Farewell to My Undercover Ex The Fall and Rebirth of a Mafia Princess Chapter 02
When I was sixteen, a rival family grabbed me off the street.
I got out that same night, but I had nowhere to go. I ended up in a
part of the city nobody walked through on purpose: trash in the
gutters, rats in the alleys, streetlights barely functioning.
Some drunk came stumbling out of nowhere and grabbed my arm.
And then someone stepped between us. Pulled me behind him.
Declan. Eighteen years old.
A faded black tee, washed almost gray. Lean, but strong.
The drunk smashed a bottle across his back. Declan didn’t even flinch.
I didn’t know any of it was staged.
I thought I was living out a movie: the girl in trouble, the stranger who saves her.
So when my dad showed up, I pointed at Declan and said, “Hire him.
I want him as my bodyguard.”
The bodyguard thing was just an excuse.
Declan had nothing back then. No money, no future. Just hunger
and the kind of stubbornness you could see in someone’s shoulders.
I needed a reason to keep him close.
My dad saw it too. “That kid’s got drive,” he said. “He’s gonna be
somebody one day.”
He was right.
Declan threw himself into school like it was the only door left open. Two years later, he got into the same university I did.
The day his acceptance letter came, he didn’t cry. He just looked at me, his jaw tight.
“Renata, I owe you everything. You and your dad gave me a shot at a real life.”
“If you’ll let me… I don’t ever want to leave your side.”
Every morning, Declan was up by six.
An hour each way by subway to that little corner bakery, just so a warm croissant would be waiting on my desk before our eight o’clock class.
He’d blow a whole month’s pay on a gold pendant I mentioned once in passing.
The same threadbare sweater, three years running.
His jacket pockets were basically a survival kit: painkillers,
Band–Aids, a spare charger, extra cash, every little thing I’d forget.
He took care of me so completely that even my dad couldn’t complain.
The year we graduated, Declan asked my dad to bring him into the family.
My dad hesitated. “You don’t owe us anything, son.”
Declan looked my dad dead in the eye. He stood his ground.
“I know I’m not good enough for her. But I love Renata. I just want to earn my place at her side.”
I didn’t know it then, but my dad already trusted him too much to walk away.
All I remember is the two of them disappearing into the study for hours.
When they came out, my dad took my hand and folded it into Declan’s.
“Take care of my daughter, Declan. Make her happy. And keep her head on straight.”
At twenty–five, I walked the stage for my master’s degree.
By then, Declan had made Capo in my father’s operation.
The higher he climbed, the more he changed.
One night I was sketching at my desk, and I looked up to find him
just standing there. Watching me.
When he finally spoke, his voice was barely there.
“Sometimes I think about just… running. Taking you and getting as
far away from all this as we can.”
I asked what he meant. He wouldn’t say.
Nolan cut in.
“Wait. So you actually think he caught real feelings? Maybe he just wanted out of the whole undercover thing.‘
I shook my head.
“Maybe. Doesn’t matter now.
Whatever guilt was eating at him, whatever second thoughts he
had, none of it stopped him from seeing the job through.
At twenty–six, Declan asked me to marry him.
We did City Hall first, just the two of us.
Then we started planning the real thing.
White gown, two hundred guests, a string quartet. Everything I’d ever pictured.
And then the sirens started.
Standing at the altar, I watched him pull out his badge.
I watched him put my father in handcuffs right in front of me.
Nolan looked sick. “At your WEDDING? Please tell me you hit him.”
I didn’t answer right away.
“I never got the chance.”
“He left with my maid of honor.”
Nolan blinked.
“Your maid of honor? Wait. Who was she?”
“The one wearing his ring now.”