The Don's Signet of Ruin
The year I turned eighteen, my father, the Consigliere of the Cullen family, vanished with his mistress on my mother's birthday.
That mistress's daughter, Cassandra Monroe, showed up flaunting the family signet ring that belonged to my mother.
That night, my mother died in an "accidental" car crash.
And just like that, the ring became a symbol of my deepest pain.
When I married the family's new Don, Isaac Cullen, I told him that if that ring or Cassandra ever crossed the threshold of our home, our alliance was over.
He promised our home would be a sanctuary, free of them forever.
Five years later, during a tense negotiation, a representative from a rival family dredged up the past.
Isaac crippled the man's hand on the spot.
In that moment, I actually believed his promise was unbreakable.
However, six months later, after I closed a crucial deal for the family and walked out of the war room, I saw the supposedly exiled Cassandra.
She was standing beside Isaac, a triumphant smirk on her face.
Pinned to her dress was a brooch fashioned from a signet ring—one identical to my mother’s.
I gave him a cold, hard stare, but he just shrugged. "It's a gift for Cassandra. It's time she returned to the family and took her proper place."
I stared at Isaac for two seconds, then turned and walked away.
I never had a sister.
And as of tonight, I no longer had a Don.