Blood Oath Broken The Don's RegretChapter 1
"I'm Nico Volpe, and I want to make a confession to the woman I love."
Sleep had abandoned me hours ago. In the hollow darkness of the Volpe estate, I reached for the radio on my nightstand—a relic from another era, kept because the static reminded me of simpler times. The dial crackled, and then his voice poured through the speakers like aged whiskey, rich and magnetic.
My husband's voice. The same husband who hadn't spoken a word to me in three months.
The same husband who suffered from selective mutism—or so I had been told.
I had been blood-bound to Nico Volpe for three years. For the first two, we managed a handful of stilted exchanges, words rationed like contraband across enemy lines. But these past ninety days? Even when we sat across from each other in the candlelit silence of the dining room, even when his dark eyes met mine over untouched plates of food, he couldn't—wouldn't—utter a single syllable.
"It's been three years since we last saw each other. I can't wait for tomorrow."
The words slithered through the radio like smoke, intimate and aching. They were clearly not meant for me.
"I love you, Massima Gallo."
His voice had never carried so much raw emotion—not when he'd placed the ring on my finger, not when he'd sealed our blood oath with a kiss as cold as marble. The confession ended, and the late-night host gushed with praise and envy, utterly unaware that he had just broadcast the death knell of my marriage to half the Eastern Seaboard.
I sat frozen against the mahogany headboard, the silk sheets pooled around my waist like spilled wine. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked on, indifferent to my unraveling.
I had been given to Nico through an arrangement—an alliance marriage between the Mancini Family and the Volpe Syndicate, brokered by powers far greater than teenage dreams. My father had presented me like tribute, and I had gone willingly. One look at Nico Volpe, with his sharp jaw and eyes like black ice, and I had fallen. Hard. Foolishly.
He remained frozen. A statue carved from winter.
The only explanation I ever received came from his mother during our first meeting, in the rose garden of the Volpe compound while armed men patrolled the perimeter.