I Left The Jester For The King

"Little Siren: I miss your hands on me."

That message lit up the screen of a burner phone I found in my fiancé's jacket pocket while he was in the shower.

Franco Moretti, the rising star of the Vitiello crime family, treated me like a fragile glass doll. He claimed he was "saving himself" for our wedding night out of respect.

But the phone told a different story.

I unlocked it and found three years of betrayal.

It wasn't just a fling. It was Camilla, a girl from high school I had befriended out of pity.

I watched their history unfold. He complained that I was cold. He called me a statue.

Then I saw the invoice.

He had bought two identical pink diamond engagement rings. One for me, and one for her.

Worse, he had stolen my grandmother' s heirloom jade bracelet-a piece of history meant for his bride-and given it to his mistress.

"I need her name to get the chair," he texted her. "You are my true Queen."

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I realized I wasn't a person to him; I was a ladder.

Leaving him would be too easy. Leaving is what victims do.

I walked to my laptop and opened a new document. I wasn't just going to cancel the wedding. I was going to broadcast his ruin to the entire underworld, and our wedding would be my stage.

Then, I picked up the phone and dialed the one number my father forbade me to call.

"I accept," I told the deep voice on the other end.

"You understand what you are agreeing to, Gianna?" Enzo Falcone asked.

"I understand," I said, looking at the New York skyline.

"You want an alliance. I want a weapon."