I Sent the Don’s Baby Back to Him

The night before the wedding, the most feared Mafia don in Chicago told me he'd fallen in love with someone else.

I made him choose. He chose me—or so I thought.

But for an entire year, he called out her name in his sleep. He crashed her wedding and carried her away in front of everyone.

And when I was lying in the hospital losing his child, I made thirty-seven calls. He picked up once—and on the other end, I heard her breathy little moans.

Then I discovered our marriage certificate was forged. His promised "anniversary trip" was nothing but a ruse—designed to get me out of the way while he married her at the courthouse.

So I made my own choice.

I preserved the embryo and arranged a special delivery. The moment he and his new bride walked out of the registrar's office, my gift would arrive right on time.

By the time he opened it, I'd be at thirty thousand feet.

It took him three months to find me. He knelt in the Paris rain, begging me to come back.

But some love, once you let go, can never be caught again.

…

The night before the wedding, my fiancé Casper Scarfaro confessed that he'd fallen in love with someone else.

In the gardens of the Scarfaro family estate, Casper stood with his back to me. Those broad shoulders—the ones that had held me tight countless times, shielding me from every threat—were now a wall of ice.

"Veronica," his voice trembled with a loss of control I'd never heard before, "I'm in love with her. I've never… been this hopelessly in love with anyone."

The diamond necklace around my throat suddenly felt like it was strangling me. An heirloom passed down through three generations of Scarfaro matriarchs—now it tightened like a noose with every word he spoke.

Eighteen years together. Twelve hours until our wedding. And he was telling me his heart was spinning out of control for another woman.

"Who?" My heart clenched painfully in my chest, the word forced through a throat gone tight.

"Cecilia." His voice was strained, and he still couldn't bring himself to turn around. "A girl from my university, a year below me. I didn't mean for it to turn out like this, Veronica. But I… I can't get her out of my head."

The words cut into my heart like a blunt knife. My nails dug deep into my palms—the sharp sting of pain was the only thing keeping me from falling apart on the spot.

Casper and I were childhood sweethearts. The Damont family and the Scarfaro family—Chicago's two oldest Mafia dynasties, bound together by blood and alliance.

At four years old, he'd pressed the Scarfaro family signet ring into my palm and told me he'd marry me when we grew up.

For the next fourteen years, he rode his motorcycle halfway across Chicago just to bring me a slice of cheesecake. He stayed up entire nights helping me cram for the math tests I'd bombed. When I had cramps, this Mafia heir who couldn't even boil his own coffee brought me a bowl of brown sugar ginger tea with fumbling, awkward hands.

At eighteen, under the fireworks in the Alps, he kissed me. His warm breath grazed my ear: "Veronica, I'm going to love you for the rest of my life."

And now, this man who had sworn to love me forever had betrayed me.

"Choose." I heard my own voice shaking, tears blurring my vision. "Either call off the wedding, or cut her out of your life for good. Choose now, Casper."

His whole body flinched, and he finally turned around. His face was ashen, his eyes ravaged by the struggle tearing him apart.

"Veronica—"

"Choose."

He didn't answer right away.

That night, he drank until dawn. Casper never touched hard liquor—as the don of the Scarfaro family, he needed to stay sharp at all times, vigilant, always in control.

And now, because of her, he drank through the night.

When I found him in the study, he was slumped in a chair, empty bottles scattered at his feet. He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes, pupils unfocused, like a lost ghost.

"I'll end it with her." His voice was so raw it nearly cracked. He reached out and gripped my hand hard enough to crush bone. "I'll stay, Veronica. I choose you."

He chose me.

But in those eyes, there was no relief. Only the desperation of a drowning man forced to let go of his lifeline.

The wedding went ahead as planned. Three hundred guests, a cathedral draped in white roses—the most lavish alliance the Chicago underworld had ever seen.

But from the moment we exchanged vows at the altar, I felt the shift.

Casper held my hand, but it was like touching me through a sheet of ice. His eyes looked at me, but their focus landed somewhere far behind me.

His body was beside me, but his soul had already drifted away, leaving me nothing but an empty shell to deceive myself with.

During our honeymoon in the Maldives, he'd stare at the ocean for hours, a lit cigarette between his fingers, saying nothing. When I spoke to him, his responses always came half a beat late, as if his mind were wandering someplace far away.

He started drinking heavily, staying out entire nights.

He no longer pulled me into his arms at night. Even sex became routine—mechanical, silent. Afterward, he'd roll over immediately, his back to me.

I kept telling myself it would get better. He just needed time.

A year later, on the night of our first anniversary, I finally couldn't lie to myself anymore.

Long after the dinner I'd carefully prepared had gone cold, he finally showed up. He handed me a bouquet, his tone perfunctory—he didn't even spare it a glance before turning and heading into the bathroom.

Before, even on ordinary days, he'd go to elaborate lengths to surprise me. Now, this bouquet felt rushed and thoughtless, like something he'd remembered at the last minute.

I stood frozen, my gaze landing on the flowers as though they'd burned me.

Just then, his phone buzzed on the nightstand.

The screen lit up. Two texts from Cecilia.

"Casper, ever since you left, I've been falling apart. I think about you every single day."

"I'm getting married tomorrow, but all I want is to give myself to you. I'll wait thirty minutes. If you don't come, I swear I'll die."

My chest seized up, as if someone had punched me square in the ribs.

Before I could even process what I'd seen, the bathroom door opened. Casper walked out, saw the phone screen, and the expression on his face changed instantly.

Without a word, he grabbed his coat and headed for the door.

"Casper." My voice cracked, barely above a whisper. "I once heard that when a man who's had an affair comes back to his wife, it's not the wife he feels guilty about—it's the lover he had to give up. Is that true, Don Scarfaro?"

That last address was both a reminder and a provocation. In our world, power and status trumped everything.

He froze in place, hand still on the doorknob. Silence swelled in the room, pressing against every inch of air.

"I came back to you, Veronica." His voice was cold and final. "You can't ask anything more of me."

The door slammed shut.

That night, I didn't sleep. I sat in the dark, replaying every hollow kiss from the past year, every distant look, every night he murmured her name in his sleep.

Cecilia. Cecilia. Cecilia. Like a prayer he couldn't stop.

At dawn, I picked up my phone to contact a divorce lawyer.

That's when a video appeared on my feed.

The footage was grainy, but it was already going viral in certain circles. The man in the clip wore last night's charcoal suit, now crumpled beyond recognition.

Casper Scarfaro—my husband—had stormed another woman's wedding.

His face held a look of near-manic resolve. He charged straight to the bride, seized her hand, and dragged her toward the exit.

Even through the shaky camera, I recognized the look in his eyes. That blazing, burning intensity.

It was the same look he'd had at eighteen, when he kissed me in the snow.

The same look that had vanished from our entire year of marriage.

I watched that video eight times before it was taken down. But the images had already seared themselves into my mind: his suit jacket flying behind him, the joy breaking across Cecilia's face, their fingers laced together as though they'd never been apart.

My phone buzzed. A text from Casper.

"Something came up with work. Don't wait up."

A laugh tore from my throat—dry, ugly, echoing through the empty bedroom.

The man who had sworn vows to me at the altar had just destroyed another woman's wedding to rescue her from a marriage she didn't want.

And he couldn't even be bothered to give his own wife a half-decent lie.

I set down the phone. My hands had stopped shaking.

I was done hoping this marriage could be salvaged. Now, I was going to end it on my own terms.