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?
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Chapter 5
Ava looked down feeling drawn to this man dressed in black, whose name alone was enough to instill fear in many.
Suddenly, Alessandro looked up and locked eyes with her. Her eyes widened and her heart stopped for that moment as her eyes collided with his several heights away.
He coolly tore his gaze away and walked in with his men behind him.
The door of the sitting room was pushed open and Alessandro walked in followed by his PA, Ethan Wallace.
"Sandro" Zena called.
"Aunt Zena" Sandro whispered and walked over to her.
"How have you been?" He asked.
"What do you want to hear?" She asked back.
"Maybe good news" He said with a light smile gracing his lips.
"I'd been good, how was your stay in Italy?" She asked.
"The usual" He replied coolly as he handed his coat to one of the maids.
"Did mother come by?" He asked.
"Visited twice," Zena said.
"Mother" Ethan called and walked over to Zena hugging her.
"How have you been?" She asked as she took a look at him.
"I'd been good," he replied.
"You both should eat dinner" She suggested and walked into the kitchen.
The next morning.
A knock on the door woke Ava up from her sleep and she walked to the door opening it wide to see Aunt Zena.
"Good morning Zena" She greeted yawning.
"You look a mess," Zena commented with a light smile.
"Yeah, I was tired yesterday, I will freshen up soon" Ava said.
"He wants to see you" The smile disappeared from Zena's face.
"He...Who" Ava stuttered as her eyes shot open.
"Go freshen up" Zena nudged her and Ava nodded mechanically returning into the room.
"You can come in" Her voice sounded from inside the room.
"I'm okay here," Zena said.
Ava reappeared all freshen up and dressed up.
"Follow me" Zena cast a glance at her.
Ava followed her quietly through the hallway, her eyes stopping on the dragon door for a moment before walking over to Zena who had already stopped at a door.
Zena raised her hands to knock on the door.
"Let her in" A cold detached voice sounded, making Ava flinch.
Zena nodded at Ava who pushed the door open, her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the room that looked so much like a study room in an ancient palace.
"Ava" He mentioned her name.
Ava raised her gaze to him and her eyes widened for the umpteenth time since she came to this house as she caught sight of his face - Not in images or portraits.
Long fan-like eyelashes, long silky black hair laying on his shoulder, jet black eyes, a dragon tattoo on his neck trailing into his shirt, the light flickering on the tattoo made it more life-like.
"Sit" He instructed and she slowly sat down.
"You were the one that tried running away" He said with a voice devoid of emotions, and Ava nodded.
"Stupidly brave, I would say, don't try that next time" He said.
"I would like to negotiate with..."
"No negotiation" Alessandro cut her off his voice cold.
"You can leave" He said and she stood up, hurriedly walking out of the room.
She rounded the corner and held her chest breathing heavily when she heard footsteps behind her.
She turned back and saw a man also dressed in black with shorter hair walking down the stairs - eyes locked on her.
He had a sharper gaze, a black bag in his hands and a star tattoo on his neck.
" You must be Miss Ava" He stretched his hands, his voice deep.
Ava took his hands in a handshake - his hands felt rough to shake.
"Enjoy your stay here" He said and turned walking away just like that.
She walked up the stairs pushing the door of her room open. Moments later, Aunt Zena came to invite her to breakfast. She nervously walked into the dining room but she could not find him.
She took a deep breath before sitting down.
"You should stop by the company, I will go alone" She heard a cold voice coming from up the stairs.
Footsteps followed the voice and Alessandro and Ethan came into sight followed by a bunch of men on black.
Alessandro walked past her without uttering a word and she was too dumbstruck to say anything.
"You are not staying from breakfast again" Zena sighed.
"There's a whole lot of work to do, Zena" He said and walked out the house.
Ava finished breakfast and requested a canvas and painting materials.
Getting to work, she started painting attentively.
An hour later, she brushed the paint off and turned it to Zena who was watching her attentively.
The painting was in a dark hue. A girl looking out into the night, in a virtual cage, longing for freedom and a grave behind her.
"This is what I feel," Ava sighed. "I miss her"
"It's alright" Zena patted her back.
Ava nodded and walked to the back of the mansion where a garden was located. Sitting on one of the swings, she closed her eyes recounting memories to keep herself busy but all the memories were about her mother and she shot her eyes open as a tear rolled down her eye.
It was getting late and she stood up, pushing the door to the house.
"Aunt Zena," she called.
"Dear, I'm here" Zena's voice sounded from the kitchen and she walked into the kitchen.
"I'm so bored inside this house" She whined.
"Can you play chess?" Aunt Zena asked and Ava nodded.
Placing a bowl of fruits on the table by Ava, Aunt Zena brought a board of chess, and they both started playing.
The door flung open and Ava stiffened thinking Alessandro had returned.
"Ziven" Zena shrieked and threw herself into the hands of the newcomer.
"Aunt Zena, how are you doing?" Ziven asked.
"I'm fine, and you. You just came back from France?" She asked and Ziven nodded.
"So why are you here?" She asked again.
"I'm here for Draco, he was shot and I had not had the time to meet him" Ziven said.
"What do you mean he was shot?" Zena rose from her seat.
"Wow, you don't know about this, he was shot four months ago in Italy and that was why he postponed his return, Aunt Camila knows about that" Ziven said and turned to look at Ava.
"You must be the new girl," he said with a smile.
" Sandro was shot and I was not informed, I'm calling Camila" Zena said angrily.
"I think this was why you were not informed, you worry too much," Ziven said and made himself comfortable on the sofa.
"You've said enough right" Alessandro said from his back making Ava flinch, maybe they were all used to this but she did not feel his presence nor did she hear the door opening.
"Hey, I was trying to console Aunt Zena," Ziven said with a grin.
"Sandro" Zena called.
"I'm sorry" He said and walked to her holding her in her waist.
"You did something wrong right?" She asked.
"I did not want you to worry that's why" He said.
"Where's Ethan?" Zena asked.
"In the office," Sandro said.
"Draco, we have a lot to talk about" Ziven said.
" Zena, would you mind getting us coffee in the study room?" Alessandro said and Zena left.
"You should return to your room" Alessandro said to Ava who had been quiet,and she nodded walking to her room.
"Quite obedient," Ziven commented as he followed Alessandro to the study room.
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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.