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 6
Ava walked the stairs and pushed the door to her room open.
He had been shot. And they all acted like it was normal, he showed no sign of pain, what had he been through to be able to act unbothered even when broken.
She let out a shaky sigh and laid on her bed closing her eyes before drifting to sleep.
The next morning, she woke up quite early and freshened up, before walking downstairs. At the dining table, Zena, Alessandro, Ethan and Ziven were seated.
"Dear, come over" Zena gestured to her and she nodded, walking over to her and taking her seat.
The silence felt awkward as she felt like a prey being watched by a group of predators.
Alessandro stood up followed by Ethan and Ziven.
"Ziven, when are you leaving?" Zena asked.
"In two days time," Ziven said.
"Then why did you come here if you were not going to spend time here?" Zena asked.
"I came to take a new batch of arms" Ziven said and Zena nodded.
"You should visit more," Zena commented.
"Yes ma" Ziven laughed.
"Mum, we are leaving," Ethan said.
"Go well" Zena muttered and kissed his forehead.
Alessandro and his group disappeared through the front door and Ava looked up from her food.
"Arms?" She asked.
"Yes, he is a legal arms dealer" Zena said and Ava nodded.
Back in the car.
"The new batch of arms would be transported by tomorrow" Alessandro said and Ziven nodded.
" You sure are efficient , Draco" He said but Alessandro did not respond, instead he turned his gaze to Ethan.
"What were you saying?" He asked.
"We've got a mole on our side" Ethan reported.
"A mole?" Ziven asked surprisingly, " Are they ready to die?" He added.
"Suspects?" Alessandro asked as the car came to a stop and they alighted.
"K and Hawk," Ethan said.
"Bring the evidence to my office" He instructed and walked into the elevator with Ziven.
"How's your injury?" Ziven asked when they were alone in the elevator.
"It's been three months, I've gone through worse," Alessandro said, his face calm.
"Draco" Ziven whispered his name like a prayer and Alessandro chuckled.
"Alright, it hurts a little but I'm fine" He said as they walked out of the elevator.
Ziven held him roughly and threw a punch to his chest. Alessandro took two steps backward as he grimaced in pain.
"What was that for?" Alessandro winced.
"You are not fine" Ziven said matter of factly. "It's just a little bit below your heart man, do you want to die?" He asked angrily, his face contorted into a frown. " I'm calling Aunt , does she know you are in town?" Ziven asked.
"You will do no such thing, I've a potential mole in my men, an enemy I know nothing about, I can't sit idle around" Sandro spat and Ziven sighed.
"You've to take it easy on yourself, Draco and you know aunt will get to know about this soon given her network" Ziven said.
"I know how to handle her" Alessandro said and pushed the door to his office open, meeting Ethan waiting for him with a tablet in his hand.
Alessandro sat down on his chair and took the tablet over from Ethan playing the two videos.
In the first video, Hawk walked hurriedly out of their base with a mask covering his face and a baseball cap, looking hurriedly around for any secret follower before discreetly boarding a cab.
In the next video, K, also wearing a mask, got into a black car whose driver was also wearing a mask with huge sunglasses that covered his eyes and a cap.
"Who owns this car?" Alessandro asked.
"It belongs to a low budget textile company," Ethan replied.
"Put extra focus on them and follow them to get more information about them" Alessandro instructed.
"Yes boss," Ethan nodded. " Boss, there is something else"
"Speak," Alessandro said.
"Two of the men that are under Mr Caleb 'The bull' had been spotted mining gold at Crimson Ore, the place you ordered no one to enter for the time being" Ethan reported.
"Let's pay him a visit" Alessandro muttered as he stood up motioning Ethan to go prepare the car.
The car came to a stop at a casino with blinding lights. The signboard read 'Bull Casino'.
The group of three walked in passing women dressed in scanty clothes. The air felt thick with smoke and cologne.
"Inform your boss I'm here" Alessandro said to a waiter and walked upstairs into a private room.
Moments later, the door of the private room pushed open and a pot bellied man in his late fifties walked in.
"Draco" He called with reverence. "Mr Ziven" He called and shook hands with him while nodding at Ethan who nodded back.
"So what do I hold this sudden meeting Draco?" He asked as he waved the waiter who poured them drinks away.
"We just got hold of information that your men despite my warning are busy mining gold at Crimson Ore" Alessandro said getting straight to the point as always.
"I don't know what you're talking about" Caleb said.
"Hmm..." Alessandro drawled, his eyes locked on Caleb.
"The men had been caught by us and they had revealed that they were working on orders" Ethan said.
"Maybe they are my disobedient boys, I won't order my men to mine gold when you instructed against it" Caleb said.
"Bring them in" Alessandro said, his eyes turning cold - he hated men that could not take responsibility for thier actions.
Ethan worked quickly and soon two battered men were led into the room.
"Who sent you?" Alessandro asked.
"It's boss here" One of the men said spitting out blood.
"I need names" Alessandro thundered.
"It's...its The bull" The second man said trembling.
"Are you still going to deny it" Alessandro asked his gaze slowly returning to Caleb.
"Draco, I'm sorry, I was just in need of money at that moment" Caleb pleaded.
"I hate disobedience" Alessandro muttered and...
Bang!
A gunshot was heard, a bullet piercing into the leg of Mr Caleb.
"You should have allowed me did that" Ziven whined.
"A warning" Alessandro eyes swept past Caleb's face.
"Yes.. Yes" He stuttered.
"Let's go" Alessandro instructed and stood up, Ziven and Ethan following him.
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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.