My Mafia Husband Regretted Everything But I Left Chapter 01
The night before our City Hall wedding, Dante Marchetti froze every account I had under management by the Marchetti Family Office—all to punish me on behalf of his lover.
That same night, my mother suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage and was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital.
After the doctors stabilized her, the neurosurgeon told me she needed to be transferred immediately to a medical center across the city with a specialized cerebrovascular team. The insurance company’s emergency authorization still hadn’t come through, and the receiving hospital required a $180,000 financial guarantee before they could confirm the transfer.
I knelt in the stark white hallway and called Dante over and over again.
He didn’t send a cent.
Instead, he forwarded the voice messages of me begging for help to his latest favorite—Sienna Ross, a relationship columnist turned influencer.
That night, on Sienna’s late-night livestream to more than a million subscribers, my desperate sobs were edited into a “case study” and played for her audience.
“Some women are experts at using a sick family member to manipulate people into sympathy. The best way to deal with someone like that is to stop rewarding the behavior.”
Dante listened, then casually dropped a hundred thousand dollars into her tip jar.
The comments exploded, praising the two of them for being clear-headed, emotionally mature, and perfect for each other.
I stayed outside the neuro ICU, waiting for word that the restrictions on my accounts had been lifted.
It never came.
Instead, the neurosurgeon on call walked out with regret written all over his face.
“I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”
At the same time, a message from Dante lit up my phone.
Lesson learned. Be at City Hall on time tomorrow.
I held my mother’s cold hand and canceled our marriage-license appointment for the next morning.
Marry him?
At that moment, I wanted him dead.
A funeral director had just slid a catalog of urns across the desk when Dante’s personal assistant called.
“Miss Sinclair, Don Marchetti is already at City Hall. You have twenty minutes.”
I turned the page and chose the simplest black-walnut urn.
“Tell him I’m not coming.”
Elias went quiet for a beat.
“The Don says your punishment ended last night. If you apologize to Miss Ross in person today, the restrictions on your accounts will be lifted immediately.”
The funeral director looked up. “Did the deceased have a favorite color?”
“Blue.”
My mother had worked at a community legal-aid center for more than twenty years. She was always wearing the same faded blue blouse.
She used to say blue was a quiet color. People were less likely to stay angry when they looked at it.
Elias was still trying to persuade me over the phone.
“Miss Sinclair, City Hall appointments aren’t easy to get. The Don postponed an entire board meeting this morning for this. Please don’t let one emotional moment turn this marriage into something neither of you can fix.”
“Then let it stay broken.”
I ended the call, unclasped the last piece of jewelry I had left, and placed it on the counter.
“How much can I get for this?”
The funeral director blinked.
Dante had given me the necklace for my birthday last year: a pigeon-blood sapphire surrounded by a halo of diamonds.
Sienna had once said on her show that expensive gifts created “compensatory guilt” in women.
The next day, Dante had made me transfer my small Upper West Side apartment to Sienna.
He said it wasn’t an exchange.
It was only a test of whether I was “willing to share.”
The necklace sold for eighty thousand dollars.
After the cremation and a small memorial service, I had sixteen thousand left.
I had barely stepped out of the funeral home when Dante video-called me.
He was standing on the stone steps outside City Hall in a charcoal three-piece suit, wearing the silver tie pin I had chosen for him the night before.
“Where are you?”
“Taking care of something.”
“Selene, I don’t like people wasting my time.”
Sienna laughed somewhere behind him.
“Dante, I told you. Once crying stopped working, she’d switch to disappearing.”
The camera shifted.
Sienna stood beside him in a pale-blue silk dress, holding two passports and the paperwork for our marriage-license appointment.
One of the passports was mine.
After my mother was taken to the ER the night before, I had gone back to the apartment to get my documents—only to discover that the locks had been changed.
Dante had told me I wasn’t allowed back home until I understood what I’d done wrong.
“Why does she have my ID?” I asked.
Dante glanced at Sienna.
“She picked it up for you.”
“Tell her to give it back.”
“Come here first.”
“I want it now.”
That familiar impatience creased his brow.
“It’s one passport, Selene. What boundary are you trying to draw this time?”
Sienna pressed the passport against her chest and gave the camera a soft, sympathetic smile.
“I can give it back to you, Selene. But first, you need to apologize to me.”
“Last night, you accused me of letting your mother die. A lot of my audience heard you.”
“I was only helping Dante set healthy boundaries in your relationship. You don’t get to blame other people just because your mother got sick.”
I tightened my grip on the manila envelope containing my mother’s death certificate.
The edge of the paper dug into my palm.
“Sienna. Who gave you that recording?”
Her eyes flicked toward Dante.
He didn’t look away.
“I did.”
“You were out of control. Sienna understands these things better than I do.”
“So you gave her a recording of me begging you for help and let her play it on her livestream?”
“She altered your voice.”
He said it calmly, as if that were some enormous act of mercy.
“And part of the livestream proceeds are being donated to a domestic-violence shelter. At least something useful came out of your experience.”
A laugh escaped me.
Sienna had made more than six hundred thousand dollars in tips that night.
Dante alone had given her a hundred thousand.
But the $180,000 guarantee needed for my mother’s emergency transfer?
Apparently he couldn’t spare a dime.
An announcement sounded from inside City Hall, calling our appointment number.
Dante checked his watch.
“Last chance. Be here in ten minutes.”
“Or what?”
“We postpone the license. The account restrictions stay in place.”
“Selene, your mother is going to need hospitalization and rehab after this. How do you think you’re paying for any of that?”
Even now, he was still using my mother to threaten me.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
Beside him, Sienna murmured, “Don’t give in. She’s waiting for you to ask how her mother is. The second you do, she wins.”
Dante immediately looked away.
“Enough. The Marchetti family is holding a pre-wedding dinner tonight. I don’t tolerate lateness.”
“And one more thing. That blue notebook your mother kept at the legal-aid center? Sienna wants to use it for her course.”
My fingers clenched around the envelope.
“That notebook belongs to my mother.”
“It’s already been sent to the office.”
“Who gave you permission to take it?”
“Your mother always said she wanted her experience to help people.”
Dante’s tone remained flat.
“Don’t turn an older woman’s generosity into another bargaining chip.”
The call ended.
One minute later, Sienna sent me a photo.
My mother’s blue leather notebook—the one she had used for more than twenty years—lay open on Sienna’s livestream desk.
Beside the yellowing pages was a brand-new promotional poster.
TONIGHT AT 8:00 P.M.
A MILLION-FOLLOWER RELATIONSHIP EXPERT TEACHES YOU HOW TO SPOT EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL
And beneath that, in smaller print:
REAL-LIFE CASE PROVIDED BY: SELENE S.