Exposed to the CEO Behind the Mafia Mask

Ivy’s POV

The days dragged by like a funeral procession through the Thorne territory. I buried myself in laundering accounts and spending every possible moment with Max, but sleep had abandoned me completely. The mirror in my private quarters reflected a ghost with hollow cheeks and purple shadows carved beneath her eyes like battle scars.

Walking into my office within the Thorne compound that morning, I stopped dead in my tracks. A magnificent arrangement of blood-red roses sat on my desk, their dark petals gleaming like fresh wounds in the morning light. A card lay beside them, Caleb’s bold handwriting slashed across expensive paper:

"I would spill oceans of blood for you and I’m losing my sanity without you. I would burn down every rival family to spare you this torment."

My breath caught in my throat. Then my gaze shifted to the side table, and ice flooded my veins like a killing frost.

Another arrangement waited there, but this one made my stomach churn with revulsion. The flowers were black and withered, arranged like a funeral wreath that belonged on a grave rather than in a capo’s office. They reeked of decay and malice, nothing like the passionate declarations Caleb would send. My hands trembled as I reached for the accompanying card.

The message inside was typed on cheap paper, cold and clinical as a death threat:

"You should crawl back to the gutter where whores belong. Don Caleb and the Rossi princess are marrying very soon and will rule the families with the heir she carries. He only kept you around for entertainment between family business."

The words struck me like bullets to the chest. A strangled sob tore from my throat before I could suppress it, and I collapsed into the leather armchair behind my desk. The tears came in torrents, each one carrying pieces of my shattered soul. My entire body felt like it was being torn apart by invisible hands.

Gemma burst through my office door without knocking, her face tight with alarm.

"Ivy, honey, breathe! What the hell happened?" Her voice carried the edge of someone ready to reach for a concealed weapon.

I couldn’t form words. Instead, I thrust the vile card toward her with a shaking hand and pointed at those grotesque funeral flowers.

"Which dead man walking sent this garbage?" Gemma’s voice exploded with the fury of a soldato ready for war as she shot to her feet, grabbing the offensive arrangement like evidence.

"What’s all the noise?" Xavier’s voice cut through the tension as he entered with Jude and Caleb trailing behind him. "Gemma, why are you screaming bloody murder?"

"Why am I screaming? Look at this sick joke! I want to know which piece of street trash left this in Ivy’s office, because I know exactly which manipulative bitch is behind it." Her words dripped with the venom of someone who’d grown up in the famiglia.

Caleb’s face darkened to thunderous as he examined the flowers, his jaw clenching like steel as he read the card. The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees as his icy blue eyes turned murderous. Without hesitation, he crossed to me and dropped to his knees beside my chair, capturing my hands in his warm, scarred grip.

"My angel, look at me. Please?" His voice was barely above a whisper, but I could hear the barely leashed violence underneath. "You know I love you more than my own blood. I never used you, not for a single heartbeat. I’m so fucking sorry you’re enduring this psychological warfare."

I forced myself to meet his gaze and saw the raw anguish there, matching my own devastation. He was drowning in the same hell I was. I drew a shuddering breath and asked the question that was killing me slowly.

"Are you marrying her?"

"Love, I’m being forced into this alliance!" The words seemed to tear from his throat like a confession under torture.

I couldn’t bear it anymore. The walls of the office felt like they were closing in, suffocating me with the weight of famiglia politics and blood obligations. I pushed past him and fled the room, dimly aware of Gemma’s heels clicking behind me and Caleb’s desperate voice calling out:

"My angel, wait! Let me explain the whole fucking mess!"

I didn’t want explanations about territorial agreements or alliance marriages. I wanted the agony to stop consuming me from the inside like acid. Yes, I had told him to secure his heir and strengthen family ties, but knowing he would actually bind himself to Yara through sacred vows, that I had lost him to the ancient laws of our world, was more than my heart could survive.

I stumbled into the ladies’ room with Gemma right behind me. She locked the door and pulled me into her arms as I shattered completely like fine crystal hitting concrete. Time became meaningless as I wept and she held me together with fierce loyalty. When the storm finally passed, my legs felt weak as a newborn calf’s.

"Honey, you need to hear what he has to say. He despises that spoiled princess with every fiber of his being. There has to be a compelling reason he’s agreeing to this alliance now, especially after he had already decided to break the engagement." Gemma’s voice was gentle but insistent, carrying the wisdom of someone born into this life.

"I told him to marry her and give his child legitimate famiglia protection. He’s following my advice like a good Don." I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

"I’m not buying that’s the whole story." Gemma frowned, her street-smart instincts on high alert. "But come on, splash some cold water on your face and we’ll go get some tea."

"Plain chamomile isn’t strong enough for today, girl! I’m brewing you something special with a little extra kick!" Katelyn announced the moment we entered the break room, her weathered eyes filled with maternal concern as she studied my tear-stained face.

After drinking Katelyn’s mysterious herbal blend, I dragged myself back to my office and attempted to focus on the money laundering reports spread across my desk. An overwhelming drowsiness began creeping through my system like fog rolling in from the harbor, and my thoughts started becoming fuzzy around the edges, as if someone had wrapped my mind in cotton.