The Mafia King's Unwanted Wife Shines

My husband ordered me to turn around and face the altar. He unbuckled his heavy leather belt, his eyes cold and devoid of mercy.

"You need to learn respect," Dante spat.

He whipped me in the family chapel until my back was a bloody mess. All because his mistress, Sofia, had framed me for breaking his grandfather's urn.

He didn't ask for the truth. He didn't hesitate. He just wanted to punish the wife he considered a burden.

As the belt tore into my skin, I didn't scream. I just counted the memories dying.

He didn't know I was the one who dove into the frozen lake to save him in high school.

He didn't know I was the one who took a knife for him during the ambush.

He believed Sofia's lies that she was his savior.

I had loved him for ten years. I had bled for him. And in return, he scarred me permanently for a crime I didn't commit.

That night, I didn't tend to my wounds. I packed my bags, signed the divorce papers, and swore on the Code of Omertà to never love him again.

Three years later, Dante found my old diary hidden under the floorboards. He read the truth about who really saved him, and realized he had tortured his guardian angel.

He found me in Paris, fell to his knees in a crowded hotel lobby, and begged for forgiveness with tears in his eyes.

I looked at the man who broke me and smiled.

"Lie down and die, Dante," I said softly. "Because I have a life to live."

Chapter 1

Elena POV

The last thing I heard before the bullet tore through my skull was my husband’s voice on the speaker, cold and indifferent.

"She means nothing to the Vitiello family," he told my kidnappers. "Kill her if you want."

Then the line went dead.

I didn't feel the impact.

I only felt the crushing weight of ten years of unrequited love dissolving into a bloody mist.

Then I gasped, my lungs filling with air that smelled of sandalwood and expensive scotch instead of gunpowder and rot.

My eyes snapped open.

I wasn't in a warehouse tied to a chair.

I was in the master bedroom of the Vitiello estate, staring up at the familiar vaulted ceiling I used to pray to every night.

A heavy arm was draped over my waist.

I froze.

Slowly, heart hammering against my ribs, I turned my head.

Dante Vitiello was sleeping beside me.

His face was relaxed, lacking the scowl he usually wore when he looked at me. He was the Underboss of the New York Cosa Nostra, a man who had killed three rival Capos with his bare hands before he turned twenty-five.

He was also the man who had just sentenced me to death.

Or he would, three years from now.

My gaze drifted to the digital clock on the nightstand. The date glared back at me in red LED.

It was three years in the past.

We had been married for six months. Six months of me trying to be the perfect mafia wife. Six months of me trying to make him see me as more than just a political pawn forced upon him by his dying grandfather.

I looked at his sleeping face, the sharp jawline, the dark lashes against his cheekbones.

I waited for the love to surge, but I felt nothing.

No flutter in my chest. No desperate urge to touch him.

Just a cold, hollow silence where my heart used to be.

Carefully, I lifted his heavy arm off me.

He stirred, his instincts kicking in even in sleep. His hand shot out, gripping my wrist in a vice.

"Elena?" his voice was rough with sleep. "Where are you going?"

In my past life, I would have melted. I would have snuggled back into him, grateful for the scrap of attention.

Now, I looked at his hand on my wrist like it was a shackle.

"Bathroom," I said.

My voice was steady, devoid of the warmth he never earned.

He let go and turned over, dismissing me instantly.

I walked into the bathroom and locked the door, leaning back against the wood to breathe.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

I looked young. My skin was unblemished, my eyes bright—not yet dulled by years of neglect and the final, fatal betrayal.

I gripped the edge of the marble sink until my knuckles turned white.

I wasn't going to die in that warehouse again.

I wasn't going to spend the next three years begging for affection from a man who would trade me for a pack of cigarettes without blinking.

I washed my face with cold water, scrubbing away the phantom sensation of blood.

When I walked out of the bathroom, I was fully dressed in a black silk blouse and trousers—armor for the war I was about to start.

