Broken Strings: The Mafia Wife’s Exit

I was bleeding out in the dark, bound to a chair, when I heard my husband tell another woman he would burn the world down for her. Dante Moretti didn't know I was on the other side of the paper-thin wall. He didn't know that ten years ago, I was the girl who saved his life in a frozen cave, not his mistress, Sofia. Sofia had stolen my story, and now she was stealing my life. When I tried to leave him, Dante chained me in his dungeon and whipped me until I passed out, claiming he was "disciplining" his wife. When Sofia used steel cello strings to slice my fingers open, destroying my ability to ever play again, he looked the other way. He even chose to save her over me when we fell into the freezing ocean, leaving me to drown because "Sofia is my soul." That night, I finally stopped fighting for a man who didn't exist. I called my brother, the Don of New York. "The alliance is over," I whispered into the phone. "Take me home." It took Dante three months to uncover the truth. To see the medical records proving I was the one who dragged him from that cave. He burned his own boat to trap us on an island, begging for a second chance. "I can fix this," he pleaded, tears streaming down his face as he touched my scarred, ruined hands. I looked at him, then at the man standing behind him with a rifle—the man who actually loved me. "You can't fix a shattered vase, Dante," I said. Then I watched my new protector pull the trigger.

Chapters

Chapter 2

The heavy metal door to my holding cell crashed against the wall.

It wasn't Dante.

It was Mia. My maid. My bodyguard. The only soul in this godforsaken, frozen city who gave a damn whether I drew breath or suffocated.

She had a serrated combat knife gripped in one hand and a Glock in the other. Her face was streaked with soot, her eyes wide with urgency.

"Principessa," she breathed, rushing to me. With a swift motion, she sliced the ropes binding my wrists. "We have to go. The engine is running out back."

"Dante is in the next room," I whispered. My voice was a rusted scrape against my raw throat.

Mia froze.

She looked at the wall, then back at me. She saw the devastation in my eyes. She didn't ask. She knew.

"Then we leave him here," she said grimly. "He stays."

We didn't get the chance.

We were halfway down the hallway when Dante stepped out of the adjacent room.

He looked infuriatingly impeccable. His black suit was unwrinkled, his dark hair perfectly styled. The only sign of his recent activities was the slight flush on his neck and the wild, frantic energy in his eyes.

He wasn't carrying Sofia. She was walking behind him, looking pale and fragile, clutching his jacket like a lifeline.

Dante's eyes landed on me.

They were cold. Glacial.

He didn't look at the blood on my arm. He didn't look at the bruises blooming on my wrists.

"You," he said. It wasn't a greeting. It was a verdict.

"Me," I replied. I straightened my spine, ignoring the scream of my battered muscles. I was a Vitiello. I would not cower.

He crossed the distance between us in two long strides. He grabbed my upper arm, his grip bruising.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" he hissed.

I stared at him. "Find out what?"

"That you arranged for her to be taken," he snarled, jerking his head toward Sofia. "That you paid those men to drag her out of the estate so you could have me to yourself."

My mouth fell open.

Behind him, Sofia buried her face in her hands, sobbing quietly. "I told you, Dante. She hates me. She told me I was a leech."

"I did no such thing," I said, my voice trembling with rage. "I was kidnapped too, Dante! I was rotting in the room next door while you were playing Romeo!"

"Liar," he spat. "My men found you untied. Mia was walking you out."

He looked at Mia. His hand went to his waistband, where his gun sat.

"Don't." I stepped in front of Mia. "She saved me. Which is more than you did."

Dante released me with a shove. I stumbled back.

"Get in the car," he ordered. "We are going home. And then we are going to settle this."

The drive back to the estate was suffocating, silent as a tomb.

I watched the Chicago skyline blur past the tinted windows, gray and indifferent.

When we arrived at the mansion, Dante carried Sofia inside. He ordered the doctor to attend to her immediately.

He left me standing in the cavernous foyer, a ghost in my own home, with dried blood crusting on my sleeve.

I walked up the grand staircase, my legs feeling like lead. I went to my room. I needed to wash the filth of this day off my skin.

But when I opened the door to my suite, I stopped.

Something was wrong.

The room was too empty.

My eyes darted to the corner by the window.

The stand was empty.

My cello.

My mother's 1710 Matteo Goffriller cello. The instrument that was worth more than this entire house. The instrument that held the last remnants of my soul.

It was gone.

Panic, cold and sharp, sliced through my veins.

I ran to the closet. Empty.

I ran to the hallway.

"Mia!" I screamed.

Continue to next part

After a brutal ambush leaves Seraphina crippled and discarded by her family, her arranged marriage to Marco Falcone is canceled. Cast aside as damaged, she finds an unexpected savior in Marco's brother, Dante, who offers her marriage and protection from her past humiliation. But a year later, Seraphina discovers a devastating betrayal: Dante and her own brother orchestrated the attack that ruined her, and she is nothing more than his captive property.

