The Don’s Silent Love

My Don protected me, raised me, taught me for seven years—then nailed me to the execution rack with his own hands.

Seventeen spikes. He drove them into my shoulders one by one, his gaze colder than a stranger’s.

I thought that was the ending of this betrayal.

Until I escaped the dungeon and found the remaining thirty-two spikes from that night—all buried in his own back.

He took the rest of my punishment for me. Burning with fever, unconscious, he still whispered my name.

But he never explained.

I pressed my gun to his chest: Is this love—or the blood debt you owe for my brother’s life?

He just stood there in silence, leaving me to read the answer in his scars.

Seven years of shelter. Seventeen nails in my flesh. Thirty-two wounds carved into his own skin as atonement.

Which one is the real him?

……

The mafia godfather I'd been secretly in love with for seven years nailed me to the execution rack with his own hands, in front of everyone.

Forty-nine custom steel nails, gleaming coldly, lay on the tray before me.

Everyone from the Rossi family—faces I'd known for seven years—stood in silence below the platform, watching.

And standing before me, gripping the first steel nail, was Franco Rossi.

My godfather. The man I'd loved in secret for seven long years.

A few hours ago, the Council of Elders had publicly exposed us at the annual assembly.

They called it a "forbidden romance," a taboo that sullied the family's honor.

Because officially, I was his late best friend's sister, under his protection.

Falling in love with one's guardian was a capital offense.

Nicole, the woman from the rival family he was about to marry, stood among the crowd, a smirk on her lips that I hadn't understood yesterday.

Now I knew. She was the one who'd reported us.

According to the family code passed down for a hundred years, I had to endure these forty-nine "disciplinary nails" in public.

And Franco, as godfather, had to carry out the punishment himself to demonstrate impartiality.

He picked up the first steel nail. The cold tip pressed against my left shoulder.

That familiar scent—a mix of cigars and expensive aftershave—washed over me.

Yesterday that smell had comforted me. Now it only made me want to cry.

I lifted my head. Those eyes that always held countless emotions now looked like two pieces of Sicilian obsidian, void of any light.

"Look at me," I rasped, my voice so quiet only we could hear. "Please, Franco. Say something."

I was still fantasizing. Fantasizing he would defend me, stand against the entire Council of Elders for me.

Even just a whispered "bear with it," a pained look in his eyes.

He said nothing. His wrist moved.

Bang.

The dull thud of the hammer striking the nail's end and the sound of my bone shattering exploded almost simultaneously.

Searing pain shot through me like white lightning, splitting from my shoulder into my brain, then rapidly burning through my entire body.

I clenched my teeth, swallowing back the scream that wanted to tear from my throat, tasting blood.

My eyes were still open, still looking at him.

Tears flooded out uncontrollably, but I could still make out every inch of cold indifference on his face.

He looked away, signaling the executioner for the second nail.

Right shoulder.

Left upper arm.

Right upper arm.

Each one, he hammered in with his own hand.

The hammer rose and fell, steady and merciless.

My body began to convulse uncontrollably. Cold sweat soaked through my thin dress, clinging to my skin, so cold I was shaking.

But colder than my body was something inside my heart.

With each embedded nail, it shattered bit by bit into frozen shards.

When the seventeenth nail pierced below my collarbone, everything went black.

The last sensation was my bone seemingly crushed to pieces, the tsunami of pain finally drowning my consciousness.

I passed out.

......

Time passed—how long, I didn't know. Maybe a long while, maybe just moments.

A deathly silence blanketed the execution ground. The assembly had ended, the crowd long dispersed. In the empty courtyard, only the Council of Elders remained, and my unconscious body.

Then, steady footsteps sounded, approaching from afar.

Franco Rossi had returned. He dismissed everyone around him and came back alone.

He removed his expensive suit jacket and tossed it carelessly onto the cold stone ground.

He walked up to me, stopped, and stared silently for a few seconds.

Then he turned and walked to the back of the rack—where empty slots remained, where thirty-two unused nails gleamed coldly.

He picked one up. Without a moment's hesitation, he pressed its sharp tip against his own bare left arm, positioned parallel to the wound on my shoulder. His other hand raised the hammer.

Bang.

The dull thud of the strike rang out again, but this time accompanied by the heavier, blunter sound of muscle being pierced. His body tensed violently, veins instantly bulging at his neck. He bit down hard, large beads of sweat immediately breaking out on his forehead, sliding down the hard lines of his face.

He didn't make a sound.

Bang. The second nail, driven into his right arm.

Bang. The third, piercing the muscle below his left shoulder blade.

Like a silent martyr, he took upon himself the remaining punishment meant for me, one nail at a time.

Steel nails sank into his flesh one after another. Blood quickly welled up, staining his white shirt red, flowing down his arms and back, dripping into the dust at his feet.

His breathing grew heavier, each inhale carrying an unmaskable tremor, but his hammer strikes remained terrifyingly steady.

Thirty-two nails. Not one less.

When the last nail, soaked with his blood, drove deep into his body, the hammer in his hand clattered to the ground.

He braced himself against the rough wooden post of the rack, head bowed, his entire body shaking violently, beyond control.

Blood had nearly soaked through his entire back and arms, the shirt clinging wetly to his skin, outlining the taut muscles beneath that bore immense suffering.

He stood like that for a moment, then turned around with excruciating slowness and stiffness.

He walked up to my unconscious form, reached out, his fingertips brushing—so lightly, so briefly—across the edge of my chin where blood hadn't stained it, touching and leaving like an illusion.

He said nothing. He only looked at me one last time with those eyes now churning with pain and a certain finality I couldn't see.

Then he bent down, picked up the jacket from the ground, draped it awkwardly over his blood-soaked back, and step by heavy, stiff step, disappeared alone into the courtyard's thick darkness.

Torchlight flickered, illuminating the rack. I hung there, unknowing. On the ground, a trail of bloody footprints faded into the dark.

No one knew what truly happened here tonight.

Except for the man walking away, his silhouette swaying.