The Crown of Donna

Christmas Eve was meant to be the culmination of seven years of long-distance longing—the day Lorenzo finally slid an engagement ring onto my finger.

Instead, a sudden emergency surgery chained me to the operating table.

The patient wasn't just suffering from a premature delivery and catastrophic hemorrhaging; she was riddled with infections, the biological fallout of a reckless, hedonistic lifestyle.

The girl on the table spat out orders with a venomous entitlement that made my blood run cold. "My husband is the head of the Corleone family. He’s second to none, and this entire city bows to him. If you can’t save my baby, you’re all dead."

My mind went blank.

There was only one head of the Corleone family: Lorenzo.

"You’ve got the wrong man," I said, my voice wavering despite my frown. "The news said he’s already engaged to a woman from a rival family for a strategic alliance."

The girl looked at me as if I’d just told a pathetic joke. She surveyed me with a mocking sneer.

"Oh, he’s mentioned that woman. He said she’s like a cold corpse—that even touching her makes him sick to his stomach. She doesn't provide him a fraction of the pleasure I do."

She smirked. "He heard something happened to the baby. He’s en route from Sicily right now with his personal detail."

She flicked her phone screen open. There it was: a photo of her and Lorenzo, locked in a suffocatingly intimate embrace.

I froze.

A second later, a notification from Lorenzo vibrated against my palm.

“Darlin’, something urgent came up tonight. I’m skipping the engagement dinner. I’ll make it up to you later.”

Since they were so utterly in love, I decided to give them exactly what they wanted.

I dialed a number that had been silent for three years—the number of the true mastermind of the underworld, Don Sebastian.

"Does your proposal from three years ago still stand?"

After the Emergency C-Section

The anesthesia hadn't even fully worn off before Bella was already snapping at the nurse to hand over her phone.

"Lorenzo, it hurts so much. Why aren't you here with me yet?" she whimpered into the receiver, her voice dripping with practiced fragility. "I know I’m just a convenient distraction to you. Maybe I should just take the baby and end it all."

She struggled to push herself up, making a dramatic show of straining toward the third-floor window as if she might jump.

Lorenzo’s voice came through the line, thick with raw desperation. "Be good, Bella. Listen to me. All I want right now is to be by your side."

"I’ve already acquired that estate you liked," he continued. "I’m dispatching a private medical team to retrieve you and the baby right now."

Hearing that all-too-familiar voice, my mind reeled back six years.

Back then, Lorenzo had just ascended as the head of the Corleone family, and he had a target painted on his back everywhere he turned. On our first anniversary, assassins ambushed