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I was standing in five thousand dollars of hand-stitched lace when I received the medical report. My fiancé, Dante de Rossi, the future Don of Chicago, had gotten another woman pregnant. He didn't apologize. He didn't beg. He looked me in the eye and called it a "strategic necessity." "Isobel saved my life five years ago," he said coldly. "I owe her this child. You will raise it as your own. It is the price of the Peace Treaty." He forced me to cancel our engagement photos so he could take them with her. He took her on the vacation meant for our honeymoon. At dinner, he ordered me the seafood risotto, completely forgetting my deadly shellfish allergy, while fussing over Isobel's water temperature. When I tried to leave, he cornered me. "You are a mob wife, Nina. Act like one. She is the hero who saved me." I wanted to laugh. Because five years ago, in that alley, Isobel wasn't even there. I was the one in the mask. I was the one who stitched his femoral artery and saved his life, risking my own medical license. He was destroying our twenty-year relationship to pay a debt to a liar. I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I simply picked up a red marker and walked to the calendar. On the day of our wedding, while Dante stood at the altar waiting for his obedient Queen, I was already boarding a one-way flight to the other side of the world. I left him nothing but four words scrawled across the date: "Let's break up, Dante."
Contents
Chapter 1
I was standing in five thousand dollars of hand-stitched lace when I received the medical report.
My fiancé, Dante de Rossi, the future Don of Chicago, had gotten another woman pregnant.
He didn't apologize. He didn't beg. He looked me in the eye and called it a "strategic necessity."
"Isobel saved my life five years ago," he said coldly. "I owe her this child. You will raise it as your own. It is the price of the Peace Treaty."
He forced me to cancel our engagement photos so he could take them with her.
He took her on the vacation meant for our honeymoon.
At dinner, he ordered me the seafood risotto, completely forgetting my deadly shellfish allergy, while fussing over Isobel's water temperature.
When I tried to leave, he cornered me.
"You are a mob wife, Nina. Act like one. She is the hero who saved me."
I wanted to laugh.
Because five years ago, in that alley, Isobel wasn't even there.
I was the one in the mask. I was the one who stitched his femoral artery and saved his life, risking my own medical license.
He was destroying our twenty-year relationship to pay a debt to a liar.
I didn't scream. I didn't fight.
I simply picked up a red marker and walked to the calendar.
On the day of our wedding, while Dante stood at the altar waiting for his obedient Queen, I was already boarding a one-way flight to the other side of the world.
I left him nothing but four words scrawled across the date:
"Let's break up, Dante."
Chapter 1
I was standing in five thousand dollars of hand-stitched lace when I found out my fiancé had already promised his legacy to another woman's womb.
The dossier didn't come with a ribbon. It came in a plain manila envelope, slid under my apartment door like a death threat. But inside wasn't a threat; it was a medical report.
Isobel de Luca. Five weeks pregnant.
The father listed was Dante de Rossi.
I didn't scream. I didn't tear the dress off. I just stared at the date of conception. It was six weeks ago-the same week Dante told me he was handling a shipment dispute in Carrington.
He wasn't handling cargo. He was bedding the enemy's daughter.
Dante de Rossi wasn't just a man. He was the Capo dei Capi in waiting, the future King of the Chicago Outfit. He was a man who could silence a room simply by checking his watch. He was violence wrapped in a bespoke three-piece suit, a man I had loved since I was old enough to understand what the bulge of a gun holster under a jacket meant.
I was the Consigliere's daughter. The perfect, silent, dutiful match. I was the peacekeeper.
But looking at that ultrasound photo, I realized I wasn't his partner. I was just furniture-a decorative asset to be moved around the board.
I took the dress off. I folded it neatly. Then I walked to the calendar on the wall. Our wedding was in one month.
I picked up my phone and called the venue.
"Cancel it," I said.
The manager stammered on the other end, terrified of offending the Rossi family.
"Do it," I said, my voice flat. "Or I burn the place down myself."
I hung up.
My hands were shaking, not from fear, but from a cold, hard rage that settled deep in my marrow. I gathered every gift he had given me over the last five years. The diamond necklace. The limited-edition watch. The heirloom engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother.
I put them in a metal wastebasket in the center of the living room. I doused them in lighter fluid.
I struck a match.
The fire alarm chirped overhead, a shrill warning I ignored. I watched the velvet boxes curl into ash.
The door opened three hours later.
Dante walked in. He smelled of expensive scotch and gunpowder. He saw the smoke. He saw the dossier on the table.
He didn't apologize. He didn't drop to his knees to beg. He just loosened his tie and looked at me with eyes like glaciers.
"It is a strategic necessity, Nina," he said. His voice was a low rumble that usually made my stomach flip. Now, it just made me nauseous.
"Strategic," I repeated, the word tasting like ash.
"Isobel is dying," he said. "Multiple Myeloma. She has a year, maybe less. She wanted a child before she goes. It is the price of the Peace Treaty. Her father demanded a blood heir to unite the clans."
"You slept with her," I said.
"It was clinical," he lied.
I knew he was lying. The conception date didn't match an IVF timeline. It matched a hotel stay.
He stepped closer, looming over me. He was six-foot-four of pure intimidation.
"She saved my life, Nina. Five years ago. In that alley behind the warehouse. She dragged me to the safe house. She stopped the bleeding. I owe her a Life Debt."
My heart stopped.
Five years ago. The ambush.
He thought it was Isobel.
I looked at him-really looked at him. I saw the arrogance. The blindness. He thought Isobel de Luca, a woman who fainted at the sight of a papercut, had stitched up a bullet wound in his femoral artery?
I had done that.
I had been the one in the mask. I had been the one who risked my medical license and my life to save him, then vanished before he woke up because my father would have killed me for being in the field.
He owed me the debt. And he was paying it to her.
"You are asking me to raise your mistress's child," I said.
"I am commanding you to accept the heir," he corrected, his tone icy. "This ends the war. It is business. You are a mob wife, Nina. Act like one."
He checked his phone. His face changed. The hard lines around his eyes softened. A small, genuine smile touched his lips.
It was a look he had never given me. Not once in twenty years.
"I have to take this," he said. "It's Isobel. She's having morning sickness."
He walked out to the balcony to comfort the woman carrying his child.
I looked at his back. I looked at the ring melting in the trash can.
I didn't cry. I went to my laptop and opened a new tab.
One-way ticket. Lalan. Departure date: My wedding day.
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