The Don’s Heiress Won’t Choose Him Again Chapter 01
To protect me, my father—the Don—adopted seven orphans and trained them as my personal guards..
When I came of age, he told me to choose one of them to be my husband.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I picked the man I’d secretly loved for years: Roman Castellano, the first of the seven.
I thought I was choosing happiness.
Then, after the wedding, I was kidnapped by a rival family and left hanging in chains inside a flooded cellar.
Just before the end, I clenched my teeth together five times in quick succession—triggering the emergency contact chip embedded in my jaw, a signal that could only be used once.
The chip connected me to my husband, Roman, and his voice came through, cold as ice.
“Valentina, what the hell are you playing at? Your GPS still shows you inside the estate.”
“You’d stoop this low just to keep me away from Sera?”
The line went dead. The water rose over my head, and I slowly lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my father asked me to choose a husband.
…
Seven black-and-white photographs lay spread across the desk before me.
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I picked up the very last one—the seventh guard, Dominic Falcone.
My father’s brow furrowed slightly.
“You’ve been devoted to Roman since you were a child. Why Dominic?”
I shook my head and said nothing. But I remembered the panic on Dominic’s face as he swam toward me just before I blacked out in my previous life.
Father studied me in silence for a long moment, then slowly nodded.
I drove to a private safe house in Brooklyn—a property my mother had left me before her death. Only a handful of people knew it existed.
I needed to be alone for a while, to think through every step that came next.
I had barely stepped out of the car when Serafina Voss appeared out of nowhere and dropped to her knees in front of me.
“Valentina, please. Let Roman go.”
“You already have everything—money, power, an entire empire. All I have is Roman. I’m begging you, let him go.”
I stared at her, stunned. This hadn’t happened in my previous life. Had Serafina been reborn too?
Before I could respond, Roman stepped out of the shadows of the safe house.
He strode forward, helped Sera to her feet, and pushed her behind him, glaring at me.
“Valentina, how much longer are you going to torment her?”
“Just because she’s the housekeeper’s daughter, you think you can treat her like dirt?”
I looked at him, and a dull ache spread through my chest.
It was always like this. Roman Castellano always trusted Serafina. Never me.
He stared at me, hard. “Let me make one thing clear. Even if the Don orders me to marry you, I still won’t do it.”
He thought I still loved him. He thought I would cling to him.
He was wrong.
I let out a cold laugh and was about to answer when the iron gate of the safe house slammed open with a crash.
A dark, unmarked van tore up the circular drive and screeched to a halt less than ten meters from us.
The side door slid open. Several men jumped out, each carrying a suppressed Glock, and opened fire.
Roman reacted first, sprinting toward me where I stood frozen in place.
Then Sera let out a sharp cry of pain and collapsed, both hands clutching her leg. Blood seeped between her fingers.
Roman stopped instantly. Without a second’s hesitation, he turned and threw himself over Sera, shielding her completely with his own body.
I watched those muzzles swing toward me, my body locked in place as if frozen. In that instant, I was back in that flooded cellar of my previous life.
Just as the bullets came at me, someone slammed into me from the side and tackled me to the ground.
More shots. Then finally the safe house guards were closing in.
Seeing them, the gunmen broke off the attack, piled back into the van, and sped away through a hail of bullets.
I opened my eyes. The man shielding me was, indeed, Dominic Falcone.
He was already on his feet, glaring at Roman with fury written all over his face. “Did you forget what your job is?”
“What if something had happened to Valentina?”
Roman’s eyes flickered away, but the guilt was almost instantly replaced by defensive, self-righteous anger.
“Sera was shot. Was I supposed to just leave her there?”
He glared back at Dominic, his jaw locked tight.
“Besides—Valentina’s fine, isn’t she? What’s the big deal?”