Dante was sitting up in bed, rubbing his face. He looked at my outfit with a frown.

"It's six in the morning," he said, his voice thick. "Come back to bed."

"No," I said.

The word hung in the air, heavy and foreign.

I had never said no to him.

Dante narrowed his eyes, the sleep vanishing instantly.

"What is this, Elena? Another tantrum because I missed dinner last night?"

"I have a meeting," I said, grabbing my purse from the vanity.

"With who?"

"Luca."

Dante laughed, a short, dark sound that lacked humor. "The Consigliere? Why would you need to see the family lawyer at dawn?"

"To correct a mistake," I said.

I didn't wait for his response.

I walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind me.

I drove my car into the city, the early morning fog mirroring the haze lifting from my mind.

Luca was already at the firm's office, looking tired beneath the fluorescent lights. He had been the Old Don's most trusted advisor, the only one who had ever treated me with genuine respect.

"Elena," he said, standing up as I entered. "Is everything alright? Dante isn't with you."

"Dante doesn't know I'm here," I said, closing the door. "I need you to draft a document for me."

Luca sat down, pulling a legal pad toward him, confused. "Of course. What do you need? A trust fund adjustment? A property transfer?"

"A separation agreement," I stated.

Luca's pen stopped moving.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide with shock.

"Elena," he said slowly, choosing his words with care. "You are a Vitiello. We don't do divorce. The Old Don..."

"The Old Don is dead," I cut him off, my voice sharp. "And this marriage is killing me."

"Dante will never agree to this," Luca warned. "It's an insult to his honor."

"Cite irreconcilable differences," I said, ignoring his warning. "Make it clear I want nothing. No alimony. No properties. Just my freedom."

"If I write this," Luca said, his voice lowering to a whisper, "and Dante finds out, he could kill me. He could kill you."

"He's going to kill me anyway," I said, the truth of it ringing in the silent office. "Just draft it, Luca. Please."

Luca hesitated, then typed for an hour, the clicking of the keys the only sound in the room.

The printer whirred.

He slid the warm paper across the mahogany desk.

"Are you sure?" he asked one last time.

I picked up the pen.

I didn't hesitate.

I signed my name.

*Elena Greco.*

Not Vitiello.

Just as I put the pen down, the office door slammed open, bouncing off the wall with a deafening crack.

Dante stood there, filling the doorway.

He was wearing a suit, but his tie was undone, his chest heaving. He looked furious.

"What the hell is going on?" he demanded, his voice filling the room with terrifying authority. "You leave my bed without a word and come running to the lawyer?"

He strode over to the desk and snatched the paper from under my hand.

He read the title.

His eyes went black.

"Separation Agreement?" he whispered, the quiet sound far more terrifying than his shout.

He looked at me, *really* looked at me, for the first time in months.

He was expecting to see tears. He was expecting to see a ploy for attention.

Instead, I looked back at him with the dead eyes of a woman who had already heard him order her execution.

"Sign it, Dante," I said.

"Is this a joke?" He crumpled the paper in his fist, his knuckles straining. "You think you can just walk away from the Vitiello family?"

"You told me once that I was a burden," I replied calmly. "I'm removing the weight."

"You are my wife," he snarled, leaning over the desk, invading my personal space with his overwhelming presence. "You belong to me. You don't leave until I *say* you leave."

"Then keep the paper," I said, standing up and smoothing my blouse. "Frame it. Burn it. I don't care. But I'm moving into the guest wing until you figure out how to let me go."

I walked past him toward the door.

He grabbed my arm, his grip bruising, trying to intimidate me into submission.

"You're playing a dangerous game, Elena."

I looked down at his hand, then up into his furious eyes.

"I'm not playing," I said, pulling my arm free with a strength I didn't know I possessed.

"I'm folding."

I walked out of the office, leaving the most dangerous man in New York staring at an empty doorway, holding a crumpled piece of paper that couldn't fix what he didn't even know he had broken.