Accidentally Proposed To The Mafia King
Isabella Hart thought her Valentine's Day plan was perfect: propose to her boyfriend, celebrate in the Maldives, and finally start the life she'd dreamed of.
Instead, she walked into his office and found him kissing his assistant who was also her friend.
Heartbreak turned to fury and before she could stop herself, she shoved the engagement ring meant for him onto the finger of a stranger with cold gray eyes.
The stranger looked at her, amused, and said, "I do."
Moments later, her ex called that stranger Boss.
Luciano Moretti, the stranger, was no ordinary man. He was the quiet, ruthless king of New York's underworld, the man people whispered about but never dared to name aloud.
What began as a viral mistake became a dangerous entanglement of power, lies, and a love too forbidden to survive the truth.
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Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Bella's POV
The moment his words hit my ears, the world didn't just spin for me, it fractured into tiny dizzying pieces.
I do.
I do.
I do.
His words echoed again and again in my ears and as it did, I froze mid-step, the cold wind biting through the thin fabric of my coat, the wet slush clinging to my heels. I wanted to scream, to retract the words I'd just said on an angry, humiliated impulse and make him do the same but the city had other plans.
Somewhere, a car honked, sirens blared in the distance, and a cellphone camera clicked
I glanced around to see that a stranger had been filming us already.
Someone at the corner of the street, smirking behind a lens, was filming us.
My face, streaked with tears, the ruined blush of my cheeks, the shaking velvet box open in the palm of a stranger I didn't even know... it was all being captured.
And then before I could think about how to react about it, I heard the ragged, panicked footsteps pounding toward us.
"Bella!"
I looked around to see that it was Ethan. He had run out of his office looking for me. His face was pale, his eyes wide, his chest heaving and his coat flapping against his back like wings desperate to catch me.
Immediately, I took a step back. I didn't want him anywhere around me. After what he just did to my heart, I wished for only one thing: that we were miles apart.
But then something strange happened.
Ethan looked at who was with me and his eyes widened in panic.
"Boss?" he blurted when he finally stopped just a few feet away from the stranger who had my hand in his and had found his voice.
Boss? I thought as I blinked rapidly in shock.
The stranger tilted his head slowly, his storm-gray eyes locking onto Ethan with that same unreadable calm.
"Ethan. What a coincidence," he said, his voice lazy but edged with a subtle menace, the kind that made your stomach churn and your instincts scream danger.
I stumbled back, clutching the ring box to my chest. "Wait... you know each other?" My voice cracked as I spoke.
The stranger's lips curved faintly. "Yes. He's... an employee."
My brain hit pause. My hands felt suddenly too heavy as the realization sank like ice water through my veins.
What the hell?I had just proposed to my ex-boyfriend's boss.
The man standing in front of me, impeccably dressed in a black coat tailored to his impossibly broad shoulders, with hair slicked back like he was carved from shadows, was none other than Luciano Moretti.
The Devil himself!
Oh my God! I thought in horror.
OH MY GOD! I thought again, my head spinning.
I wanted to run. And so I grabbed the ring from Luciano's hand, turned around and did just that.
"I... I'm so sorry," I stammered, my words stumbling over themselves like frightened animals even as I began to run. "I... I didn't... I didn't mean..."
Luciano didn't move, didn't even blink. His eyes tracked me as I pivoted, heels clicking rapidly against the wet concrete as I fled.
Behind me, Ethan shouted, calling my name, but I didn't look back. Not once. The bastard was the last person that could stop me right now.
By the time I made it back to my apartment, my lungs were burning, tears streaked down my face and my cheeks were numb from the cold.
Ava was waiting, arms crossed, pacing like a storm contained within the small living room. I had called her on my way home, telling her that I needed her to be at my place. And like the best friend that she was, she had said yes to my request without asking questions.
"Bella, talk to me!" she demanded immediately she saw me, her voice a mixture of concern and exasperation. "What the hell happened out there?"
I sank onto the couch, dropping the ring box onto the coffee table with a hollow clink. "It... it's a disaster," I whispered, burying my face in my hands.
Ava crouched in front of me, gripping my shoulders. "Start from the beginning. What happened?"
"Ethan...Ethan cheated on me with Camilla."
Anger exploded on the features of Ava's face. "That bastard! Why am I not even surprised?"
