Donna Ritchie Valens Novels & Stories

I was Don Victor’s secret wife for five years, hidden away like a dirty little secret. He made me a promise. Give him an heir, and he’d show me to the world. I’d be the Donna everyone envied. But there was a catch. A lie. His doctor told me I was barren. Victor held me while I sobbed, kissing my face. "Baby, we can still do IVF. I want a child from you. Only you." So I took the pain. Five years. 999 needles. I was finally pregnant on Christmas Day. I ran to his office to share the news, only to find him buried deep inside another woman. Julia. A Mafia princess from another family. The betrayal hit me. I turned to leave, tears in my eyes, but then I heard a truth I couldn't escape. "Don't you worry, my princess. The baby in Maria's belly? It's ours. Your egg, my sperm. She’s just the perfect vessel." My hand trembled. I backed away, silent. Then I made a call. A lawyer. "I don't care what it costs. I want a divorce from Don Victor."

Three years into my marriage with Dominick, Gia, his stepsister, sent me a video clip out of nowhere. I tapped on the video, only to find Dominick tying his stepsister to the bedpost with the tie I had given him. His stepsister lay naked under him, addressing him intimately. After getting their freak on, they shared an embrace, and Gia cozied up against Dominick and uttered, “I don’t like the ring you bought me. Give it to Luna, and tell her it’s a birthday gift from me.” The next day, I sat in an upscale restaurant and stared at the vacant seat across the table. Suddenly, the Underboss wheeled a massive cake toward me. “Don Costa was called away on urgent business. He sent me to deliver your birthday gift.” The box contained his stepsister’s discarded reject. My phone buzzed with new pictures from Gia. Dominick was at the hospital with Gia for a check-up. Without a fuss, I signed the divorce papers and made preparations for a wedding. “Donna Costa, whose names should I put down as the bride and groom?” “Dominick and Gia.” A week from now, I would show the world the kind of filth the supposed solemn Don had been rolling in with his stepsister.

It was only when I met my boyfriend's family that I found out he was the heir to Scolaris' most powerful mafia family. The Cabellos’ family rules stated that any woman who would become the Donna of their family was required to have fifty million worth of personal assets to their name. For Ian Cabello's sake, I scrimped and saved and worked hard in the real estate industry to finally save up forty million. However, my company started to face problems when we started to lose contracts. I failed to put together the remaining ten million, no matter how hard I tried. Ian held me in his arms to comfort me as he told me how he would figure out a plan to help me put the money together. When my little sister suffered a sudden heart attack and required a large amount to pay for the surgery fees, I tried swiping three cards but discovered that I did not have enough money in them to make the payment. I hurried to the bank to inquire about the insufficient funds, only to be told by the cashier that there was no money in my accounts. How was that possible? I had saved up my hard-earned forty million in the accounts! The person-in-charge looked at me guiltily. "There was a forty-million withdrawal by Signorino Ian to purchase a villa to be gifted to Signorina Lucy Carter as her birthday present."

My husband, Don Reginald, and my parents threw me in prison on the very night I gave him his heir. All because my sister, Felicia, set me up. She claimed I gave her a wild horse at the family races—a horse she knew she couldn't handle. It went crazy. It trampled a senator to death. With the FBI breathing down our necks, the whole family made me take the fall. Three years. Reginald didn't care that I'd just had our son. He pushed me. Over and over. "It was your horse. If you hadn't given it to her, the Feds wouldn't be after Felicia. Just do the time. When you get out, you'll still be my Donna." Three years later, I came back. Nothing had changed. They still chose her. Even the son I bled for now calls Felicia "Mama." He looks right through me, his own mother. I didn't fight. Not like the old me. I just walked away. But when I finally vanished for good, Reginald lost his mind. He tore the world apart, begging me to come back. To be his Donna again.

After waking up from a car accident, I become the perfect wife of Dr. Leonardo Rossi. In the next two years of being an amnesiac, I rely on Leonardo and love him with all my heart. But on the night of our wedding anniversary, I accidentally overhear his murmured conversation with a subordinate. "Take her out once she's done signing the asset transfer papers." At that moment, a searing hot memory comes barging into my mind. I remember a man placing a hand on my sweat-drenched lower back. As he pants, he murmurs into my ear, "My dearest Donna Vittoria Costa, remember that I'm the only one who can make you shiver like this." Finally, the fog that has been haunting my mind is lifted, allowing more memories to return. It turns out that the man who has held me by my waist is none other than Leonardo, who's currently passing a glass of water to me with a smile on his face. I swallow the pill that he has handed to me. But in reality, I hide the pill beneath my tongue and merely swallow the water. Dear doctor, when the prey remembers that it's supposed to be the predator, do you think your scalpel will still be capable of slitting my throat?

