Blood and Roses.
Ava Martin thought she had already lost everything when her mother - the only family who truly loved her - died suddenly. But heartbreak doesn't come alone. Within days, she catches her fiancé in bed with her stepsister and is forced to confront betrayal that shatters the last pieces of her trust.
Before she can recover, Ava is summoned by the father who abandoned her years ago. What awaits is not reconciliation but another cruel twist - her family has sold her to pay off their debts.
Her buyer? Alessandro Moretti.
To the world, Alessandro is the powerful CEO of Moretti Holdings, a man whose empire commands respect. In the shadows, he is whispered about as a ruthless mafia don - cold, merciless, and untouchable. Love has no place in his world of blood and loyalty.
But when the feared mafia godmother takes an unusual liking to Ava, Alessandro is pressured into marrying her. What begins as a transaction quickly spirals into a dangerous game of fire and ice. Ava's defiance sparks something Alessandro thought was long dead, while his dark world threatens to consume her completely.
Can the fiery strength in Ava's heart melt the walls Alessandro has built around his, or will their bond be drowned in betrayal, blood, and roses?
Chapters
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Chapter 1
Ava could see her world crashing down before her eyes, tears flowed down her eyes as the doctor words echoed in her head.
"I'm sorry, we lost her" The words rang like a bad nightmare she could not forget.
To the hospital staffs, they lost just another patient but to her she lost her lifeline - Her mother, the only person who had kept her going, she had begged Janet - her boss for a loan, something she did not believe she could do, especially not after Janet's endless bullying.
She could still remember Janet laughter as she went on her knees pleading, she even went as far as to beg her scumbag of a father and yet... She was gone... Like she wasn't here yesterday... Like she wasn't the woman she talked to last night.
She could feel the pain in her heart, her world has ended and no one could see it - they didn't care. She clenched her chest as she squatted on the floor.
Indistinct chatter floated into her ears but she wasn't there, she was with her mother.
The smiling woman who handed her cookies when she was young, that strong woman who fought for her rights when she was forced to get a divorce, that woman that left her father without looking back. That woman that always told her. "Ava, you are a great child". Gone...Just like that.
In her subconsciousness, she caught sight of the nurses rolling her mother out of the room all covered in a white cloth. She rushed over to her side yanking the cloth off her face.
"Mother, mother" She called with choked voice. "Please don't do this, Mom don't leave me" She cried out.
"Poor child" she barely heard a passerby say.
"Mum" She sobbed.
"Ma, you have to take it easy" A nurse said coming over to her and pulling her in her embrace.
"Mother" Ava bent down to plant a kiss on the forehead of her mother's lifeless body. The coldness she felt rudely reminded her that the only person in the world that do care is gone - dead forever.
She turned to look at the nurse who held her and nodded at her.
"Thank you ma" She said her eyes following the strecher used in carrying her mother to the morgue.
"You have to be strong child, even if it's for your mother" The old nurse said and she nodded wiping her face with a tissue.
She had to be strong, her mother had no one else except her. Casting a glance at the stretcher, she nodded at the doctor and walked out of the hospital trying to convince herself that it did not hurt but... no it hurt so bad.
Her tears flowed down her eyes like a river. The bitter taste of the tears served to remind her of the death of the only person she had left. Her heart felt hollow and she found herself craving solace.
Heading to the bus station, she boarded a bus going to her fiancée apartment, he was the only one who could comfort her of her loss.
She pushed the door open and looked around the house not seeing him. She walked towards the bedroom and she could hear noises coming out of the bedroom... More like moans.
She shook her head refusing to believe what she was hearing, her tears that had just ceased found their way out of her eyes.
With her heart in her mouth, she pushed the door open and she could feel her already broken heart shattering again when she saw her fiancee, Shane in bed with...Clara her stepsister.
"Shane" She shrieked, eyes wide open before bolting out of the room.
Her legs burned as she ran far away looking for somewhere to let her emotions out. Looking backwards, there was no signs of Shane coming after her. She laughed - a heart wrenching sound.
