... short cross Rayan Aït-Nouri initially returned back to Donnarumma for City (6)
I believe the answer is:
ankara
'for city' is the definition.
(Ankara is an example)
'short cross rayan' is the wordplay.
'short' means to remove the last letter.
'cross' becomes 'ankh' (I've seen this before).
'rayan' becomes 'ara' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ankh' with its last letter taken off is 'ank'.
'ank'+'ara'='ANKARA'
'ait-nouri initially returned back to donnarumma' acts as a link.
This may not be right. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ankara that I've seen before include "Capital established by Ataturk" , "Capital of Turkey" , "Capital city" , "Turkey's capital" , "Capital of 8 across" .)