The Don's Orphan Wife Is A Mafia Empire Princess (Elara) novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Elara held Lucien’s arm, striding through the iron gates of the manor without glancing sideways.

In her peripheral vision, a dark silhouette lingered in the relentless rain, rigid as stone.

Giovanni was there, yet she didn’t spare him a single glance.

Inside the villa, warmth seeped into her chilled bones.

“I’ll make something to eat,” Lucien said, shrugging off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and moving to the open kitchen.

Elara perched at the bar, watching him slice vegetables and sear steaks with expert precision.

The soft amber light bathed him, conjuring a domestic tranquility she hadn’t felt in years.

Once, she had dreamt of sharing moments like this with Giovanni-but he had offered only cold fortresses, endless waiting, and bloodied backs.

“What’s on your mind?” Lucien asked, handing her a glass of red wine, his eyes warm and steady.

Elara lifted the glass, peering through the floor-to-ceiling bulletproof window.

The rain fell relentlessly, and that same figure remained outside, stoic as an abandoned guard dog.

“Thinking…” she murmured, “it would have been better if I had never met him.”

She tilted her head back and swallowed the wine. The spicy liquid ignited the grievances she had held in for so long.

That night, she drank deeply, speaking without restraint about the past, the days spent trapped amid gunfire, and the cold resolve she forced upon herself to become a proper Isabella.

Lucien listened silently, occasionally refilling her glass or covering the back of her hand with his warm palm.

This ordinary, steady companionship-free from danger-was more comforting than anything she had ever known. Eventually, she could keep her eyes open no longer.

Dazed, she felt herself being lifted.

Lucien carried her bridal-style, moving steadily toward the bedroom.

He laid her on the soft bed, removed her shoes, and tucked her in.

There were no inappropriate touches, no exploitation of her vulnerability.

“Goodnight, Elara,” he said, pressing a gentle, restrained kiss to her forehead.

“Here, you are safe.”

Outside, Giovanni had stood in the storm all night.

Rain ran down his hair into the collar of his soaked shirt, chilling him to the bone.

Yet he didn’t feel th

He saw the silhouett

d-watching the warm light inside, his heart had already been burned to ash.

Lucien cooking for her, the two of them clinking glasses.

He watched her drink until she fell into that man’s arms, and then saw her carried into the room.

Jealousy gnawed at him like a venomous serpent.

Even as the Don of Sicily, he had never offered her a night like this.

All he had ever given were perilous escapes and the cold cruelty of neglect.

The next morning, the rain ceased.

The villa gates opened, and Elara stepped outside alongside Lucien.

Giovanni tried to move, but his legs felt like lead.

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The Don’s Orphan Wife Is A M…

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His previous gunshot wound, soaked in rain all night, had swollen painfully; each step was agony.

“Elara.” His voice was hoarse, ragged, like the bellow of a dying bellows.

Elara halted and turned toward him, her gaze chillingly calm, as if inspecting a roadside stone.

“Giovanni, you’re not dead yet?”

His heart seized.

He forced an ugly, trembling smile.

“Elara, I just wanted to see you… my wound… it hurts…”

In the past, even a paper cut would have sent her into a panic, rushing to tend him.

Desperation clawed at him-he tried to provoke a trace of pity.

Elara’s eyes swept coldly over his bloodied trouser leg, and a mocking smirk tugged at her lips.

“Hurts? Then go die.”

“Giovanni, before, if you were hurt in the slightest, I would have been crushed, wishing I could take the pain for you. But now…”

She stepped closer, looking down at him, her words striking like sharpened blades.

“Even if you died right here, rotting in the mud, I would only see you as someone who blocked my way and dirtied my shoes.”

Boom-her words shattered the last remnants of his dignity.

A metallic tang filled his mouth; he could no longer contain the flood of blood.

“Pfft!”

A mouthful of crimson sprayed into the muddy ground.

The world spun, grey and white, as he toppled backward, crashing heavily into the cold, filthy water.

In the final moments before darkness claimed him, Giovanni saw Elara take Lucien’s arm and enter the car.

Sh

glance back. Not once.

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