Billionaire Mafia Modern Romance

7.5

Betrayed Wife: Saved By The Mafia King

7.5

I was sitting in the obstetrics clinic, rubbing my four-month bump, when a livestream popped up on my phone. It was my husband, Xander, exchanging vows with my illegitimate half-sister, Rissa. The caption read: "The Commission never ratified your marriage. You're just the incubator." My husband and my father had sworn they were at a critical mafia sit-down. But there they were on the screen, laughing. I called Xander. He answered, thinking he was slick, but he forgot to mute the room. "Two more years of acting like a saint," I heard him sneer to his men. "Fucking her is a chore. But she's worth fifty million in clean assets." My marriage was void. My child was considered a bastard by the Mafia code. When I confronted them later at the gala, Rissa threw herself to the ground, screaming that I attacked her. Xander shoved me. Hard. I hit the table, and as blood trickled down my legs, he didn't even look at me. He scooped Rissa up and stepped over my bleeding body like I was trash. They froze my accounts. They hunted me down to a cheap motel, planning to kill me once I signed over the trust fund. I was cornered by a mob in a dirty clinic, waiting for the final blow. But it never came. A hand caught the metal chair mid-air. Killian Qiro, the most dangerous man in Chicago, stood over me. "Who dares?" he growled, his eyes dark with lethal promise. "Who dares call a Qiro child a bastard?" He picked me up from the dirt. "Xander is a dead man walking," he whispered against my hair. "He just doesn't know it yet."

Mafia Modern Romance

8.6

Designing My Husband's Demise

8.6

On her anniversary, Brooke returns home to find her husband, Andre, plotting with her apprentice, Giselle. Dismissed as a mere walking wallet, Brooke listens as Andre and his scheming mother conspire to steal her elite secrets and vast assets. Disgusted by their treachery, she refuses to play the victim. With a single encrypted message to her Swiss banker, Brooke initiates a ruthless plan of retaliation. The traitors have no idea she is about to strip them of everything at the upcoming family meeting.

Billionaire Mafia Modern Romance

8.3

Done Playing My Mafia Husband’s Divorce Game

8.3

Maeve has married Carter Throne, the youngest Capo, seven times, only to be discarded whenever his childhood sweetheart, Tessa, needs protection. After years of fighting for her marriage and enduring humiliation, Maeve has finally grown cold to Carter's repetitive divorce game. When Tessa returns from Italy, Maeve preemptively signs the papers and prepares to vanish. Carter expects another remarriage, unaware that Maeve is leaving his world of lies forever.

Mafia Modern Mystery Romance

9.3

Fall For My Ex's Mafia Dad

9.3

Psychologist Fay is assigned to treat a formidable mafia kingpin imprisoned behind bars. The situation turns personal when she discovers her patient is the father of her ex-boyfriend. During a volatile session, the ruthless leader corners her, making his intentions undeniable. Fay attempts to maintain her professional ethics, but she is soon consumed by a powerful attraction to the dangerous man. As he admits to wanting her from their very first meeting, Fay finds herself caught in a forbidden and high-stakes entanglement.

Mafia Modern Romance

7.5

Reborn Heiress: Pampered By The Ruthless Don

7.5

The man smiling in the silver frame on my vanity was the very same man who, in exactly three months, would wrap his hands around my throat. I knew this because I had already died. I had felt the freezing, silty water of the Hudson River fill my lungs while Alexander watched the life drain from my eyes, his mistress laughing in the background. I had hovered like a ghost above my own funeral, watching the betrayal continue even after my death. My mother, the perfect Mafia widow, stood stoically next to my killer, unaware she had sold her daughter to a butcher. My fiancé checked his watch, bored, waiting to liquidate my inheritance. But then I saw him. Darrian Golden. The Don of the rival clan. The enemy. He stood in the pouring rain, his expensive suit soaked through, staring at my coffin as if the world had ended. When the earth hit the wood, he didn't just cry; he roared in primal agony. My fiancé killed me, but my enemy was the only one who mourned me. "The Commission is waiting," my mother’s voice snapped the timeline back into place. She stood in my doorway, demanding I set the engagement date to secure the territory. She saw a charming Capo; I saw the rat who had cut my father's brake lines. In my first life, I was a trembling bird. In this life, I was the match that would burn the cage down. I smashed the photo frame against the marble table, the sound cracking through the room like a gunshot. "Contact the Golden Clan," I commanded. My mother went pale. "He is a savage, Azalea. He butchers men for sport." "Tell Don Golden that Azalea Kidd is offering a parley," I said, looking out the window at the city that would soon be ours. "Tell him I am offering the only thing he has ever wanted: Me."

Billionaire Fantasy Mafia

Broken Strings: The Mafia Wife’s Exit

Chapter 2

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