MR BILLIONAIRE'S REGRET: CHASING HIS IRRESISTIBLE WIFE
Why?

(ARIELLE'S POV)

I watched Dwayne's eyes grow dark with a hatred I couldn't describe. It sent a wave of goosebumps sprouting up along my arms and on the ridge of my neck. I felt my eyes tear up and I had to exercise restraint to make sure I didn't cry in front of him. "There must've been a reason... right?" I tried to reason, forcing myself to speak through the tightness in my throat. "He must've wanted to help you but just couldn't..."

Dwayne let out a mirthless laugh that rattled through me, cold and sharp.

"I wish," he shook his head. "When I got to the U.S., replaceing him wasn't hard. Old habits die hard, and he'd brought his business with him. At that point, he'd made quite the name for himself. But the worst part? Seeing him living this... this perfect life with his wife and son. I saw him. Arielle. I saw Jared."

His voice dipped, "He was living the life my father had denied me. I bit back the pain and told myself I didn't care. After all, he hadn't been my father for years. Not since he sent me away to Torino." Dwayne's lips twisted bitterly. "I waited for days to see him. I think he made me wait on purpose, like some twisted game. But I didn't mind. I would've done anything for Felipe for revenge. I finally got to see him. And I wish I never had."

He paused, his eyes growing cold with that same hate. It was chilling to watch.

"He looked me in the eyes and told me there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. He said, 'Let the dead bury their dead.' I was... I was livid, Arielle. I confronted him about his honor, about his friend, but he just looked at me like I wasn't even worth listening to. And then he said something that destroyed whatever was left of my relationship with him. He told me he'd ordered Felipe's death."

I covered my mouth in disbelief.

"Those weren't rival gangs that raided the casino," Dwayne continued, his voice low and deadly. "They were his men. Grant's men. Felipe, he wasn't the kind to lose. He wasn't reckless, but he stuck with what he knew and built his business from the ground up. His casino was starting to show real promise, and Felipe had bigger plans he wanted to expand across Torino."

Dwayne's fists clenched, and I could see his nails digging into his palms.

"Grant saw it as a threat. And so he had him killed."

A long, loaded silence hung in the air as Dwayne's eyes hardened, and I could feel the bitterness radiating off of him. His words struck deep, and I understood now why his anger had festered for so long. He wasn't just angry-he was torn apart.

"If I thought I hated the man before," he went on, "I developed something worse than hate for him. I abhorred him like one would do the devil. I wished to harm him for taking away the one person I had come to care about after my mother. But I couldn't hurt him. I was just a teenager on a rebellious streak.

So I returned to Italy, marking in my heart that my father was dead to me. I joined the Mafia as a racket boy. Did the dirty jobs, debt collection duties for Mafia bosses, substance peddling. But I wanted more. I had wanted to be a doctor before all this, you know. I studied human anatomy. I learned how to inflict pain in the most... precise way. Not enough to kill, but enough to make someone beg for death."

I recoiled at the coldness in his tone, but I couldn't look away.

"The old godfathers noticed. They promoted me. I became their executioner. I handled their dirty work-taking out enemies and punishing those who crossed the line. I did it so well, so efficiently, that they started calling me 'The Hand of Death.""

My heart bounced loudly. It was surreal, but it felt all too real. I remembered the head chef's praise for Dwayne's knife skills back in culinary school. It suddenly felt like a different world...

Then Dwayne's voice softened, almost ironically.

"The funny thing is... two years later, Grant died. The very thing he feared most came to pass-the new generation of ruthless Mafia leaders began to rise. His empire crumbled. The great Grant Whitmore Smith's reign ended just like he feared." He fell silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

"I attended the funeral. Secretly, of

course. Jared was still just a kid then-barely eight, maybe nine. I saw him, standing there. And at that moment, hated him. In my mind, he was the reason my father had abandoned me. He'd taken my place. Stolen everything that was mine. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him. Right then and there, at the funeral."

The coldness in his eyes made me shiver. I couldn't speak, and for the first time, I felt fear, realizing I was sitting with a man who had taken lives. But he was so contradictory. His eyes were glinting, like a wounded animal. I whispered, my voice barely a breath, "But you didn't. Why?"

