I Left the Mafia Don Who Broke My Heart

The promotion Ivy earned after five years of work goes to another woman the day Damian's first love comes back into his life. He signs the transfer papers himself and tells Ivy to clear her desk by Friday. She had given him those five years as his secret, unlisted anywhere in the Syndicate's records, answering to no title he'd admit to in front of others. When the first love returns, Damian pushes Ivy out of the organization entirely rather than explain her presence. Ivy packs what she owns into two bags and leaves without contacting anyone from that life again. She rents a room across the city, takes work under a different name, and stops answering the numbers she used to know by heart. Months later a threat against Damian's operation puts them back in the same building. He takes a bullet meant to clear a path for her, and in the recovery that follows he tells her what he never said when she worked for him. Ivy listens to all of it. She has already signed a lease, opened an account, and built a schedule that has no room in it for his regret.