I Made My Husband Don,Then Took Him DownChapter 1

Before my daughter graduated from college, I arranged for her to work at our port operations company and learn the business from her father, the family's Mafia don.

On her first day, she ran out of his office in tears, clutching her cheek.

“Mom, Dad said I couldn’t use my last name to get into the family business. In front of everyone.”

“Then he gave my place to Brooke Ellis. When I asked why, she slapped me.”

I called my husband. All I got was an order.

“Send Elena back here to apologize to Brooke. Don't make me say it again.”

I looked at the marks on my daughter's cheek and smiled.

Ten years as don, and Damian Rinaldi actually believed everything my father had left me belonged to him.

He seemed to have forgotten that I was the Bellandi heir.

I was the one who had put him in that seat.

* * *

“Someone hit your daughter,” I said, slowly and deliberately. “And you want her to apologize to the person who hit her?”

Damian let out an impatient sigh.

“She questioned my decision first. In front of the dock manager and several senior members. How was I supposed to let that slide?”

“So you let someone slap her?”

“Brooke lost her temper. Viviana, don't make us a laughingstock over one little incident.”

Elena stood in front of me, her eyes swollen, a clear handprint already visible on her left cheek.

She was twenty-one and had almost finished her last semester of college. We had agreed that she would rotate through the family's freight and warehousing departments before starting formal management training after graduation.

She hadn't asked for a private office or expected anyone to bow to her.

Her father wouldn't even give her a chance to get through the door.

“What gives Brooke the right to take her place?” I asked.

“She understands how things work. Elena doesn't.”

“How do they work, exactly? You slap the don's daughter, and he protects you?”

His breath caught.

“Don't throw that title around. You've spoiled Elena. She thinks having Bellandi blood means everyone has to cater to her.”

I held the phone, growing very still.

When my father, Don Vittorio Bellandi, was alive, the Bellandi name carried weight throughout the New York and New Jersey waterfront.

The freight companies, warehouse properties, and dock interests he left behind were the backbone of the family business. The dealings kept off the public financial statements maintained another, less visible network of connections.

Damian had started as an ambitious young man working for him.

After I married him, I helped him get ahead. When my father died ten years ago, I backed Damian as he took over family operations and persuaded several senior members to vouch for him.

People began calling him Don Rinaldi.

But my father's core assets had always belonged to a holding company I controlled. Damian knew those businesses came from my family. He simply assumed I could do nothing but collect the income, that I couldn't function without a man.

I'd let him give orders on my behalf for so long that he'd forgotten who gave him that authority.

“I've already found another place for Elena,” he went on. “The Pennsylvania warehouse needs staff. She can start on night dispatch. Some distance from New York might cure her of expecting someone to fight her battles.”

“She's your daughter, not a problem you can ship out of state.”

“Exactly. She needs to learn to do as she's told. She can't talk back to her husband like this when she gets married.”

I looked at Elena's clenched hands. The last of my hesitation vanished.

“I didn't raise her to get slapped and then apologize for it.”

I hung up and took her to a clinic.

While the doctor examined her and documented the injury, I had someone secure the port office's surveillance footage. Then I called my father's longtime adviser, Salvatore Conti.

He had stepped back from most day-to-day affairs after my father's death, but he was one of the men who had vouched for Damian when he became don.

After hearing me out, he asked only, “What do you want done?”

“Have that girl come in and explain herself. I want an apology. And I want Damian to explain why he allowed someone to treat Elena that way.”

That afternoon, we met Brooke in Salvatore's office.

She sat across from us, glanced at Elena's bruised cheek, and laughed without bothering to hide it.

“You dragged Mr. Conti into this over a slap?”

Elena lifted her head. “The camera caught everything.”

“So?”

Brooke took out her phone and looked at me.

“You think a few old men loyal to your family are going to scare me?”

Twenty minutes later, Damian arrived.

He brought two bodyguards and went straight to Brooke without so much as looking at Elena. Salvatore's men stood by the door. They glanced at the guards' waistbands but held their ground.

“Are you all right?”

Brooke nodded, her eyes filling with tears right on cue.

Damian turned to me.

“Are you really going to throw your weight around and bully a girl who just started working here?”

Salvatore paused the surveillance video and turned the laptop toward him.

“Damian, watch this first.”

“I'll handle it.” He didn't touch the computer. “But not now. And not by keeping her here so Viviana can take her anger out on her.”

“No one's holding her.” Salvatore's voice cooled. “She's here to explain why she hit Elena.”

Damian pulled Brooke to her feet.

“I'll vouch for her. This ends here.”

Salvatore looked at me.

I let them go.

Damian mistook my silence for surrender. As he passed me, he lowered his voice. “Neither you nor Elena is coming to the family's anniversary dinner next week. I won't have you embarrassing me in front of our guests.”

Brooke followed him out, smiling.

“See? He's the one in charge now.”

After the door closed, Elena whispered, “Mom.”

She didn't ask why her father hadn't protected her. Not again.

I took her hand and looked at Salvatore.

“He was given the authority to run things for the Bellandi family.”

“Not the right to throw my daughter and me out of it.”