My Mafia Ex’s Father Paid Me $80 Million to Disappear, but Three Years Later Our Triplets Called Him Dad at His Wedding

I instinctively pulled my hand out of Dominic’s grip, stepping back toward the couch where Noah and Lucas slept. Dominic’s eyes narrowed instantly, his body shifting into an alert, protective posture despite the IV lines running into his arm.

“Celeste,” Dominic said, his voice flat. “If you’re here to demand an explanation, wait until my son is out of the ICU.”

Celeste closed the heavy door behind her, locking it with a soft click. She didn't look like a woman scorned at the altar. She looked like a general surveying a battlefield.

“Relax, Dominic. If I wanted a scene, I would have brought the press corps that is currently camped outside your corporate headquarters,” Celeste said smoothly. She tossed a leather-bound folder onto the bedside table. “I’m here because my father just held an emergency vote with the Five Families to revoke your family’s shipping licenses.”

Dominic’s jaw clenched. “Let them try. The port authority answers to me.”

“They answered to Victor, Dominic,” Celeste corrected sharply. “And Victor just signed an executive proxy turning over his controlling shares to my father. They are using your absence today to declare you mentally unfit and compromised by an extortion scheme.”

I gasped. “Extortion? I didn't ask for a single dollar!”

Celeste turned to me. Her pale blue eyes softened, devoid of the cold calculation she used with Dominic. “I know that, Maya. I spent the last three hours looking into your records. I pulled the security footage from the wedding, the bank verification on that black card, and the digital logs from the Avery family foundation.”

She stepped closer, pulling an encrypted flash drive from her purse and handing it to me.

“What is this?” I asked, my fingers trembling against the cool metal.

“Proof,” Celeste said. “Three years ago, my father and Victor Russo orchestrated the warehouse bombing in Milan. It wasn't an enemy cartel. It was an internal hit. Victor wanted Dominic injured enough to be pliable, and my father wanted Dominic bound to the Avery family through marriage to secure the deep-water docks in Boston.”

Dominic surged forward, the IV line pulling taut and threatening to rip from his skin. “What did you say?”

“My father wanted you under his thumb, Dominic,” Celeste said, completely unfazed by his fury. “Victor agreed because Maya was pregnant. Victor knew that if Dominic had an heir with an outsider—a woman with no syndicate blood, no family leverage—the Russo line would drift away from the old traditions. You would have left the life. You told him that yourself, didn't you?”

Dominic froze. The memory clearly hit him like a physical blow.

“I told him the night before I flew to Milan,” Dominic whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying blend of grief and fury. “I told him I was going to liquidate my private holdings, marry Maya, and walk away from the syndicate for good.”

“And that was your mistake,” Celeste said coldly. “Victor couldn't let his only heir abandon the empire. So they bombed you, forged Maya’s signature on an abortion release and an offshore wire, and threatened her mother to ensure she disappeared. Today was supposed to be the final lock on the cage. I was supposed to marry you, my father would control the ports, and Victor would keep his dynasty intact.”

“Why are you telling us this?” I asked, looking at this woman who should have been my rival, but was acting like an executioner of her own bloodline. “Your father loses everything if Dominic breaks the alliance.”

Celeste offered a bitter, elegant smile. “My father traded my life away like a piece of commercial real estate when I was eighteen. I have spent ten years playing the obedient society daughter while building my own financial network. I don’t want to be the mob boss's trophy wife, Maya. I want my father destroyed, and I want the Avery shipping monopoly for myself.”

Dominic stared at her for a long moment, the gears in his sharp, ruthless mind turning. “You want the northern docks.”

“I want the northern docks and full immunity from your syndicate when the federal indictments drop on my father’s desk tomorrow morning,” Celeste replied without missing a beat. “I give you the evidence to bury Victor and strip him legally and violently of every title he holds. In exchange, you give me the Avery logistics division.”

Dominic looked down at Samuel, who was breathing deeply, his small chest rising and falling in a steady, peaceful rhythm. Then he looked at Noah and Lucas, sleeping safely under his coat. Finally, he looked at me.

“Maya,” Dominic said softly. “Come here.”

I walked over to him. He reached up, taking both of my hands in his, pressing his lips to my knuckles.

“I spent three years living in hell because I thought you abandoned our love,” he said, his dark eyes burning with absolute devotion. “I am never letting you go again. But before I can give you and our boys the life you deserve, I have to end this war once and for all.”

He looked back at Celeste.