I continued to shake even as I said, "Yeah, you warned me. I should have listened."
Ava wrapped her hands around me. "Look, it's not your fault. You just happened to fall in love with someone who does not deserve you at all. It's really not your fault."
I wiped tears from my eyes with the back of my hand even as I murmured almost inaudibly, "That is not all."
Ava furrowed her eyebrows in concern as she said, "What else?"
"I stumbled into a stranger."
"A stranger?"
I nodded.
"Well, what then happened?"
I lifted my head. "He... he's... I don't even know how to explain it." My voice trembled, and I hated how small I sounded. "I... I proposed to him and he said yes."
Ava's eyebrows shot up. "You... proposed to the stranger?"
"Yes. And he... he said yes!" I buried my face again. "And the worst part... the absolute worst part... he's Ethan's boss. Ethan was there. He had ran out and he called the stranger, 'boss'."
Ava froze for a moment, processing. Then she exhaled sharply. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a minute. You... you proposed to your ex's boss while your ex was... what? Watching?"
I groaned, pressing my palms against my temples. "He... he saw me after I had proposed. Someone filmed it. The entire city probably knows by now. Oh, my God, Ava. I checked my phone while coming back home. They're calling me the... the Valentine's Bride online. Can you believe that? I... I can't... I can't even..."
Ava flopped beside me, hugging me tight. "Okay. Okay. Breathe, Bella. First, calm down. Second, I swear, we will survive this insane... very insane mess. But you need to tell me...how do you even know this man? You just saw him and propose to him?"
"I don't know him at all," I said through gritted teeth. "I... I literally just... proposed on impulse because I... because I... felt like... felt like everything else in my life just exploded and..." My voice cracked, and I buried my face in Ava's shoulder.
She rubbed my back soothingly. "Bella... hey. Look at me. You are not a disaster. You are... you're chaotic, sure, but... also brilliant in a way that makes men like him say yes. You didn't plan this, and that's okay. Sometimes, crazy, unplanned stuff... it changes everything."
I shivered, thinking about his gray eyes, the calm, unflinching way he'd said yes. A shiver of something... unnameable ran down my spine.
Ava pushed her body back while pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright. But this isn't just... cute drama. He's... clearly powerful. That's... that's dangerous, Bella. Danger comes with this kind of man."
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. "I know. I know. And... I don't even know what to feel anymore. Humiliated, angry, scared...everything."
Ava sighed and gave me a pitying look. "We will figure things out. Don't fret."
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7.6
She was the heir of a criminal syndicate, bred to command the underworld.
For seven years she loved the wrong man, serving his family and building their fortune. Her payment was betrayal-his affair with her best friend.
During her three-year coma, he hissed, "Don't wake up."
They carried on at her bedside, then plotted her death to steal the company. She woke anyway and shattered them, rattling high society as a mafia heir and lethal fighter who ran the black-market economy.
He begged. She kicked him aside and chose the man who'd waited a decade-the world's top arms dealer. "I'm yours."
8.1
My fiancé, the ruthless Mafia Underboss, tore my dead mother's necklace from my throat and fastened it around another woman's neck.
"Diana needs it," Arthur said, his eyes cold. "My blood remembers loving her. It calms her anxiety."
He was referring to the bone marrow transplant that saved his life. Diana was connected to the donor, and Arthur believed his new blood made him belong to her.
I became a ghost in my own home, forced to watch him crown a usurper.
When Diana faked a fall at a gala, accusing me of pushing her, Arthur didn't hesitate. He decided to "discipline" me publicly to teach me respect.
He raised the whip.
"Arthur, please, I'm pregnant!" I screamed, shielding my stomach.
"Don't lie to me," he spat, and the lash came down.
I lost our baby on that cold marble floor in a pool of blood. He didn't believe me. He stepped over my body to take Diana to dinner.
He didn't stop there. He let my grandmother die in the ER to tend to Diana's bruised nose. He even dug up my grandmother's grave because Diana wanted the view for a garden.
I finally fled, vanishing into the night.
It wasn't until months later, when he found the autopsy report of our unborn child and the toxicology results proving Diana had been drugging him, that the fog lifted.
He tracked me down to a small town, where I was finally healing with a good man.
The feared Underboss fell to his knees in the pouring rain, holding the whip he had used on me, shaking violently.
