Eight Years of Love, and the Don Owes Me Three Lives

For those three days, I didn't leave the apartment. I pulled the blackout curtains shut and lost track of day and night. I sat by the window, gently touching my still-flat stomach, where a Capone bloodline was quietly growing. My phone buzzed relentlessly on the table— Missed calls: 47. iMessages: 93. All from Jason Capone. The earliest ones were voice messages. I didn't play them. The later ones were texts: *Alice, listen to me. I'll handle things with Sofia. Just give me some time.* *She and I really are just a political marriage. Once the docks are fully under our control, I'll take care of everything. I promise.* *The baby is innocent. Please don't do anything rash.* As the days wore on, the tone of the Mafia heir's messages shifted: *Do you really have to push me like this?* *I already said I'd handle it. What more do you want from me?* The last message came this afternoon. A single cold line: *Surgery's tomorrow, right? Don't say I didn't warn you.* I stared at those words for a long time. After he'd risen from Made Man to Underboss, women threw themselves at him constantly—pressing up against him during business meetings, slipping potent aphrodisiacs into his drinks. Every time, he'd have them tossed into the freezing harbor to sober up. Then he'd find me, kiss me with a desperate hunger, take me completely. Promise me he'd never change. Now, as Don, he was resorting to threats against me because of Sofia. I didn't reply. On the day of the surgery, I sat on the long bench in the hallway, the appointment slip damp with sweat in my clenched fist. With ten minutes to go, hurried footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. I looked up and saw my mother. Her hair was a mess. Two of Jason's men trailed behind her. "Alice!" She rushed over. "Mom? What are you doing here?" She was panting. "Jason called me." "He said you two had a fight. That you're going to terminate the pregnancy." "Alice—" She grabbed my hands. "Couples fight, that's normal. But you don't want to cross the Capone family in New York—that's no joke. And it's a life we're talking about. Don't take it out on the baby…" "Mom, let go of me first." She wouldn't. That was when I got a good look at her face. Her eyes were swollen, ringed with dark, bruise-like circles. "Mom, what happened? What's going on?" Her gaze flickered. "Nothing. I was just worried about you, couldn't sleep…" "That's not it." I stared at her. "Tell me the truth." She opened her mouth, then her eyes turned red, her voice dropping to almost nothing: "Your father… your father's company is in trouble. Several shipments got seized by Customs and the Federal Task Force. Suspected smuggling and money laundering… The penalties are more than we can pay. We might have to sell the house to cover the debts." "I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want you to worry…" The blood drained from my body in an instant. "Mom, sit here and wait for me. I need to use the restroom." I walked to the stairwell at the end of the hallway. I dialed Jason's number. "Made up your mind?" His voice came through perfectly steady, as if he'd been sitting by the phone waiting. "What happened to my father's company—that was you." A soft laugh from the other end. "Your father ran into some compliance issues at the docks. Normally, one word from me would've fixed it. But you insisted on cutting ties with me." "So under the circumstances, I really don't see why I should help. Do you?" His voice was gentle, conversational—like he was chatting about the weather. But it sent ice crawling down my spine. "Jason, you're threatening me with my parents' lives." His voice finally dropped, the pretense gone: "I can make your father's problems go away. But if you insist on breaking up with me and aborting the baby—why would I lift a finger for a stranger?" "Alice, I'm not that broke kid at the bottom of the food chain anymore. Tens of thousands of men depend on me for their livelihood. If I go soft for you, who's going to go soft for me?" "I've already swallowed my pride to come to you. Doesn't that prove how much I love you?" "And what about Sofia?" A beat of silence on the other end. "I'll handle it. Give me time." I closed my eyes. The stairwell was dark. Only the light above the operating room door glowed in the distance. "Fine. I'll keep the baby." On the other end, he let out a long, slow breath. Then he said: "Alice, thank you. I'll send the lawyers over right away. Your father's company will be stabilized by tonight." I said nothing. He added: "I know you hate me right now." "But someday you'll understand—in this jungle where the weak are nothing but meat, everything I'm doing is for our future." I hung up. I stood in the stairwell, gripping my phone, perfectly still. *For our future.* I looked down at my belly. Still flat, but something was taking root inside—a life he'd forced me to keep through power and threats. I laughed. And as I laughed, the tears fell. He said he'd handle Sofia. He said to wait. But not once—not a single time—did he say: *I'll divorce Sofia for you.*