"Did I really thought he would come after me?" She let out a sad smile.
She looked around her and it was in a pack, sitting down she saw little children running around with their parents then the memories she tried her best to lock away came rushing.
A small petite girl dressed in a pink princess gown running around with her father chasing after her, she could still remember the contented smile on her mother's lips.
A family filled with love and warmth was what she had till her mother discovered her father had been cheating, way before Ava was born and then that sweet family was torn apart replaced by the most hated smile of her step mother.
She did not realize she was crying till she felt a tap on her legs. Looking down she saw a little girl looking up to her.
"Big sister, why are you crying?" The girl asked.
"Because she is sad" She heard a voice behind the girl, she looked up to see a lady approaching them.
"Then if I give big sister my lollipop, she won't remain sad again right?" The girl asked her big eyes searching for an answer.
"Yes" The lady smiled at the girl.
"Big sister" The girl called and stretched out a lollipop.
"Thank you" Her voice came out choked as she took the lollipop. Standing up, She turned to look at the lady with a light smile.
"Thank you" She whispered.
"I don't know what you are going through but you have to be strong" The lady advised and patted her back.
Ava nodded and squatted at the girl's front.
"Little girl what's your name?" She asked.
"My name is Lora"
"A beautiful name, big sister has to go now" She said and when the girl nodded, she turned and then she walked away.
Ava walked down the streets with no destination in mind, her stomach rumbled reminding her she had not eaten since morning and she skipped work - Though work was the last thing on her agenda right now.
Raising her head, she caught sight of her mother holding snacks across the streets with a wide smile on her face beckoning her to come take the snacks.
Ava face lit up into a smile and she absentmindedly walked passed through road her eyes fixed on her mother.
The honk of a car brought her back as a black car sped past her almost colliding with her, she raised her head and her mother was...Gone.
She heard people cursing at her and the dam of tears that had opened in her since morning came rushing again. Why... Why was she gone?. She asked herself.
Sitting on the floor by the roadside, she raised her eyes and her eyes collided with the occupant of the car eyes.
A man - eyes cold, Dark, emotionless but behind it, there was something else, something darker. Something she couldn't name.
What was that?
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7.8
Helen was finally brought back to the luxurious Gallagher estate as their long-lost blood relative.
But her new family didn't welcome her; they looked at her with undisguised disgust.
The matriarch mocked her stench of poverty, while her step-sister Candice treated her like a feral animal. The patriarch, Fredy—who had built his empire by betraying Helen's mother—tried to break her spirit. He blackmailed Helen into attending a high-society gala by threatening to cut off her grandmother's medical funds.
At the gala, Candice squeezed into a diamond-encrusted gown, desperate to seduce the guest of honor, Damian Montgomery. Damian was the most powerful man in New York, and he was currently tearing the city apart looking for a mysterious woman named Jane.
Overhearing this, a sick, greedy smile spread across Candice's face. She planned to impersonate Jane to claim Damian's wealth and completely crush Helen under her heel.
"Hide in the corner tonight. Don't you dare try to speak to anyone important!"
They all thought Helen was just a helpless, uncultured country girl they could easily manipulate and step on to secure their stolen legacy.
What they didn't know was that Helen was the real Jane. She was the lethal shadow who had saved Damian in the woods, shattered his grip, and robbed his highly guarded vault just the night before.
Helen calmly adjusted her simple black dress and stepped into the ballroom, ready to tear their stolen world apart.
8.0
I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair.
They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves.
Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment.
But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger.
In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.
7.4
I was the wife of Damien Valenti, the most ruthless mafia Don in Chicago.
But to cement his power and marry a rival family's daughter, he exiled me to the slums without a single dime.
"Stay not as my wife, Izzy, but as my whore."
That was his final ultimatum before dumping me out of his black SUV like trash.
Terrified of losing me, my five-year-old son, Angelo, secretly hid in the car to follow me.
Two days later, in a squalid Indiana motel, Angelo caught severe pneumonia.