"Something held me back. Arielle." He looked at me, the emerald eyes speaking more than his words, "I had lost my mom, Uncle Felipe; I had lost everything because of my father's selfishness. He lost everything because of his own pride. But Jared? He was just a kid, Arielle. The kid didn't deserve that. He hadn't done anything wrong."

He paused, his eyes locking with mine. And suddenly, it all clicked. I understood why Dwayne kept so much to himself. Why he hid behind walls of silence and secrets. Why he created a world so separate from everyone else.

He'd called Jared a kid, but when I did the math, I realized Dwayne had been barely more than a teenager himself at that time-fifteen, maybe sixteen. Still just a kid, too. And yet, he'd been forced to bear that weight alone. How had he survived that? How had he made it through, all on his own? How?

He was hurting inside, in ways I could never fully understand. And all this distance, all this self-protection-it was his response to that pain.

The world had dealt him nothing but suffering, yet he stood tall, sober, and unbroken, unwilling to hurt those who didn't deserve it. But who could make up for the wounds he'd suffered? How could anyone fill that hollow place inside him? The more I thought about it, the harder it became to hold back the tears.

Dwayne seemed to notice the effect his words were having on me. His eyes flickered, and for the first time, I saw a crack in his cold exterior.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice soft. "I can stop if you want..."

I shook my head before he could finish. "No," I whispered urgently. "Please. Don't stop."

The tears once held back with so much effort, now spilled freely down my face. I swiped at them with my fingers, but before I could stop myself, Dwayne had already pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped away my tears, his touch so tender it almost made my heart ache.

"I couldn't bring myself to hurt Jared

at the funeral," Dwayne murmured, his voice low. "I went to see my grandmother just to see if she knew who I was. She recognized me right away, and something in the

coldness of my voice made her net

afraid. She admitted it-she was the reason my parents never got together. And then she begged me not to harm Jared. The way she spoke about him-so... endearingly-it tore me apart. It made me realize I would never be a part of that family. I would always be the outcast. The son of the rejected woman."

"She offered me money, connections-promises of things I had no use for. The truth was, I hated her and everything she represented. couldn't bring myself to kill Jared but that doesn't mean I've forgiven anyone in the Smith

family. So I left. But for years et

she

protected him from me, kept him hidden away from the truth. It was almost laughable, watching it all unfold from the sidelines?

Meanwhile, back in Italy, I had risen through the ranks of the Mafia and became second chair. And I

watched Jared... I watched him live in the light of our father's wealth. He

was portrayed as a ruthless businessman. It was all a joke. He didn't know the first thing about the blood that built that fortune."

Dwayne smiled, but it was bitter, tinged with sadness. "If he knew how much blood had been spilled for his father's empire, I don't think he'd have the guts to spend it. Men died for that money. For our father's legacy. Life's funny, isn't it?"

A thick silence settled between us. And in that silence, I realized Dwayne had stopped sharing. This was all he was willing to tell me. The rawness of his truth was almost unbearable, and the sadness in his eyes seemed to plead for forgiveness-for understanding.

I looked at him now carefully and only saw a boy who had grown into a man far too soon, carrying scars no one could see. In his eyes-the same piercing green-there was something deeper, a pain that had settled into his soul.

I should've been angry with him. I should've been furious that he had hidden all this from me, that he had lied to me about who he really was. He had every opportunity to let me in, to tell me the truth, and yet he kept me at arm's length.

But... It was hard. It was so hard. His past, his pain. It had become my own in a way. I could feel it in my chest, and everything else seemed so insignificant now. He had suffered, and in the end, he had grown, grown into something beautiful and broken, like a white rose growing among a field of red.

I forced myself to compose my face, to hide the swirl of emotions threatening to overwhelm me. My heart was pounding, my palms damp with sweat. I couldn't seem to steady my breathing. It was all too much to take in at once.

"But... why now?" I managed to ask finally. The question was like a tight knot in my throat, but I had to ask it. "Why come back now, in your true identity? Why reveal all of this to me... now?"

Dwayne's brows arched, and his gaze held mine, his expression unreadable. I swallowed, my voice more steady as I continued. "Why?"