Jason was a man of his word. Three days later, my father's company was out of danger. The seized shipments cleared customs. The federal investigation was dropped. That afternoon, my phone buzzed. Jason's iMessage: *Coming to see you tonight. What do you feel like eating?* I didn't reply. For the past two weeks, he'd texted every day. I answered maybe one in ten. When he came to the apartment, I let him in but wouldn't let him stay the night. He never got angry. Before leaving, it was always the same line: "Get some rest. Call the guards if you need anything." Like a caring boyfriend. Like the perfect lover. As if the man who'd leveraged my family against me had never existed. Then one day, my phone exploded. Texts first—hundreds of messages flooding in, all vicious: "Homewrecker, go die!" "Ivy League degree and you're still a dirty side piece? You sure you didn't sleep your way into Yale?" "Wrecking the Capone-Black marriage—enjoy getting dumped in the ocean to feed the fish! A slut like you deserves to die a thousand times over!" Then someone tagged me on Twitter. I tapped through to a gossip account's exposé post. My photo was the header image. The headline read: **EXPOSED: Ivy League PhD Clings to Mafia Don, Gets Pregnant to Force Donna Out** The article claimed I'd known about Jason and Sofia's engagement all along but refused to let go, using my pregnancy to pressure him into divorce. It said Sofia had been so distraught she'd been hospitalized. It said the apartment I lived in was bought by Jason. Every single comment was people cursing me out. My hands started shaking. I scrolled further—my father's shipping company address had been doxxed. Someone was calling for people to "go throw blood on their docks and smash their cargo ships." My stomach lurched violently. I barely made it to the toilet before I was retching until the world went black. I knew. This was Sofia Black's doing. When the vomiting stopped, I sat on the floor. The marble tiles were cold, but my mind had never been clearer. I went back to the living room and opened the cloud-synced photo album on my laptop. April 2018, outside the Yale library—Jason with his arm around me, smiling warm and bright. The day he finally won me over. December 2019, my birthday—he'd bought me a cake by the sea. 2020—our first apartment together. Him in the kitchen making curry beef pasta. 2021—he came home with me to meet my parents. 2023—he'd taken a bullet for the previous Don, earned his way to Underboss. Shirtless, bandages wrapped around his wounds, pulling me close and flashing a peace sign at the camera. 2024—he'd won a hundred-million-dollar pink diamond necklace at a black-market auction and clasped it around my neck. I'd snuck a photo of his profile. Every single photo had an unalterable timestamp. Every single one proved that we'd been in love for six years before 2024. Jason and Black's marriage certificate was dated this March. I picked nine timestamped photos and posted them in a grid, with one line of text: *Who's really the one who came between someone else's relationship? See for yourselves.* I tossed my phone on the couch. When I picked it up again, that post had been shared over ten thousand times. Public opinion had flipped completely: "Wait—according to this timeline, they were together for six years. Sofia's the one who used her family's power to force her way in!" "Desperate to be the other woman, then has the nerve to smear the real girlfriend? This is what Black family class looks like?" The comments section erupted. Sofia Black's reputation cratered overnight. She was being mocked as a clown who'd bullied her way into a marriage through family connections. Within half an hour, #SofiaIsTheHomewrecker was trending number one on Twitter. My phone rang. Mom. "Alice! I saw everything! Are you okay?" Her voice was urgent, aching with concern. "I'm fine, Mom." "Who does that Sofia woman think she is? How dare she bully my daughter?!" I blinked—my mother never swore. "Mom, are you really okay?" "Why wouldn't I be?" Her voice was full of fire. "Just now a bunch of dockworkers who owe your father favors showed up at the office with flowers—said something about 'standing with Alice against cyberbullying'!" I held the phone, tears rolling down one by one. "Alice, I almost misjudged you. I thought you'd really gone and become someone's mistress…" She didn't finish. "It's okay, Mom."

That evening, Jason came. Impeccable suit, but the dark circles under his eyes were brutal—like he hadn't slept in days. "Alice." I said nothing. He looked at me, his expression tangled with something complicated: "Black family stocks have tanked hard. Offshore shadow banks are pulling out. The Blacks and the Council of Elders are both putting pressure on me." "And?" He took a deep breath, pulled his phone from his pocket, swiped a few times, and handed it to me. On the screen was a pre-drafted statement. I took it and read line by line: *This is Alice. I want to set the record straight about recent events.* *Jason Capone and I were together once, but that was a long time ago.* *We broke up before his marriage to Sofia Black this year. I'm the one who couldn't let go—I kept pursuing him.* *I reached out to him, trying to win him back. I drugged Jason to get pregnant, hoping to use the baby to force a divorce.* *When Donna Sofia found out, she was understandably furious. Her post was meant to make me back off. This is entirely my fault. Sofia has nothing to do with it.* I looked up at Jason. "You want me to post this?" "The Black family needs an explanation." Jason gripped my shoulders, his voice urgent. "If you say this, Sofia becomes the victim—the deceived wife. The Capone-Black alliance holds. The stock recovers. You know how many wolves are circling, waiting for me to slip up so they can tear the Blacks apart and feast." "And if I don't?" "Right now, you're the only one who can defuse this. Post it, and the Blacks calm down. Your father's business stays under my protection. Don't post it, and neither side can walk away clean." "Alice, don't make me use family methods." Jason gave me three days to think it over. Three days later, he texted: *Alice, have you decided?* I didn't reply. He called. I declined. He texted again: *Alice, don't push me.* Still no response. I was gambling—betting on eight years of love, betting on his last shred of conscience. But the Don of a Mafia family has no conscience. I lost. On the seventh day, my father's shipping company was forcibly liquidated and shut down. The Federal Task Force raided overnight, citing severe accounting irregularities and money-laundering channels. The fabricated evidence had materialized out of thin air. Dad called. His voice was destroyed. "Alice, the company's gone." I stood at the window, gripping my phone. "Dad…" "A team from the Task Force just came through. Took all the books. They're talking about major money laundering—could be thirty years…" He couldn't go on. "Dad, don't panic. Let me think of something…" "Alice." He cut me off. His voice went suddenly, deathly calm. "Tell me the truth." My heart sank. "What?" "Is this because of that man from the Capone family?" I said nothing. "The day the company first got hit—that was the day you broke up with him. Then suddenly everything was fine again—that was the day you got back together. And now it's happening again…" His voice was shaking. "Alice, is he using me to threaten you?" I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. "Dad…" "Don't lie to me." I closed my eyes. Tears poured out. "…Yes." Dead silence on the other end. After what felt like forever, he said: "Alice, I understand now." "Dad, listen to me, I still have options—" The line went dead. That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling until three in the morning. My phone erupted—Dad's number. I picked up, but it wasn't his voice on the other end. It was the wail of sirens and the chaos of a crowd. A stranger's voice: "Hello? Is this Alice Renaud?" "Yes. Who is this? Where's my father?" Several minutes of silence before he spoke. "Your father, Mr. Renaud, jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge. The body has been recovered. I'm sorry for your loss…"