I had no money and no doctor. In sheer desperation, I sliced my own wrist with broken glass, pressing my bleeding arm to his pale lips, begging him to drink and live.
But my little boy died in my arms.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Damien was sipping vintage champagne with his new bride, casually dismissing the life of his own flesh and blood.
The grief turned me into a monster. I spent twenty years clawing my way through the underworld to destroy his empire, only to die with a bullet in my chest.
I gave him my absolute devotion, yet he traded our family for political power without a single ounce of hesitation.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in that hellish neon-lit motel room.
Angelo was burning with fever and fighting for air, but he was still breathing.
This time, I wasn't the naive girl who loved Damien Valenti. I was a woman holding two decades of their darkest secrets, and my vendetta had just begun.
9.5
For seven years, I was his eyes. But the moment he regained his sight, he decided to marry someone else.
Seven years of devotion couldn't buy his heart.
I gave him back his dignity. Now that he was restored as the Godfather of the New York Mafia, he laughed with others, degrading me to the status of a mere "mistress."
He thought I didn't understand Italian, but I heard him loud and clear: he was going to marry his first love.
He arrogantly believed I would always love him, willing to stay in his penthouse like a caged bird.
But he was wrong. I boarded a one-way flight to Australia.
Dante, I don't want you anymore.
By the time he returned home, he would have lost me forever.
But a sore loser refuses to concede. Even if he had to burn the world to the ground, he would search for me and beg for my forgiveness.
7.2
The heavy steel door of the industrial meat locker slammed shut, sealing me in at four degrees below zero.
Ten minutes ago, I was the woman Dante Moretti promised to burn the world for.
Now, I was the rat accused of poisoning his heir.
Dante didn’t just lock me in. He looked at me with eyes devoid of warmth and said, "Evidence says otherwise."
He chose the lie of his arranged wife, Sofia, over my truth.
For months, I endured the price of loving the Underboss.
I watched him marry Sofia in a grand ceremony to secure a family alliance.
I let him force me onto a table to drain my blood to save her life when she was injured.
I took twenty lashes from his family’s enforcers, all while he stood by and watched, claiming it was necessary to "protect" me.
He told me to wait. He told me the marriage was a sham.
But when I finally escaped and he came chasing after me, revealing that Sofia was a fraud and he wanted me back, I didn't feel relief.
I felt nothing.
Even after he threw his body over mine to save me from a collapsing building, taking a jagged shard of timber through his chest, I couldn't forgive him.
In the hospital, his mother handed me his journal.
It was filled with entries about his undying love for me, written on the very same days he allowed me to be tortured.
"Tell him the debt is paid," I told his mother as I handed the book back.
"He saved my life. I saved his child. We are even."
I turned my back on the ICU and walked out into the rain.
Dante Moretti might have been willing to die for me, but he never knew how to live for me.
7.0
My debt-ridden uncle sold me to the Romero mafia family to save his own skin.
I was forced to marry Emiliano Romero, a man known to the underworld as "The Ghost"—a rumored monster who supposedly tore his last two caretakers apart.
My aunt and cousin delighted in my misery. My cousin came at me with a razor, leaving a nasty bruise on my face, while my aunt bleached my hair to make me look like a cheap, disposable doll.
When the Romeros arrived, they didn't even pretend to want a daughter-in-law.
"The Family needs a nobody whose death won't start a police report."
They just wanted a clueless victim to sign a pre-nup and die quietly. They shoved me down a sterile hallway and locked me inside a fortified, padded cell with a man wrapped in heavy chains.
They all thought they were sacrificing a helpless, terrified lamb to a madman. They laughed at my tears, completely convinced I was just gutter trash waiting to be slaughtered.
But they had no idea I was a highly trained undercover operative.
Listening to their arrogant whispers, the pieces finally clicked. Emiliano wasn't a deranged killer—he was a prisoner being drugged and framed by his own blood.
I drained my uncle's bank account to buy a neurotoxin antidote, dropped my pathetic, trembling disguise, and stepped calmly into the monster's cage.
I wasn't here to be their victim. I was here to save him.