Chapter 1

The moment I got the ultrasound report, my boyfriend Jason—the Don—suddenly said:

"Alice, there's something important I need to tell you."

My heart skipped a beat. My hand drifted instinctively to my belly.

After eight years of waiting, I thought he'd finally convinced the family. That he was going to marry me. Give me the title of Donna.

"I've already married the Black family's daughter."

I froze. The ultrasound slipped from my fingers and fluttered down to the marble floor.

"What did you just say?"

Jason rushed forward and pulled me into a tight embrace.

"It's just a family alliance. A marriage in name only."

"I can give you everything else—half the underground operations in New York. You'll still be my Donna."

"You and the baby—you're my real family."

I pushed him away. My cold gaze swept across the faint red marks barely visible above his shirt collar.

"Jason, we're done."

"And the baby—I'm getting rid of it."

……

"Have you lost your mind?!"

Jason's roar exploded through the hallway of the medical center.

He seized my wrist, his grip so crushing I could feel the bones grinding together.

His eyes bored into mine, wild with disbelief.

"That's my child! Capone blood! Who the hell gave you the right to decide that?!"

I tried to shake his hand off. I couldn't.

"Your child? Jason, you married into the Black family! You want an heir—have your Donna give you one!"

"Alice, stop this!"

"I'm not doing anything."

He stared at me, eyes rimmed red.

"Private jets, villas, vineyards, a laundered trust fund your grandchildren couldn't burn through—I can give you everything except that marriage certificate!"

"What more do you want from me?!"

I looked at him.

Eight years ago, behind the back gate at Yale, Jason was just another street kid in a wrinkled shirt, clutching a crumpled bouquet of red roses.

Nervously telling me he'd had a crush on me for three years. That he knew he wasn't good enough for a doctoral candidate like Miss Renaud, but he'd work hard to close the gap between us.

Eight years later, he had more wealth and power than he could ever spend—and he was telling his pregnant girlfriend he was marrying another woman.

"Jason Capone." I heard my own voice, hoarse and raw. "I have never been anyone's mistress, and I'm not about to start with you."

His face darkened instantly. "Mistress?!"

"I told you—you are the one I recognize as my Donna!"

"But as long as I keep this baby, that's exactly what I'll be. A mistress hidden in the shadows."

My expression didn't waver. I held his gaze.

"A mistress in the eyes of the Capone family. A mistress in the eyes of your wife. And someday, when this child grows up and asks me, 'Mom, why isn't my name on the family register?'"

"What am I supposed to say? That he's the Don's bastard?!"

Jason stood there as if the words had struck him physically. A vein throbbed at his temple.

He said nothing for a long time.

Long enough that the armed guard stationed at the end of the hall and the nurses all poked their heads out nervously, faces full of dread.

Finally, he slowly raised his head. The tenderness and sorrow were gone from his eyes, replaced by the cold, alien gaze of the Don.

"Alice, if you get rid of that baby, we're finished."

"We were finished a long time ago."

"The day you married Sofia Black for control of the docks—that was the end."

He stepped closer. His tall shadow swallowed me whole.

I didn't flinch. I looked straight into those hawk-sharp eyes.

Jason's lips curled into a cruel, cold smile.

"Alice, why do you think your father's shipping company has been operating safely at the port—without any protection?"

My heart plummeted.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He didn't answer directly, but the contempt in his eyes said everything.

He was using my parents' lives—our family's entire logistics business—as bargaining chips in this game.

I didn't say another word.

I turned and walked toward the exam room.

Behind me, he shouted, losing control: "Alice!"

I didn't stop.

"Stop right there! That's an order from the Don!"

I pushed open the steel door of the exam room.

Inside sat a woman in a white coat.

She looked up at me, startled.

"Can I help you?"

"I need an abortion. Can you schedule it today?"

The doctor looked past my shoulder at Jason standing in the doorway.

Her hand trembled so violently that her pen dragged a jagged line of ink across the chart.

"Do you… do you have an appointment?"

"No. I'm making one now."

She flipped through the appointment book with shaking hands, her voice barely holding together:

"Today's… today's fully booked. The earliest would be three days from now."

I turned and cast a cold glance at Jason, standing in the shadows.

"Three days, then."