The Don Prayed for Me, Then Betrayed Me Chapter 01

The Don Prayed for Me, Then Betrayed Me Chapter 01

In East Coast old-money circles, one thing was universally understood:
Lorenzo Vitale loved me with a devotion bordering on religious worship.

Cold, poised, and untouchable, he was the Vitale family’s youngest Don.

He controlled the ports, a private security empire, and half the underground financial networks along the coast.

Yet every single year, he’d step away from all family business. Alone, he’d travel to the Snowbound Mountain Abbey of northern Italy, walk the pilgrim’s trail up to the chapel steps, and spend an entire month on his knees praying for me.

I truly believed I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until the day I stumbled across a video online.

Mara Rossi, my best friend, stood at the foot of those snow-capped peaks, cradling a small child, smiling soft and warm for the camera.

Mara hailed from a minor branch of the Rossi family.

For years, the Rossis had survived off Vitale port contracts and security deals.

It was only through my trust that she’d slowly insinuated herself way into the Vitale charity circuit.

“We conceived this baby right here, climbing these mountains, swept up in the moment,” she said to the lens.

“That’s why we come back every year to give thanks to God.”

A man’s hand slid into frame a second later, brushing wind-tousled cashmere back around her neck.

The gesture was gentle, practiced, second nature.

But wrapped tight around that wrist was the red prayer bracelet I’d hand-woven for Lorenzo.

I’d stayed up all night making it before his first pilgrimage to the abbey, threading a tiny Saint Benedict medal into its center.

I’d told him then, “Wear this. I’ll wait for you to come home safe.”

I sat in a room cranked full of heating, yet every inch of blood in my body turned ice cold.

The doctor pushed through the door right then. “Mrs. Vitale, your test results are in. You’re two months pregnant.”

I stared blankly up at her, only realizing my cheeks were streaked with tears when they blurred my vision.

“Please,” I whispered. “Schedule a termination for me. As soon as possible.”

……

The doctor froze. “Mrs. Vitale, are you absolutely certain? Don Vitale adores you more than anything. This child is such a precious miracle after everything you’ve been through.”

She tried to reason with me, I could tell.

Every old-money wife on the East Coast envied the love Lorenzo gave me.

He’d taken nineteen bullets shielding me during a family hit.

When I’d fallen critically ill, he’d abandoned a port project worth hundreds of millions to fly to that abbey.

He’d crawled the pilgrim path on his knees up the chapel steps through snow and ice, begging God to spare my life.

A love so grand it was legendary among every legacy family in the region.

But in that moment, I could barely draw a full breath.

A thin cord seemed strung tight around my throat, and my heart ached so fiercely I could barely stand.

Seeing how violently I cried, the doctor dropped her attempts to talk me out of

it, sighing quietly instead. “I’ll make the arrangements right away.”

The door clicked shut behind her, and I pulled the video back up on my phone.

My fingers shook so bad I could barely hold the screen steady.

Scrolling the comments, someone asked playfully: [How old’s the little one? What an adorable kid.]

Mara replied instantly: [He’s five.]

Those two short words sent a ringing buzz roaring through my ears.

Five years prior, a hit targeting the Vitales left me gravely injured.

My car had been totaled, bulletproof glass shattered all over the asphalt.

I’d been rushed to a private hospital, doctors issuing multiple critical conditions alerts.

Prideful, unshakable Lorenzo had lost his mind racing to the Snowbound Mountain Abbey.

He knelt in frozen snow for thirty straight days, palms split raw from ice, forehead scraped and bleeding against stone statues, begging heaven to let me live.

I’d woken up later, and everyone swore Lorenzo’s relentless piety had moved God to spare me.

I’d believed it too, once.

But the truth crashed over me all at once.

While he knelt before the abbey’s saints praying for my survival, he’d been tangled up in my best friend amid those same snowstorms.

They’d even had a child together.

Agony from my heart threatened to swallow me whole.

My phone screen dimmed, and a new message notification popped up from Mara’s chat thread.