The Don’s Discarded Bride Chapter 09

The Don’s Discarded Bride Chapter 09

When he proposed, he’d scoffed at every mass–produced design in Tiffany’s–the eldest Moretti son wouldn’t wear something everyone else had. So he’d dragged me to an independent. jeweler and we’d designed them ourselves. 

The date engraved inside was the anniversary of our first kiss. The filigree work was custom, 

incorporating motifs from our zodiac 

constellations. And on the inner band, visible only 

to the wearer, were the engraved crests: the 

Moretti lion rampant, and the Rosino rose in full 

bloom. 

And now, these rings–the embodiment of a promise made a lifetime ago–finally sat on the table between us. They were a relic. A museum 

piece from a love that had turned to ash. I felt 

nothing but a cold, hollow distance. 

“Clara, would you like to try it on?” 

I stared at the hope in his eyes. For a beat, I said nothing. Then I reached out, picked up the 

women’s band, and tossed it straight into the trash can as his eyes flared bright with sudden joy. 

“No. Trash belongs in the trash.” 

He knocked over his coffee in his panic, spilling it 

all over his shirt. He didn’t bother wiping it off. He 

dropped to his knees immediately, ignoring the 

shocked stares from every table in the café, and 

dug through the garbage. 

When he found it, he let out a shaky breath, wiped 

it carefully with the lining of his suit jacket, and 

slipped it back into the box. 

He stood then, the ring box clutched in his stained. 

hand. He took a step toward me, and the raw 

agony in his eyes was almost tangible. “Clara,” he 

said, his voice thick. “We were each other’s first…. 

everything. Eight years. Our families… they saw us 

grow from kids into this. How can you just… cut it 

all away? How can you be this cruel?” 

I stepped back, putting more distance between us, 

my face ice–cold as I shattered his last illusion. 

“Adrian Moretti, I’m saying this one last time. We ended a long time ago.” 

“The Clara Rosino you loved died at your hands on our wedding day. She exists only in our memories 

now.” 

“Next time we see each other, don’t say hello. Don’t worry about me ruining your new life. From today 

forward, we are strangers. The alliance between 

the Moretti and Rosino families is officially dead.” 

He stood frozen as I turned to leave. Panic, stark 

and raw, washed over his features, followed by a desperate, clawing denial. “Clara, wait! I don’t… I don’t accept that. 

There has to be another way. There has to be!” 

I stared at him, stunned by his audacity. I turned back and smiled, cold and empty. 

“There is.” 

Before he could relax, I continued. 

“Die. Give your life for my mother’s.” 

“Maybe in another life, we could have had a 

chance.” 

I didn’t wait for a response. I turned and walked out. My father’s man was already holding the door, falling into step behind me. 

A final glance in the reflective window showed a statue–Adrian Moretti, standing amidst the café chaos, alone, watching me go.. 

A wave of visceral revulsion washed over me. That same night, I was on a flight to Sicily, putting an 

ocean between me and the contamination of his 

presence. 

It was my mother’s birthplace, and the Rosino 

family’s ancestral home. My father’s cousin still 

ran an olive oil business there–which was, of 

course, just a front. 

I carried my mother’s photo and walked through 

every small town on the island. Three months 

later, my father called and asked tentatively if I’d had enough time to clear my head. The Rosino 

family’s New York operations needed me back. 

I packed my bags and flew home. The second I arrived, I heard my men gossiping about Adrian 

and Laurel. 

“Heard Adrian’s been hounded nonstop by Laurel’s family. He’s paying them off every day just to get 

them to leave.” 

The story, pieced together, was that Laurel, backed into a corner, had sold out Adrian completely- home addresses, shell company fronts, the works‘ -to buy her own freedom. Now the Hayes family treated him like a personal ATM, camping on his doorstep and causing scenes. They’d even had the audacity to start a fight outside one of the Moretti–controlled social clubs, a brazen insult 

that would have been unthinkable months before. 

I shrugged it off. I didn’t care. Even the daily bouquets of white baby’s breath that appeared on my desk–no guesses who sent them–went straight into the trash without a glance. 

I channeled everything–the grief, the rage, the icy resolve–into the Rosino enterprises. Six months of relentless focus later, I’d expanded our foothold in the lucrative port operations by a staggering fifteen percent. At the next family council, 

Vincenzo Rosino looked at the numbers, then at 

1. me. Without ceremony, he declared before the assembled captains and consiglieri, “My daughter, Clara. She is the future. The Rosino legacy is hers.” 

At the victory dinner, I got a text from an unknown. 

number. 

[Clara, did you mean what you said?] 

I blocked and deleted it without reading it twice. 

The next day, word spread through New York’s underworld grapevine. Adrian and Laurel had gotten into a brutal fight in his Upper East Side 

apartment the night before. Both were dead. 

Rumor said that after Adrian sent his final text, 

Laurel had smashed his phone in a rage. Both had 

been shot. They could’ve survived, but the ambulance took too long. They’d both bled out. 

Some said the Moretti family had ordered the hit 

to clean up their mess. Others said Laurel had 

fired first. 

I didn’t give a damn. 

When I processed the news, I had only one thought. Good riddance to bad rubbish. 

Trash belonged in the trash. 

And my future stretched bright before me. The future of the Rosino family was in my hands.