My Mafia Husband Shared Our Sex Tape For A Bet So I Found A Deadlier Don Chapter 11
Under the Syndicate Don’s Wing
London was cold. I loved it immediately.
Sebastian Vane picked me up at Heathrow himself. Tall, with dark hair, sharp features, and a calm face I couldn’t read.
He took my suitcase without asking. “Dante says you bite when you’re drunk.”
I blinked. “He told you that?”
“He told me a lot of things.” Sebastian’s mouth curved—barely. “He also said you’d refuse a bodyguard, so I’m not offering one. You’re staying at my place instead.”
“Excuse me?”
“Guest suite. Separate floor. Your brother’s orders.” He opened the car door for me. “I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them.”
I stood on the curb, jet-lagged and annoyed. “I’m not a child.”
“No,” he agreed. “Children don’t usually have mafia ex-husbands stalking them across three continents.”
I got in the car.
His home was a townhouse in Kensington. The guest suite was ready for me, with fresh flowers on the nightstand.
“Dante told you my size?”
“Dante told me everything.” Sebastian loosened his tie with one hand. “Get some rest. Tomorrow I’ll show you the city.”
He disappeared into his study. I heard the low murmur of a phone call—rapid Italian, then French, then English. Three languages in under a minute.
I sat on the edge of the bed and finally breathed.
A month passed.
Sebastian was busy during the day. His people worked across six countries, and no family controlled him. At night, he came home late and always checked that my light was on before going upstairs.
Slowly, without meaning to, I started to live again.
I bought a camera. Sebastian took me to Borough Market and watched me photograph everything. I started cooking—badly. The first three attempts set off the smoke alarm. Sebastian ate every charred meal without complaint.
“You don’t have to eat that,” I said, watching him chew through blackened pasta.
“I’ve had worse,” he said. “I was shot in Palermo once. They stitched me up with no painkillers. This is nothing.”
I laughed. It surprised me. I hadn’t laughed like that in months.
He noticed. His eyes stayed on my face a beat too long before he looked away.
We played chess in the evenings. He won every single game for two weeks straight. On week three, I finally took his queen. He stared at the board for a full minute, then looked up at me with something close to respect.
“Dante undersold you.”
“Dante doesn’t know I can play.”
“Clearly.”
I smiled. He smiled back—small, controlled, but real.
I didn’t think about Lorenzo. Not during the day. At night, sometimes, his face appeared behind my eyelids—bloodied, broken, kneeling in his own mess—but I’d open my eyes, breathe in the quiet of my room, and let it pass.
The love I had for Lorenzo was dead. It ended somewhere between the lawyer’s office and the airport. Whatever remained wasn’t grief. Just old pain I no longer wanted.
Then one evening, I came home from a walk to find Sebastian standing in the foyer, phone pressed to his ear, jaw tight.
He hung up when he saw me.
“Lorenzo’s in London.”
My hands went cold.
Sebastian kept his voice calm. “He’s been in London for three days. He’s been watching from a distance. My men spotted him on camera yesterday.”
“Has he tried to get in?”
“No. He’s just watching.” Sebastian studied my face. “Do you want him removed?”
I thought about it. Lorenzo was half-dead, obsessed, and still following me from a distance.
“No,” I said. “Let him watch. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Sebastian nodded once. But his face tightened. He was ready to act.
“If he crosses the line,” he said quietly, “I won’t ask your permission.”
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