All I did was reach for a pastry Lila had her eye on, and my childhood sweetheart Luca, the Don's heir of Galvani family, had me thrown in the estate cellar for three days and three nights. His voice was as cold. "I've told you before, Lila is like a sister to me. Why can't you just let her be?" This time I didn't cry or beg. I just looked at him. I had been half out of my mind over this man for more than a decade. I had even slashed my own wrist in front of his father, just to force him into marrying me. Luca looked at me like he was disappointed all over again. "With a temper like yours, how could you ever be the Donna of Galvani family?" "Get down to the cellar and think about what you've done. Come back when you've come to your senses." Then, as if he couldn't quite help himself, he dropped his voice: "Look, as long as you come around and stop making Lila's life difficult, everything goes back to how it was. Okay?" I clenched my jaw. It felt like a blade pressed against my chest. "Okay," I said. Next month, the Don of the Ferrara family will marry me as his Donna. This time, I am done with Luca.

The year the Rossi famiglia falls, my personal Underboss, Lorenzo Santoro, rises to power—becoming the Don and seizing control of the underworld. Once, I was the untouchable Principessa. He was the Soldato, ready to die for me at a moment's notice. For something as trivial as a paper cut on my finger, he would drop to his knees with red-rimmed eyes, blowing on it for half an hour. Now, to earn a smile from his new flame, Elena Marino, he forces me to sign a contract and makes me his live target. He watches with indifference as I am battered and bloodied under a hail of bullets. During a blast-resistance test, shattered glass slices the corner of my eye, but Lorenzo merely looks on. "The once-delicate Principessa Rossi can't even handle a little pain?" During attack-dog training, I am bitten to the bone, yet he shields a trembling Elena instead. "Animals don't know any better. Why are you holding a grudge against a dog?" Then comes the real kidnapping. To save Elena, who is desperate to become Donna, he personally cuts off my escape. "This is just a drill, Isabella," he scoffs. "Stop acting like it's real." On the surveillance monitors, flames engulf me as I take my final breath. A bloodstained termination contract is delivered to him. "Don Santoro, I return the life I owe you." Only then does the man who believes he rules the world finally lose his mind.

Eight months pregnant, I had every bank card frozen by my husband’s female secretary. Over the phone, she laughed coldly and said, “From now on, every cent you spend needs my approval. Jack works too hard to waste his money on a useless woman who only knows how to shop.” That same day, I was rushed to the hospital with contractions. Every card I tried was declined. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had also moved my parents out of their private senior suite and into the cheapest room available. Her reason? Two ordinary old people had no right to waste Jack’s money. I laughed. She had no idea those “ordinary old people” were the Don and Donna of the Bellandi family, the couple who had controlled Italy’s underworld for decades. She had no idea Jack’s company, his reputation, his fortune—everything he owned—had come from the Bellandi family. My parents had already planned to retire completely after my child was born. They were going to hand the entire family over to me. And to Jack. Too bad. Jack had allowed her to humiliate the only real power he would ever have the chance to stand beside. Three days later, Jack held a welcome party for his mysterious investor. In front of everyone, his secretary dialed the investor’s number. The next second, my phone rang.

On my wedding day, my mafia fiancé, Ryder Conti, had his men bar me from the church. Instead, he walked down the aisle with another woman on his arm. He shrugged at me through the iron gates. "Emilia, the Contis need an heir, and Carmela is carrying a Rossi." "Once I use the Rossi influence to solidify my position in the Family, I'll divorce her. You'll still be my woman." Everyone thought I would obediently nod and wait for him to come back. For ten years, I had loved him more than life itself, even cutting ties with my family for him. That very night, I boarded a private jet to Sicily to accept an arranged marriage with the Godfather of the Vettori family. From then on, I vanished without a trace from Ryder Conti's world. Three years later, I returned to New York with my husband and child to deal with a traitor in the Family. Zayn had some last minute business, so he sent his men to collect me. I never expected to see a face from my past. Ryder looked at me with a smirk. "Had enough fun out there? Since you've come crawling back, this is perfect. Carmela's son needs a cook. You can do the job." Wait, he just called me, the most respected Donna in the underworld, the cook?

When I bring up divorce in front of my husband, Vito Corti, he happens to be toying with a lace thigh strap that's gifted to him by a rising adult film star. Vito, the head of the Corti family as well as the youngest Don in Emaly, orders his Soldato to pick up his new lover tonight. Then, he shoots a languid glance at the divorce agreement on the table. "How big of a tantrum are you throwing this time, my dear Donna?" I reply calmly, "I didn't touch the bank card tied to the private account. I also don't want the estate in Emaly as well as the bulletproof convoy. I have already entrusted the asset management authority to your Consigliere." Vito is stunned for a moment, but he still thinks I'm still throwing a tantrum. "You don't want those assets? Then what do you want? My devotion? Gia, I already told you in the past that you're the woman with the highest position in the family. But it's too boring for a Don to own just one woman." He tries to reach out to feel my cheek, thinking that I'll act the same way as before; that I'll forgive him in a roundabout way after lashing out at him. But I just avoid his hand. I no longer want Vito's devotion to me. Now, I just want to leave him.