My Mafia Husband Used Me to Carry His First Love's Baby

I shoved the Polaroid into my robe pocket and turned around smiling.

"My passport," I said. "For the new honeymoon. I thought you kept it in here."

Maddox leaned against the doorframe, hair messy, eyes half closed. He studied me for one long second.

Then he yawned. "Second shelf. Come back to bed, Mrs. Kane."

I came back to bed. I let him wrap his arm over my stomach. I counted his breaths until they went slow and heavy.

At four in the morning, I locked myself in the guest bathroom and dialed a number I had memorized two years ago. That was the night I'd seen it scrawled on a matchbook Maddox burned in the fireplace.

It rang three times.

"Who is this?" A man's voice. Low. Rough at the edges, like he hadn't slept either.

"Sienna Kane."

Silence.

"I want to make a deal, Mr. Vale."

"Go on."

"My husband's shipping routes through the Port of Miami. The ledgers, the bribes, the names. Roughly one billion dollars a year. They're yours."

"In exchange for what?"

"Three days from now, you take me. From his villa. From his territory. And you make sure nobody ever finds me."

The pause stretched so long I checked the screen to see if he'd hung up.

"Mrs. Kane." His voice dropped. "Do you know who you're dealing with?"

"The only man my husband is afraid of."

He laughed once, short and surprised. "You haven't changed."

My grip on the phone tightened. "Have we met?"

"Three days. I'll come for you myself." The amusement drained from his voice. "One condition. You walk out of there alive. Whatever you're planning, you stay breathing. Understood?"

"Understood."

The line went dead.

...

The next afternoon, Maddox held my hand in the back of the Bentley. We were on our way to the bridal salon for my new gown.

"Ivory," he said, kissing my wrist. "With the long sleeves. You'll look like a queen."

His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and his whole face changed. The softness switched off like a light.

"Problem with a shipment," he said. "I have to go."

"Now?"

"Derek will take you." He was already tapping the partition. "Don't wait up."

He kissed my forehead and climbed out at the next light. A black SUV was idling at the curb. He didn't look back.

Derek pulled up five minutes later. I slid into the back seat. My phone lit up before the door had even closed.

*Unknown number.*

A photo.

Brielle, in my ivory gown with the long sleeves. Sitting in Maddox's lap. His head was bent, his mouth pressed to the crescent scar on her right shoulder.

Then a voice message. I pressed play without thinking.

Maddox's voice filled the car, rough and hungry. "Every time I hold her, I close my eyes and pretend it's you. Every single time, Bri. You have no idea what that costs me."

My thumb went numb on the screen.

In the rearview mirror, Derek smirked.

The car swung left. Then right. Then into a narrow alley behind a row of shuttered warehouses.

"This isn't the salon," I said.

"Nope."

Brielle was waiting by a dumpster in a cream trench coat. My gown was gone. Her lipstick was fresh.

Derek dragged me out by the elbow. I stumbled onto my knees on the wet asphalt.

"Hi, Sienna." Brielle tilted her head. "Did you like the dress? It fits me better."

"You were my best friend."

"I was your *roommate.*" She stepped forward and set her heel on the back of my hand. Then she leaned her weight into it. Pain shot up to my elbow. "Grayson's mother finally signed off. Next month, I'm the real lady of the Whitmore house. Not a gangster's consolation prize."

"Get off me."

"Poor thing." She ground down harder. "You don't even know whose baby you're carrying, do you?"

I looked up at her. Then at Derek.

He crouched beside me and grinned. "Fun fact. The embryo Maddox picked for you? Never made it into you. I swapped it."

"Swapped it for *what?*"

"Does it matter?" He shrugged. "Boss doesn't know. Bri thought it'd be funny."

Brielle reached over and ran a finger down Derek's jaw. He caught her wrist and kissed her palm.

I stared at them.

Then I laughed. The same broken laugh from my wedding day.

"Maddox kills people for less," I said. "You know that, right?"

Derek's grin vanished.

I yanked my hand free and lunged at Brielle. My nails caught her cheek.

Derek's boot slammed into my stomach.

The world went white. I curled on the ground. Something tore low inside me, hot and deep. Warmth spread between my thighs and soaked through my skirt.

"Derek!" Brielle hissed. "Too much."

"She came at you."

Tires screeched at the mouth of the alley. A car door slammed.

Brielle dropped to the ground beside me, clutching her own belly. "Maddox! Oh God, Maddox, she attacked me!"

He ran in. I watched his shoes. Black. Polished. They stopped right next to the blood spreading under me.

"She said she'd kill my baby," Brielle sobbed. "Maddox, I'm pregnant. I was going to tell you tonight."

"She cursed it, boss." Derek's voice was perfectly steady. "Said she hoped it came out dead like hers."

I lifted my head. "He kicked me. Maddox. *Look at me.*"

He looked.

For one second, something flickered in his face.

Then he bent and gathered Brielle into his arms. The same way he'd lifted me off that wedding carpet three years ago.

"Take my wife back to the villa," he said. "Lock her in. Nobody goes in or out."

"Maddox—"

He was already walking away with her.

...

Derek took his time with me.

Behind the locked bedroom door, he stamped on my right ankle until something cracked. Then he did it again.

"For the scratch," he said.

...

I woke up two days later. A doctor in a white coat was checking my IV.

"Mrs. Kane." He didn't meet my eyes. "I'm sorry. The pregnancy has ended."

I waited for the tears.

They didn't come.

"Can you bring me a pen?" I asked.

He blinked. "A pen?"

"And the envelope from my top drawer."

The divorce papers had been ready for a week. I signed every page. My handwriting didn't shake once.

Then I laid out the rest on the bed where Maddox would see them first. My discharge papers from Mercy Field Hospital, Unit 4. The Polaroid of me in scrubs beside the canvas sign. And a small black voice recorder. It held Derek's confession from the alley. I had pressed record the second he dragged me out of the car.

I dragged my broken ankle across the floor. Every inch was fire. I hauled myself up the terrace steps on my hands.

The ocean stretched black under the moon. Far out, a small light blinked twice. A speedboat.

My phone buzzed.

*Maddox: Brielle's still upset. When I get home, you'll kneel and apologize to her. Do you understand me?*

I typed with one thumb.

*My biggest mistake was saving you eight years ago.*

Send.

I set the phone face up on the terrace tiles. Then I pulled myself over the railing and let the dark take me.

...

I learned later what happened in his office.

He called eleven times in four minutes. Derek burst through the door on the twelfth, his face the color of ash.

"Boss. Boss, the bedroom." He held up my Polaroid. "She left medical records. Mercy Field. Unit 4. The girl who saved you eight years ago..." He swallowed. "It wasn't Brielle."

Maddox shot to his feet so fast his chair crashed into the wall.

The call finally connected.

All he heard was the sea.

...

The water was so cold it stopped feeling like water.

My ankle dragged me down. My lungs were burning. The surface slipped farther and farther away.

Then an arm locked around my waist.

I was hauled up against a hard chest. Air hit my face. Someone was breathing hard beside my ear.

"Stay with me." That low, rough voice. "Sienna. Open your eyes."

I couldn't. Everything was fading.

His lips brushed my temple.

"I've got you, Sienna," Ronan Vale whispered. "This time, no one is taking you back."

*This time.*

The last thought I had before the dark swallowed me was a question.

When had he ever lost me before?