Abandoned by My Four Dons: The Mafia Princess’s Revenge chapter 09
The NYPD officers stationed at the cemetery came running, guns already drawn. “Alessio, stop! Put it down or we shoot!”
Alessio didn’t even glance their way. One hand wrapped around Gianna’s throat, his expression a mask of dead calm, and he drove the blade into her chest.
“This is all because of you! If you hadn’t lied, if you hadn’t played us all for fools, I never would’ve touched Nina!”
Gianna’s face turned purple under his grip. She kicked weakly, pinned beneath him, unable to escape.
A single gunshot cracked through the heavy rain.
The bullet missed Alessio entirely. It struck Rafe instead, who had thrown himself directly into the line of fire.
Rafe clutched his chest and dropped to his knees. Blood spilled from his mouth.
He choked on his own blood, his voice reduced to a wet, ragged rasp.
“Nina… is this how much it hurt? The day you died… was it like this?”
By the time the officers opened fire on Alessio, he had already carved her chest wide open, plunging the blade straight into the heart he’d stolen.
The next bullet struck his head. He collapsed instantly.
In their final seconds, both Alessio and Rafe turned their heads at the exact same moment. A sudden, desperate flicker of recognition crossed their dying eyes.
“Nina!”
“Baby!”
They could see her. She stared back, stunned.
She didn’t want this. Every instinct screamed at her to run.
The system’s voice broke through.
[Nina, your body here is dead. The portal is opening.]
Relief flooded through her. Finally. She was escaping this nightmare.
For the first time, going home felt real. Her heart pounded with something she’d almost forgotten how to feel. Joy.
Right before the system pulled her out, she looked at Alessio and Rafe, both staring at her, wide-eyed and desperate.
“Save your apologies. You’ll never have my forgiveness.”
And then she was gone. She didn’t look back.
When she opened her eyes, she was back in her apartment.
Her cat sat on her stomach, meowing at her in an offended little voice, as if demanding to know where she’d been.
She sat up. Breathed in, slow and steady.
Before, her chest had always felt weighted down, every breath a struggle, air trapped with nowhere to go.
Now every breath came effortlessly. Her entire body felt weightless.
She pulled the cat against her chest, and the tears came all at once.
“I’m back. I’m really back! A healthy heart and a hundred million dollars!”
She buried her face in the cat’s fur and breathed her in.
Her voice broke. “Sweet girl, I don’t have to give you up. I get to keep you forever.”
A year after returning, she started a foundation. She funneled the money into scholarships for kids who couldn’t afford school, and for families crushed under medical debt.
She fully funded a private sanctuary for young girls abandoned by the very people who should have protected them.
Watching them play, watching them grow day by day, the old wounds slowly began to close.
Eventually, she stopped thinking about that other world entirely.
Until one afternoon, the system chimed in her head one final time.
[Nina! Alessio, Matteo, Dario, and Rafe have all perished. But they couldn’t let go. They made a deal with the system for one last chance to see you.]
She blinked, and they were standing right in front of her, all four of them.
The moment they saw her, every one of them fought back tears.
Dario spoke first, his voice refusing to steady.
“Nina… we finally found you.”
She glanced at her watch, her voice flat.
“If you have something to say, say it. Don’t waste my time.”
Alessio, silent until now, stepped forward, his eyes wet.
“Nina, we’re sorry… please come back. Let us make it up to you. Please.”
Rafe rushed forward and grabbed her hand.
“Baby, I know I messed up… I lost my mind back then. I didn’t realize what I had. Can we start over? I’ll spend the rest of my life making this right, I swear it.”
She yanked her hand free, stepping back in complete disgust.
“Don’t touch me.”
She looked at the four of them, all watching her as if she were the only thing left in their world, and her voice came out quiet.
“You already know I don’t belong in your world. There was a time I wanted to stay forever, because you showed me what it felt like to be loved.”
She took a breath, her eyes burning.
“But you, the four people I loved more than anyone else, plotted to take my heart while I was at my absolute lowest.”
“I will never forgive you.”
Her gaze moved across their faces, all four of them wrecked and hollowed out, and her voice stayed perfectly even.
“I’m not coming back with you. I’m doing just fine on my own.”
The system alert blared in her head. [Time remaining: ten seconds. Ten. Nine…]
Alessio, Matteo, and Dario went pale.
Rafe grabbed her and held on as if she might vanish. His eyes were wild.
“Nina, please… come back with us… I’m sorry… I swear I never meant to hurt you…”
She pushed him off and looked at all of them one final time.
They were all saying it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Desperate, broken, begging.
She crossed her arms, completely unmoved.
“Save it. You’re dead to me in every universe.”
The system chimed. Time was up.
She turned around and walked away.
She didn’t look back. Not once. Behind her, four men dissolved into nothing, and she kept walking.