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I woke up gasping, the phantom smell of smoke and my family's dying screams still burning in my throat. But there was no fire. I was twenty-two again, back on the exact day my father was to announce our arranged marriages. My sister, Janeen, burst into my room with a triumphant smile. "Worrying about marrying that cold-blooded Underboss?" she mocked. "They say he's a monster. Plus, he'll be a cripple in two years anyway." My blood turned to ice. She knew about Eliga Russo's future accident. Janeen was reborn, too. She eagerly told our father she wanted the "better" match with the prominent Whitney family, dumping the terrifying Russo marriage on me. She thought she was brilliant, leaving me with a doomed mafia boss and his three feral adopted sons. But she didn't know the Whitneys' political scandal was exactly what caused our enemies to burn our entire family alive in my past life. She laughed at my "misfortune," truly believing she had secured a life of high-society power while I was being sent to hell. What she didn't realize was that she wasn't the only one holding a map to the future. She thought she was playing chess, but I was the one who designed the board. I lowered my head and pretended to cry, gladly accepting the marriage to the monster. This time, I wouldn't be a pawn. I would save Eliga, tame his sons, and become the queen of the Russo empire.
Contents
Contract Marriage With The Ruthless Mafia King Chapter 1
Clara POV:
New York. The Calhoun Estate.
"Clara, give me that necklace!" A shrill, imperious voice shattered the morning silence.
I snapped my eyes open. Before I could even draw a breath, my older sister, Janeen, lunged at me. Her perfectly manicured nails clawed at my throat as she yanked the antique sapphire pendant from my neck.
Janeen held it up to the light, the deep blue stone catching the morning sun. Her lips curled in disgust.
"It's hideous, honestly." She paused, flipping the pendant over in her palm. A strange, knowing smile twisted her lips. "But... it might actually be of some use later."
The words hit me like a bucket of ice water, freezing the blood in my veins.
She knows. I realized in a heartbeat that Janeen, just like me, had lived this life before.
In our previous life, this very pendant had sealed my fate. The Calhoun family, desperate to claw their way back into the upper echelons of high society, had paraded me at a political fundraising gala like a decorative vase. Senator Richard Langley noticed the sapphire resting against my collarbone and, right then and there, chose me to be his wife.
I had no right to refuse. Of course, in the eyes of the world, becoming a senator's wife was the ultimate glory.
Janeen, meanwhile, had been married off to Eliga Russo, the notorious Underboss of the Russo Crime Family.
On their wedding night, he abandoned her in their bridal suite, making her the laughingstock of the underworld. A month later, he was ambushed following a high-stakes Syndicate meeting in Atlantic City. The bullets, meant to be lethal, shattered his legs instead. He survived, but he would never walk again.
Trapped in a marriage with a crippled man she despised, Janeen's bitterness festered, and she took it out by physically abusing his three adopted sons. Less than a year later, Eliga Russo threw her out on the streets. She eventually died, alone and destitute, in a cheap rented room in Queens.
Now, given a second chance at life, she was trying to steal my fate.
Later that evening, before I even reached the parlor doors, Janeen's voice drifted out into the hallway.
"Mother, I won't do it. I refuse to marry Eliga Russo. I am going to marry Senator Langley!"
Our stepmother, Patricia, sighed. "Janeen, be reasonable. Everyone knows Senator Langley has no intention of settling down. He's been entangled with that Hale woman for years. The Russo alliance, on the other hand, is a sure thing. The Syndicate demands a Calhoun daughter."
Janeen scoffed. "Eliga Russo is practically a monk. And those three boys of his? They aren't even his own blood. They belong to some dead enforcer. Do you know what I'd be signing up for? Playing mommy to three feral brats!"
Her voice pitched higher with irritation. "The blood pact with the Russos just says they get a Calhoun daughter. It doesn't specify which one. Let Clara marry him. She's perfect for it-quiet, painfully dull, practically invisible. Let her play house with that cold-blooded mobster and his three little monsters. It's all she's good for anyway."
I stepped into the parlor, my expression carefully blank. Patricia's face instantly lost the helpless indulgence she reserved for her biological daughter. She shot me a cold, dismissive look.
"Clara. Since your sister has so generously offered you this marriage, you will be wed tomorrow."
Janeen stepped forward, her smile as sharp as cut glass. "Exactly. I'm giving you the better match, Clara. You should be thanking me. A girl like you-no presence, no connections, and no real beauty-could never land a husband like Eliga Russo on your own."
I let the insult wash over me. I allowed my shoulders to slump inward. I forced my chin to tremble.
"Marrying into the Russo family is an honor," Janeen continued, increasingly intoxicated by her own performance. "Of course, you'll have to play stepmother to three boys. But honestly, you have so little presence, you'll blend right into the wallpaper. They probably won't even notice you're there."
I raised my eyes-tear-filled, shining, a picture of perfect, pathetic vulnerability.
"I... I am so grateful to Janeen," I said softly. "Thank you for thinking of me. I will do everything in my power to bring honor to our family."
Janeen's smile widened triumphantly.
I bowed my head in meek submission, allowing a dark smirk to finally curve my lips.
She had no idea. The path of the Senator's wife was a death trap dressed in haute couture, hidden behind the clinking of champagne glasses at state dinners.
Langley never loved me. He only married me to use me as a human shield for his true love, making me the target of every jealous mistress and political enemy he had. Stalkers, poisoned drinks, sniper bullets in the dead of night... For ten years of marriage, I deflected those lethal threats by the skin of my teeth.
Yet, barely three days after Langley was elected President of the United States, he put a bullet through my forehead himself, safely leaving the First Lady's seat open for the only woman he ever cared about.
If Janeen was so eager to march into that cannibalistic hellhole, I would gladly hold the door for her.
Surviving on the razor's edge of danger in my past life had equipped me with a lethal set of skills and invaluable intelligence. I knew exactly who orchestrated the ambush on Eliga Russo. And I knew exactly how to stop it.
A husband who didn't sleep around. Three adopted sons plagued by their own demons, but who could be molded into formidable men with the right guidance. This was a family with real power. Not the hollow, borrowed power of politics, but raw, absolute power rooted in loyalty, territory, and a syndicate that knew how to protect its own.
Janeen failed to survive that marriage because she was lazy, cruel, and stupid.
But I wouldn't make the same mistake.
This time, I would not be a pawn.
I would be the queen.
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