The Underboss's Secret: A Mafia Bride's Escape

For three years, I was Dante Moretti's secret. I was the Underboss's property, the cure for a violent curse that plagued him. He promised that if he wasn't married by his twenty-fifth birthday, I would be his bride.

But on the eve of that birthday, he ended our arrangement. He brought home another woman, Sienna, and introduced me as "the help."

Sienna, with feigned innocence, knocked a precious memento from my hand, shattering it. When I confronted her, Dante slapped me twice in public, the humiliation searing my soul.

Later, I discovered Sienna had framed me for kidnapping her, a lie Dante readily believed. To force a confession, he had my mother tied in a sack and thrown into the freezing lake to drown. He left her there to die.

That was the moment the girl who loved him died, too. I saved my mother, and we fled the country, seeking refuge with my childhood friend, Julian.

I thought I had escaped. But then Dante appeared in Australia, begging for forgiveness. I rejected him, choosing a future with Julian. I thought it was over.

Until a car, driven by a vengeful Sienna, barreled towards us. The last thing I saw was Dante throwing himself in front of me, taking the full impact.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

The night Dante Moretti ended our arrangement, he gave me a choice: erase myself from his life, or he'd erase me from the world. What he didn't know was that I'd already found my escape.

He came home to the penthouse smelling of blood and victory. The scent clung to his leather jacket-a metallic tang laced with the expensive cologne I'd bought him for his birthday. He was the Underboss of the Moretti crime family, a man carved from violence and power, and tonight, a turf war had been won. He was every inch the king returning to his castle.

He didn't speak. He never did, not at first. His eyes, the color of storm clouds, found me where I stood waiting by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He shed his jacket, letting it drop to the floor. His white shirt was stained, a geography of another man's defeat.

His hands were on my waist, pulling me against him. His mouth was hard, tasting of whiskey and something wilder. This was his ritual. He would take the violence of his world and wash it away inside me. For three years, I had been the silent, willing shore for his brutal tides.

It was a devil's bargain, struck when I was eighteen. After a rival family's assassination attempt left him drugged and drowning in a violent, uncontrollable rage, his father, the Don, had come to me. I was the daughter of a loyal Soldier who had died for them. I had loved Dante with a secret, stupid, girlish heart since we were kids. They knew it. So they made me his cure. His pressure valve. His proprietà.

A promise he'd made echoed in my memory, the ghost of a hope I'd clung to for a thousand lonely nights: "If I have no wife by my twenty-fifth birthday, you will be my bride."

He finished, his body heavy on mine, the storm passed. He rolled off me, his breathing already steadying while my own was still a ragged mess. He stood, walking naked to the bar to pour himself a drink, his back a canvas of muscle and scars.

"It's over, Elara," he said, his voice flat. He didn't even look at me.

My heart didn't break. It just stopped.

"I've found someone," he continued, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "Her name is Sienna Reed. She's going to be my wife. My queen."

He finally turned, his gaze sweeping over me with the disinterest of a man looking at a piece of furniture he was about to replace. He pulled his wallet from his discarded pants, took out a black, unlimited credit card, and tossed it onto the bed. It landed on the silk sheets next to my hip.

"Consider that your severance," he said, a cruel smile touching his lips. "For three years of service."

The air left my lungs in a silent rush. He was mocking me. Mocking the devotion I had given him, the darkness I had absorbed for him.

He took a sip of his drink. "What does a girl like Sienna like? She's... pure. Not like you." He gestured vaguely at me, at the bed. "Your taste is a little common for a Mafia Queen."

I saw her then, in my mind's eye. The woman I'd seen him with in the city. A fragile-looking blonde he was helping into his car, his touch gentle, protective. A woman he wanted to put on a pedestal. And I was the dirty secret he kept in his penthouse.

My phone, lying on the nightstand, buzzed. I glanced at the screen. A text from my mother.

Lara, it's a miracle. Julian Thorne is awake.

The name was a key, unlocking a door in my mind I thought was sealed forever. Julian. The boy who had been my friend before Dante's shadow had consumed my life. The boy who had disappeared.

The words solidified something in my chest. A decision.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I slid off the bed, my limbs feeling strangely light. I gathered my few belongings-the ones he allowed me to keep here-and packed them into a small bag. As I walked to the door, it opened.

Dante stood there, holding it for a smiling Sienna Reed. Her eyes, wide and innocent, landed on me.

"Oh," she said, her smile faltering. "Dante, who is this?"

Dante's arm went around her waist, pulling her possessively to his side. His eyes were ice.

"This is Elara," he said, his voice laced with casual dismissal. "She's the help. She was just leaving."

Sienna's innocent expression hardened for a fraction of a second before melting back into sweetness. As I tried to move past them, she shifted, her shoulder bumping hard against mine. I stumbled, and the small, carved wooden bird in my hand-the last thing my father ever gave me before he died in service to the Moretti family-slipped from my grasp.

It hit the marble floor with a sickening crack, shattering into a dozen pieces.