The Don Took a Mistress, I Took Everything

I am Dominic Vane's Dona.

He took me from his underboss Killian. A man who stole another man's woman doesn't sleep easy.

He watched every man who came near me.

Once I fed a stray on our block. He had someone confirm the dog was female and its owner wasn't a man in disguise.

Then the family promoted a young guard. Twentytwo, still carrying that freshoutoftraining look. One morning he opened my car door at the estate gate and I smiled at him out of politeness.

Dominic said he didn't care.

That night he had the kid handled. He didn't break out in hives or throw a fit like some jealous boy. He just sat by the fireplace, cleaning his Beretta with slow, deliberate strokes, his eyes cold and flat.

"Kid's muscles were all needles. Couldn't even handle the recoil on a .45. Pathetic."

He flicked something onto the table. A bloody strip of cloth. The guard's tie.

"And that height he reported? Sixone. Maybe if you count the bones they stuffed under his feet after."

His private physician came by later to bandage the cuts on his hands. In the hallway, the doctor pulled me aside.

"Mrs. Vane, your husband has been taking that new male contraceptive. The one that just hit the market. The side effects are severe—extreme paranoia, mood instability. He's taken triple the dose in one week. He seems... obsessed with making sure you never have to bear the risk of pregnancy."

I stopped walking.

I was three months pregnant.

…

He was asleep when I picked up his phone.

The passcode was my birthday.

His photo gallery was all me. Candid shots, screenshots of my texts, surveillance stills of him watching me sleep.

His search history:

"How to install covert GPS tracker on spouse's car"

"Best undetectable phone cloning software"

"How to make a grieving wife emotionally dependent"

His notes app:

"March 20. She dreamed about the old man again. Cried hard. I need to cut off all contact with her father's people."

"March 21. Morning sickness getting worse. Made her dinner myself. She ate a little. She can only eat what I give her."

My eyes burned.

Then a notification from the navigation app:

"Based on your frequent routes, we've planned your trip to 812 Sutton Place. Estimated arrival: 15 minutes."

Our safe house was at 814.

My fingers opened the route history before my brain caught up.

For three months, every day at noon, he drove to that address and stayed for two hours.

The morning sickness had hollowed me out. Fifteen pounds gone in three months, and the only food I could keep down was whatever Dominic cooked.

He ran the whole operation and still came home every day to make me lunch, up until two or three in the morning handling business.

I told him to stop. To rest. We fought.

He said he'd rather die than let me eat alone.

I had to fake feeling better before he finally agreed to stay out through lunch.

Except he hadn't stayed out. Every day, for three months, he'd been two doors down with someone else.

A message came in.

"Dom, I left a pair of panties at your place. She didn't find them, did it? I left them on purpose. Unwashed. Bring them for my birthday?"

I tapped the profile picture.

Bianca.

My father's bastard. The girl whose mother destroyed mine, who moved into my house before my mother's grave had settled. She spent her whole life grabbing everything I had—my clothes, my father's love.

Even Killian. I found them in our bed. That was the crack Dominic walked through. He didn't comfort me. He collected me.

He held me and said it to my face, slow enough that I'd remember every word:

"I will never want anyone but you. I don't care what she does, what she tries. She doesn't exist to me."

And he'd proven it.

When Bianca sent him nudes, he forwarded them to the police. She got seven days in holding and he made sure her university expelled her. Career over before it started.

I thought leaving that wreckage and finding Dominic was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.

So why her.

Why was it always her.

I opened their messages like pressing a finger into a wound.

Dominic calling her babe.

Bianca threatening to tell me everything, and Dominic shutting her down, blocking her, punishing her—then taking the punishment to bed.

Me in the hospital, crying over a bad prenatal result. And the two of them in the room I'd decorated with my own hands, Bianca wearing my robe.

Behind me, the bed shifted.

"Sera?"

He saw my red eyes and reached for me.

I smelled it on him. Purfume faint and sour underneath his cologne.

I shoved him back, grabbed the glass ashtray off the counter and hurled it at him.

"Get away from me!"

It caught him on the temple. Blood ran down his brow.

He didn't touch it. He just watched me with something close to panic.

"Is it the baby? Are you in pain?"

I sat on the floor and watched him bolt out, then come back with water and pills, blood dripping onto his white collar. He held out the pills like I might shatter if he moved too fast.

"Why?"

I looked at his face and the tears came.

Days ago we were picking out names. We were talking about the future, the three of us.

Minutes ago he was mutilating a guard because I smiled at him.

"Why did you betray me?"

Dominic went still. His hand tightened around the pills.

"You know."

I waited for him to explain. I told myself I would believe anything. Anything at all.

"I'm sorry."

His voice almost cracked.

"I know you'll be upset that I had the guard handled behind your back. But I can't stand the idea of another man looking at you."

He stepped closer.

"You have no idea what it took to pull you away from Killian. What I had to destroy just to stand next to you. And some kid gets to open your door like it's nothing."

"I know what I am. I'm not apologizing for it."

"Hit me. Scream at me. Just don't leave. You leave, and I'm done."

I looked at him and knew I should walk out.

But I couldn't. I couldn't give up the way he held me. I couldn't give up these days that felt like the only good thing left.

So as long as I didn't see it with my own eyes, I could pretend none of it was real.

I smiled.

"I want your mother's pot roast."

His eyes lit up and he turned toward the kitchen.

Then his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen.

"Something came up. I'll make it when I'm back."

He was out the door before I could answer.

I got in my car and followed him.