My Mafia Husband Only Fucks Virgins. So I Married The Don. Chapter 12
The Queen and The Old Wolf
A yacht cuts the black water toward our dock.
Not just any yacht. The family flagship. Every man on deck in a black suit. Every one of them armed.
Dante’s arm tightens around my waist.
Nonna Salvatore steps off first. Same black skirt suit. Same pearls. Two attendants holding her elbows. Her cane hits the wood with every step like a gavel.
The woman who ran this family for forty years before Dante’s father even sat at the table. The woman who buries husbands and eats sons for breakfast.
Her eyes track past Dante. Past his hand on my waist.
They land on the diamond on my finger.
“Ridiculous.”
Her voice is old iron.
“A divorced woman. A broken bloodline. A whore who slept her way from Moretti’s bed to yours.”
She lifts her chin at me.
“Dante. This is the face you want on the Salvatore crest?”
Her butler steps forward. Different from the one in my office. Same cold, gloved hands. Same leather portfolio.
He flips it open on the wrought-iron table.
“Miss Ricci. The family’s offer.”
“A hundred million dollars. Three properties in the city. A permanent stipend.”
He pauses.
“You walk off this island tonight. You never see Mr. Salvatore again. No press. No paper trail. Clean.”
I look at the number.
Then I look at Nonna.
I smile.
It’s not the smile I gave Sienna. Not the smile I gave Lorenzo. It’s smaller. Colder. The kind of smile you learn only after eight years of choking down worse.
“Nonna Salvatore.”
I keep my voice low. Even. Every syllable clean.
“You seem to be under the impression that a hundred million is a lot of money to me.”
Her eyes narrow.
“The federal courts finished the Moretti liquidation last week. The payout in my personal account has one more zero than what you’re waving under my nose.”
I let that sit.
“Every dollar of it went into The Sanctuary Fund. My foundation. Which, in case your people didn’t brief you, is currently the largest privately funded women’s initiative on the East Coast.”
Her cane doesn’t move. Her mouth does. A single, hairline twitch.
“As for the Salvatore name.”
I hold her stare.
“Don’t worry. I have no intention of dragging it through the mud.”
Beat.
“Because tomorrow morning, on this beach, I’m going to be the Salvatore name.”
The air stops moving.
The old woman’s cane comes down against the deck. Hard.
“How dare you.”
“She dares.”
Dante’s voice behind me.
He walks up. Slides one arm back around my waist. Not possessive. Not protective. Declarative. Every man watching this exchange registers it at once.
His eyes lock on his grandmother’s.
“Tomorrow. On this beach. Elena and I get married.”
His voice is level. Bored, almost.
“You want to raise a glass with us, you’re welcome. You don’t, Marco walks you back to the boat.”
Nonna Salvatore stares at her grandson.
Something passes behind her eyes. Not surrender. Not defeat.
Recognition.
She’s spent forty years running this family on iron and blood. She knows the look of a man who’s already made up his mind. She’s worn it herself a hundred times.
She turns her cane toward the yacht.
“Then I hope you know, Dante — you just picked her over us.”
“I picked her.”
He doesn’t blink.
“Family comes second.”
She walks off the dock without another word. Her attendants scramble to keep up. The yacht is gone before the sun clears the horizon.
Marco steps in. Bows deep. To me, this time.
“Mrs. Salvatore.”
The word lands in my chest like a stone into still water.
Dante turns me in his arms. His forehead against mine. He’s breathing hard.
“You okay?”
I nod.
He laughs. Low. Almost giddy.
“You just went to war with a Salvatore matriarch and won on a beach in a linen dress.”
“I told you.”
I look up at him.
“I didn’t come here for a savior. I came here for a partner.”
He kisses me.
Hard.
The kind of kiss that seals a contract in blood.