Betrayed Wife: Saved By The Mafia King

I was sitting in the obstetrics clinic, rubbing my four-month bump, when a livestream popped up on my phone.

It was my husband, Xander, exchanging vows with my illegitimate half-sister, Rissa.

The caption read: "The Commission never ratified your marriage. You're just the incubator."

My husband and my father had sworn they were at a critical mafia sit-down. But there they were on the screen, laughing.

I called Xander. He answered, thinking he was slick, but he forgot to mute the room.

"Two more years of acting like a saint," I heard him sneer to his men. "Fucking her is a chore. But she's worth fifty million in clean assets."

My marriage was void. My child was considered a bastard by the Mafia code.

When I confronted them later at the gala, Rissa threw herself to the ground, screaming that I attacked her.

Xander shoved me. Hard.

I hit the table, and as blood trickled down my legs, he didn't even look at me. He scooped Rissa up and stepped over my bleeding body like I was trash.

They froze my accounts. They hunted me down to a cheap motel, planning to kill me once I signed over the trust fund.

I was cornered by a mob in a dirty clinic, waiting for the final blow.

But it never came.

A hand caught the metal chair mid-air.

Killian Qiro, the most dangerous man in Chicago, stood over me.

"Who dares?" he growled, his eyes dark with lethal promise. "Who dares call a Qiro child a bastard?"

He picked me up from the dirt.

"Xander is a dead man walking," he whispered against my hair. "He just doesn't know it yet."

Chapter 1

Nessa POV

I was sitting in the oppressively sterile waiting room of the obstetrics clinic, absently rubbing my four-month bump, when a video message from an unknown number landed in my inbox.

It was a livestream of my husband and my sister exchanging vows at the altar I had paid for.

The caption read: The Commission never ratified your marriage, Principessa. You're just the incubator.

My phone slipped from my sweaty palm and clattered onto the linoleum floor.

The sound was like a gunshot in the hushed room.

A nurse looked up, startled.

"Mrs. Vane? The doctor is ready for you."

Mrs. Vane.

The name tasted like ash in my mouth.

I bent down to retrieve the phone, my fingers trembling so hard I could barely grip the sleek metal.

On the screen, the video had paused.

Xander Vane-the man who had supposedly saved me from a break-in two years ago, the man who washed my hair when I was tired-was kissing Rissa.

Rissa. My illegitimate half-sister. The woman who had always looked at my life with a hunger that unsettled me.

I stood up, my legs feeling like they were made of water.

"I have to go," I whispered to the nurse.

"But the ultrasound... your husband said he was on his way," she stammered.

"My husband is busy," I said, my voice sounding hollow, foreign to my own ears. "He has family business."

I walked out of the clinic and into the humid Chicago afternoon.

My car was waiting, but I didn't get in. I needed to walk. I needed the noise of the city to drown out the ringing in my ears.

Xander and my father, Salvo Lino, had promised to be here today.

Salvo, a high-ranking Capo in the Outfit, had sworn on my mother's grave he would never miss a milestone for his first grandchild.

"Family first, Nessa," Salvo always said.

Lies.

I looked at my phone again. The anonymous sender had sent a second file.

It was a document. A scan of a marriage license.

Groom: Xander Vane. Bride: Clarissa 'Rissa' Lino.

Date: Two years ago.

Before he married me.

I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. People bumped into me, grumbling, but I was frozen.

If he was already married to Rissa, then my marriage... our vows...

Void.

I was a mistress in my own home. My child, the heir I thought I was carrying, was a bastard in the eyes of the Mafia code.

My phone buzzed. A text from Xander.

Baby, the Don called a sit-down. Urgent hit. Can't make it. Send me the heartbeat audio. Love you.

I stared at the words.

Love you.

I wanted to vomit.

I looked up and saw it.

A massive digital billboard looming over the intersection, broadcasting a live interview with the city's prominent business leaders.

There was Salvo. And there was Xander.

They weren't at a sit-down. They weren't on a hit.

They were sitting on a plush leather sofa, smiling at a reporter.

"We do everything for the Lino women," Xander was saying, his smile charming, practiced. "My wife is my world."

The reporter swooned. "It's rare to see such devotion in your line of work."

Salvo patted Xander's knee. "He's the son I never had."

I dialed Xander's number.

I needed to hear his voice. I needed to hear the lie while watching the truth.

He answered on the second ring.

"Nessa? Is everything okay with the baby?" His voice was breathless, as if he had been running.

On the screen above, he was sitting perfectly still.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"I told you, sweetie. The warehouse. The signal is bad."

I heard laughter in the background of the call. Not from the warehouse.

It was coming from the men around him on the TV screen, but the audio feed on the phone was different.

He wasn't using his burner. He had answered his personal line, but he hadn't muted the room he was actually in.

"Put it on speaker, Xander," a voice sneered through the receiver. It sounded like one of his soldiers, Rocco. "Let's hear the little cash cow moo."

My blood ran cold.

"Shut up," Xander hissed, his voice muffled, likely covering the mouthpiece. "Two more weeks, Rocco. Just until the trust fund transfers."

"Two years of acting like a saint," Rocco laughed. "You deserve an Oscar. Fucking her must be a chore compared to Rissa."

"Rissa is fire," Xander muttered. "Nessa is... duty. She's a dead fish. But she's worth fifty million in clean assets."

I watched the billboard. Xander was nodding at the reporter, looking like the picture of nobility.

Through the phone, I heard a woman's giggle.

"Tell her you love her, baby," Rissa's voice cooed. "Make her feel safe."

"I have to go, Nessa," Xander came back on the line, his voice dripping with fake concern. "It's getting dangerous here. I love you."

The line went dead.

I stood on the corner of the street, the city moving fast around me.

Across the street, a black SUV idled. The window rolled down an inch.

I caught a glimpse of a man in the backseat.

Even from this distance, the aura of power was suffocating.

Killian Qiro.

The Capo dei Capi. The Boss of Bosses.

The man who ruled Chicago with a brutality that made men like my father tremble.

He was watching me.

His eyes were dark, predatory. He didn't look away.

For a second, I felt like he could see the cracks in my soul, the shattering of my reality.

Then the window rolled up, and the car merged into traffic.

I touched my stomach.

They wanted my money. They wanted to steal my mother's legacy.

They thought I was a naive, sheltered princess.

I wiped a tear from my cheek. It was the last one I would shed for them.

I hailed a cab.

"Where to, Miss?"

"Home," I said. "I have a husband to welcome."