The Don's Regret: She Saved His Life

On our fifth anniversary, instead of a ring, I gave Elena a death sentence.

I believed her father killed mine. So, I spent five years making her fall in love with me just to break her.

I replaced her with Sofia, the woman I thought donated her kidney to save me.

I stripped Elena of her dignity, forced her to crawl over hot coals, and locked her in a freezing cellar until her artificial heart gave out.

She died alone in the mud, pulling the plug on her own life to escape me.

It was only when I saw her body on the autopsy table that I found the truth.

Sofia’s skin was flawless. It was Elena who had the scar.

Elena gave me her kidney. Elena saved me while I destroyed her.

Broken by the truth, I drove a knife into my own chest to join her in hell.

But I didn't die. I woke up ten years in the past, back in high school.

I thought God gave me a second chance to fix it. I saved her father. I cleared the path for our love.

I walked toward her in the school courtyard, ready to be the hero she deserved.

But she didn't look at me with love.

She looked at me with absolute, freezing terror.

I wasn't the only one who remembered the previous life.

Chapter 1

I was smoothing the red silk of the dress Dante had bought me for our fifth anniversary when the door to my penthouse burst open.

The man I loved walked in, a gun pressed to my father’s temple.

"Dante?" I whispered, the name dying in my throat.

Dante Vitiello, the Capo of the New York families, the man who ruled the underworld with an iron fist and a heart I foolishly thought belonged to me, didn't look at me.

His eyes, usually warm like melted whiskey, were now two chips of absolute zero. Dead. Empty.

"Happy anniversary, Elena," he said.

His voice was devoid of humanity.

He shoved my father, Dr. Antonio Rossi, onto the Persian rug. My father—a man who had spent his life saving others—was trembling, his hands zip-tied behind his back, his face a mask of abject terror.

"Please," my father sobbed, curling into himself. "Dante, don't do this. She knows nothing."

"That makes it better," Dante replied.

He uncocked the hammer of his pistol. The metallic *click* echoed like a thunderclap in the silent room.

"Ignorance is a luxury I’m taking away."

He strode over to me. I stood frozen, my hands hovering uselessly over the delicate fabric of my dress. He reached out, his large hand seizing the neckline.

*Riiip.*

The sound was violent, tearing through the air. The silk shredded from my collarbone to my waist, exposing my bra, exposing the jagged scars on my chest, and exposing the battery pack strapped to my side that kept my blood flowing.

"Dante!" I screamed, crossing my arms to cover myself.

"Look at him," Dante