The Don's Debt A Mafia RomanceChapter 1
In the second year of my blood-bound union with Giorgio Corleone, I discovered the truth I had been too blind to see.
There was another woman who had received everything I had begged for in silence. His devotion. His promises. His loyalty. Ever since the Ashford Crime Family took us in during our childhood, I had waited, endured, and hoped that one day those things would finally be mine.
He should have looked at me and said I was the only one.
He should have sworn that no one else could ever compare.
But those words were never meant for me.
Because there had always been someone else.
And that woman was not a stranger.
She was my sister, Silvia.
If it had been any other woman, I would not have hesitated. In this world, betrayal was paid for in blood, and I knew exactly how to collect my due. I would have made her regret ever stepping into Ashford territory. But Silvia was different. Untouchable. Protected in ways I never was.
Neither of us were born into the Ashford Family. After a violent purge erased our past—our true bloodline scattered like ash in the wind—Don Ettore Ashford and his wife brought us into their household, gave us shelter, names, and a future within the Cosa Nostra. Yet from the very beginning, it was obvious who truly belonged.
Silvia.
She was the one praised at family dinners when the Capos gathered around tables heavy with wine and unspoken threats. She was the one trusted with secrets that could bring down empires, the one allowed to stand beside power instead of behind it. She had a face that disarmed soldiers and a voice that persuaded even the most hardened Made Men into willing allies. I was always the other one. The quiet girl. The obedient one. The shadow trailing behind her brilliance.
No matter how long I stayed loyal, no matter how much I sacrificed for the Family, I was never the chosen one.
Since that's the case, I'll set him free.
I.