Farewell to My Undercover Ex The Fall and Rebirth of a Mafia Princess Chapter 01
For eighteen years, I was a proud mafia princess–until my world collapsed.
I stood at the top of the stairs, watching my father get dragged away in handcuffs.
The lead cop looking up at me with icy eyes?
My newlywed husband. The undercover hero.
Six years after our divorce, I ran into him at the police station.
He was handing out little bags of Jordan almonds–wedding favors.
Our eyes met across the room.
Neither of us spoke.
I turned to walk away.
Then I heard him whisper, “Renata… do you still hate me?”
I shook my head.
Back when he went from my bodyguard to a decorated hero, while I
fell from heiress to a penniless fugitive living under a fake name…
yes, I hated him.
But hate only exists where love remains.
Six years later, the love is gone.
So no. I don’t hate him anymore.
A young officer was making the rounds, oblivious to the tension
he’d just walked through.
“Hey, everybody grab one! Lieutenant Ward just got hitched!
Congratulate the groom!”
He held one out to me, and Declan cut him off with a look.
Declan was beside me in two strides.
“Hold on. What are you doing here? Let me help you with that.”
I held up the folder, cutting him off before he could finish.
“Already handled.”
I kept walking.
In six years, I’d only seen Declan twice. Both times in this precinct.
This was the second.
The first was the day they convicted my father.
His hand closed around my arm. I stopped.
“Are you… doing okay?”
What a useless question.
I glanced at the ring on his finger, new, shiny, impossible to miss,
and matched his effort.
“I’m fine.”
He flinched and dropped my arm like it stung.
Nolan Mercer’s car idled at the curb, waiting for me.
I glanced back once. “My ride’s here. My husband.”
Something scraped at the edges of his voice.
“…Yeah. Take care, Renata.”
I hoped I’d never see him again.
The car pulled away.
He didn’t move. I watched him shrink in the rearview mirror until
there was nothing left to see.
“So… we’re not gonna talk about how you just made me your fake husband?”
Nolan shot me a look, grinning.
“He was two seconds from tailing us. Wait. Why do I know his face?”
I flattened the creased paper against my knee. Kept my voice even.
*Declan.”
Nolan whipped around.
“Declan? The Declan? The guy who worked deep cover for Major
Crimes for ten years? The one they literally teach about at the
academy? That was him?”
A bit much. I reeled him in.
“Yeah, that was him. Eyes on the road.”
He faced forward, but his mouth kept going.
“No wonder he’s already a lieutenant. I remember now. Ten years
undercover. Took down an entire crime family. That’s what put him
on the map. Their name was… Caldwell? No, hold on…”
“Whitmore.”
“Right! Whitmore. That’s not exactly a common last name…”
His voice trailed off.
I answered the question he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
“Yeah. That was my dad.”
The man Declan had put in handcuffs himself.
The head of the Whitmore crime family.
Nolan rubbed the back of his neck and slid lower in his seat.
“Shit. I’m sorry, Renata. I didn’t think…”
“It’s fine.”
And I meant it.
It didn’t sting anymore. Saying it out loud felt like reading from
someone else’s file.
Silence settled back in.
Just the engine humming and the city sliding past the glass.
Nolan’s eyes drifted to the folder on my lap. He cleared his throat.
“So… what were you there for?”
My thumb traced the word stamped across the top of the folder.
DECEASED.
“Closing out my father’s file.”
He’d died two weeks ago.
One night he collapsed in his cell. Couldn’t stop coughing up blood
Stage four stomach cancer. They let him out on compassionate
release, and he didn’t last three months.
The last thing he ever said to me:
“I’m guilty. Declan did what he had to do. But he lied to you. And for
that, I hope he rots.”
My father never blamed me.
For six years, he refused to let me visit. Not once did he blame me.
I knew why.
It wasn’t because he thought I’d betrayed him.
He didn’t want me living the rest of my life as a mob boss’s daughter.
I told myself I’d stopped thinking about him. But I never did.
The grief hit without warning, this heavy, jagged thing pressing against my ribs.
I needed a distraction. So I gave Nolan what he’d clearly been dying to know.
“You wanna hear the whole story?”
I was the daughter of the most powerful crime boss in Larkhaven.
He was the department’s golden boy.
Our worlds were never supposed to touch.
But they did.
And that’s where everything fell apart.