I Hereby Revoke My Don

I was reborn a year before the war with the Russian mafia erupted.

The first thing I did was get rid of the child in my womb.

The child of my husband, Don Marco.

In my past life, his lover, Bianca, slept with our sworn enemy. To cover up her treachery, Marco switched my pure-blooded heir for the bastard child she bore.

They branded me a traitor and tortured me to death in the family's secret interrogation chamber.

And the stepson I had raised as my own, goaded on by Bianca, celebrated his mother’s “victory” over my fresh grave.

When I woke up again, I was three months pregnant.

Without hesitation, I marched to the most discreet underground clinic in the city and took the pills that would end the pregnancy. But as my new life began, I also fitted myself with an expensive silicone prosthetic belly.

It could flawlessly mimic the signs of pregnancy.

Marco needed a child to be Bianca's scapegoat.

Fine. I would play along.

This time, I had no weaknesses.

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1

My husband, Don Marco, had swapped our child for his precious Bianca’s, then had me killed. So when I woke up in the past, the first thing I did was find an underground clinic to get rid of the baby.

I stepped out of the clinic, the air thick with the sting of antiseptic. My hand pressed against the prosthetic belly that concealed my secret.

The cramps from the abortion were a dull ache, not even a fraction of the agony I’d felt in my past life when Marco ordered a scorching iron pressed to my skin.

Hatred had turned my heart to a shard of ice; no other emotion could touch me.

The heir that should have been his was gone. Forever.

I drove toward the family estate.

In the distance, Marco’s bulletproof sedan was parked before the main house.

He emerged from the car, gently cradling a woman in his arms.

Bianca.

She wore an expensive pink maternity dress, her arms draped intimately around Marco's neck like a fragile bird seeking shelter.

I parked my car and slammed the door shut with a resounding bang, ensuring they heard me.

They turned toward me. A flicker of triumph flashed in Bianca's eyes before she masked it with wide-eyed innocence.

"Aurelia! You’re back!" Her sickly sweet voice made my stomach clench.

I strode toward them, my hand resting protectively on my fake belly.

The clinic’s doctor was a master of his craft; the prosthetic made me look authentically pregnant.

"Good afternoon, Marco. Bianca," I said, my voice flat.

Bianca burrowed deeper into Marco’s embrace, but her eyes, fixed on me, were cold and reptilian.

"Aurelia, look!" she chirped, pointing to a brand-new vehicle behind her. "Marco bought me a limited-edition bulletproof SUV! There are only five in the entire world!"

I glanced at the SUV. It was an obscene display of wealth.

"It has the latest military-grade protection," Bianca gloated. "Even if it’s hit by a rocket, the baby will be perfectly safe. Marco says our child deserves the best protection in the world."

The best protection.

Shards of memory sliced through me.

Not long after I discovered I was carrying the heir, Bianca had returned, weeping about the injustices she’d suffered while away.

Marco told me he pitied her, that she was a childhood friend he was obligated to care for.

I believed him. I even shared the rare prenatal supplements air-freighted from Europe just for me.

I never suspected it was a trap. They had been plotting against me from the start.

"Marco is such a wonderful Don," Bianca murmured. "Aurelia is the luckiest woman alive to be his wife."

A wonderful Don.

The irony was so thick I nearly choked on it.

In my last life, Bianca and I went into labor at almost the same time.

I “gave birth” to a monster with blond hair and blue eyes.

Everyone declared that I had betrayed the family, that I had slept with a Russian.

I remembered screaming my innocence until my throat was raw, begging Marco—my husband—to look into my eyes and see the truth. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

He just held up a video, its cold light projecting my supposed betrayal for all the family elders to see.

"How could you?" he’d asked, his voice dripping with a disgust that shattered my heart.

The footage showed me meeting secretly with a member of the Russian mafia.

With war on the horizon, I was condemned by the family and thrown into a sunless torture chamber.

They drugged me with sedatives daily, grinding down my will until I lacked the strength to lift a finger.

I even started to wonder if I had been kidnapped, if I had been defiled without my knowledge.

Three years later, Marco had fully consolidated his power as Don.

He came to the chamber, announcing he was willing to forgive his “errant wife.”

He brought me back to the main house, where I overheard a conversation between Bianca and the boy I had raised as my son.

That half-breed child was hers.

And the boy was complaining about how weak I’d become, wishing I would just die sooner.

When I tried to expose their conspiracy and escape—to reveal them to the Council of Elders—I was caught.

Marco threw me back into that chamber, and this time, he personally gave the order to end my life with a red-hot poker.

The searing agony of that memory dragged me back to the present. I stared at the pair of lovers before me.

"Marco." My voice was ice. "Is the Don playing chauffeur instead of handling family business?"

Marco’s brow furrowed. "Aurelia, watch your tone."

"I'm simply concerned for the family's future," I said with a dismissive shrug. "War is coming. Everyone should be doing their part."

Bianca flinched in his arms, her face a mask of feigned fear. "Aurelia, I haven't been feeling well. Marco is just worried about the baby…"

"Of course," I nodded. "The child is the most important thing."

Marco gave me a long, stern look, a clear warning in his eyes. "And Aurelia," he cautioned, "stop taking those supplements from unknown sources. They could affect the heir's health."

The heir's health.

He wasn't worried about me. He was worried I would ruin his plan to switch the babies.

I nodded, a picture of obedience.

But the moment I returned to my room, I emptied the entire bottle of “prenatal vitamins” he’d given me down the toilet.

There was no child in my womb.

This time, I couldn't wait to watch them scramble to find a scapegoat for Bianca’s little bastard.