He Took Bullets For Me I Took His Mistress

The year my love for Andrews Moretti nearly shattered our world, he took three bullets for me. One grazed his brow, one shattered his knee, and one lodged deep in his lower back. Everyone said he loved me more than life itself.

Then a dancer named Scarlett appeared on my doorstep, a pregnancy test in her hand.

"You're Yolia Falcone, right?"

She slapped me across the face with a stack of photos of them in bed.

"Andrews's been done with you for a while now. If you have any sense, you'll get lost."

In the photos, the way Andrews looked at her was achingly tender.

I watched the snow fall thicker outside the window and slowly raised my hand. The dancer's screams were swallowed by the wind, her threats twisting into nothing.

"Andrews won't let you get away with this!"

And now, I watched coolly as Andrews sat across from me, having surrounded my home to make me pay.

"Sign it."

"You disgust me."

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1

"Yolia!"

Andrews sat across from me.

Behind him stood his most trusted enforcers, all handpicked over the last two years. Dozens of them had sealed off my sprawling estate, turning it into a fortress. This wasn't a negotiation; it was a siege.

I watched Andrews as he tapped the table, his knuckles white as he fought to contain his rage.

"She's still in the ICU."

He raised his eyes, the light catching the high arch of his brow and throwing the old scar there into stark relief.

"She's innocent," Andrews's voice was a low, dangerous rumble. "She's only twenty! Twenty! You almost destroyed her. Do you have any idea what the doctors told me?"

The doctor’s words echoed in my mind: *She might never be a mother again.*

Even on the verge of death, that woman had used her last ounce of strength to scream at me.

"Andrews won't let you get away with this!"

"So," I met Andrews's furious gaze, passing the hot tea to Luca at my side. "You've brought your army to my doorstep to get justice for *her*?"

"What's the plan, Andrews?" I let out a dry laugh, the absurdity of it all washing over me. "You want a pound of my flesh? Or are you going to carve out my womb as compensation?"

I smiled, pulling the cashmere blanket higher around me.

Luca immediately understood and silently turned up the thermostat.

I looked straight at Andrews.

"What is she to you, to be worth all this? Have you forgotten who I am, Andrews? I was the one who bled with you to build this empire. Not her. Are you really ready to declare war on me... for *her*? Or are you going to kill me right here, right now?"

My voice was steady, betraying nothing.

Luca, sensing the shift in the air, drew a pistol from his jacket, the dark muzzle aimed squarely at Andrews's head. Andrews's men tensed, but Andrews himself just laughed, a bitter, broken sound.

"Bella, we're past the days of killing each other in the streets. I don't want to blow this up." Andrews shoved the divorce papers aside. "A divorce would cripple both our families. I won't agree. But you will apologize to her. In person. Don't force my hand."

Andrews rose from the sofa, strode to Luca, and grabbed his wrist, pressing the muzzle of the gun firmly against his own forehead.

"Shoot me?"

"You think you have the nerve?"

Andrews suddenly twisted Luca's wrist, and a sharp crack of bone echoed through the room. But in the same instant, one of his men let out a choked grunt. A combat knife from my table was now buried in his shoulder. I met Andrews’s incredulous gaze and smiled.

"Andrews, my men don't touch you out of respect for *me*," I said, striding toward him. "But that doesn't mean"—I took his hand, slowly prying it from Luca's wrist—"you get to touch what's mine."

It was over.

Whatever we had, it was gone.

As the doctor set Luca's bone, he was still seething.

"Miss, you went through hell and back for that son of a bitch Andrews. You're not just going to let him walk all over you like this, are you?"