and utterly devoid of mercy. He ruled Chicago with a brutality that made grown men weep, a King built on a throne of bones and blood.

He glanced at the letter, then at me, and let out a short, humorless laugh.

"You don't resign from the Mcleod family, Cayla. You leave in a pine box."

"I'm an Associate, not a Made Man," I corrected him, my tone soft but firm. "And my contract was for five years. Today is the anniversary."

Brooks, the Consigliere standing in the