"Beat me, Ella," he begged, tears mixing with the mud. "Hurt me. Make us even."
I looked at the monster I used to love and dropped his ring into the dirt.
"You can't bring back the dead, Arthur," I whispered. "And you are dead to me."
9.6
When the boy I had loved in silence for five years dropped to one knee and proposed to the very girl who had bullied me, the entire room burst into laughter at my expense.
"That fat, ugly Lydia Prescott actually thinks she has a shot with a mafia boss?"
In a single night, I became the city's favorite punchline. I fled in humiliation.
The next time I appeared, I had transformed. The weight was gone, and so was the ridicule. I stunned everyone into silence.
Miles Calloway begged through tears for another chance, but I simply slipped my arm through the arm of the mafia godfather beside me and smiled.
"Sorry. I'm married."
The man rumored to be cold-blooded and untouchable pulled me closer and declared with chilling certainty, "Lydia is my wife."
The room erupted.
Only my best friend, Annie Sinclair, gasped, "Lydia, you seriously locked down my dad?"
7.4
As a princess who could not wield magic, Princess Daphne's only value to her kingdom was her arranged marriage. The task was simple, but when Daphne was kidnapped and brought to the cold mountains of Vramid, she realized that she was in over her head.
She had heard of these cursed mountains before― rocky terrain, freezing temperatures, and the land was ruled by a man feared by many within the continent.
King Atticus Heinvres, the blood-thirsty ruler of the North.
Even though she had never met him before, tales were spread of King Atticus's ruthlessness. Some said he was a monster, others claimed he was the devil himself, but whatever the story was, everyone knew of the man who had powers beyond anyone's imagination. He could topple armies and crumble nations with just one wave of his hand, aided by what others rumored to be a cursed obsidian ring.
No one outside of Vramid had ever met the fearsome king before. Not until Daphne.
However, upon meeting the formidable man, Daphne found out that the king might not really be the monster others had claimed him to be.
In fact, what was hidden under that obsidian shield could just be a diamond in the rough.
―
[Excerpt]
"Now... where should I put you both?" he asked casually, not expecting a reply. "It's regretful that I only have one chandelier."
"Underneath my bed? No, no, too dirty. My dust bunnies don't deserve this," Atticus mused to himself. "The mantlepiece? How about the vanity table? I suppose if I lop off one of your heads I could mount it over... Wife, which head do you want to stare at while you do your hair?"
"Atticus!" Daphne screamed. "I don't want any heads! Let them go."
"Fair enough." Atticus shrugged, and flicked his fingers.
There were two identical cracks as both necks snapped at once.
Daphne gasped, horrified. This man, her husband, had just killed two men with a flick of his finger, as though he was snuffing out candles.
"I told you to let them go!" Daphne cried out.
"Yes, I let them go," Atticus said. Then, his eyes darkened. "To receive divine judgment from the heavens."
7.6
I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me.
But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest.
The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me.
They didn't.
Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her.
They let me burn to keep her warm.
When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages.
That was the moment Elena Vitiello died.
I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York.
By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring.
"You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them.
"Burn for it."
7.6
I was the Harrington family's only son, forced to play a deadly game of shadows in the brutal underworld of Chicago. After a meeting with the Falcones left me poisoned and broken, my car was run off the road in a calculated hit.
I crawled from the wreckage, bloodied and desperate, only to find Damien Cobb, the city's untouchable Don, looming over me with a gun pressed to my temple. He didn't see a victim; he saw a pawn to be crushed.
My jacket was ripped, my secret bindings nearly exposed, and my life hung by a thread. I managed to talk my way out of the execution, but the humiliation was absolute. When I returned home, the nightmare followed, haunting my sleep with the cold steel of a blade against my throat.
The world saw Alessandro Harrington, a man, but the truth was a fragile secret I guarded with my life. I was surrounded by predators who smelled my fear and mistook my silence for weakness. Why was I the target of their cruelty, and how could I keep my family safe when my very existence was a lie waiting to be unraveled?
Enough was enough. I wouldn't be the prey anymore. I stood in the mirror, adjusting my shirt, and made a choice: I would stop hiding and start hunting. The dockworkers' strike was my opening, and I would use it to bring the untouchable Don to his knees.