Best Mafia Novels

I was gasping for air on the cold marble floor of the Syndicate Ball, my lungs seizing in a familiar, lethal rhythm. My inhaler was just five feet away, but it might as well have been miles. Dante Moretti, the man who bought my life with his blood eight years ago, looked right at me. He saw my panic. He saw the weakness he despised. Then, he turned his back on me to continue waltzing with his mistress. That betrayal was just the beginning. When the elevator trapped us days later, the lights flickering and the air growing thin, Dante didn't hesitate. He pried the doors open and carried Sofia out like a fragile bride. He left me—his wife with a diagnosed respiratory condition—alone in the suffocating dark to die. He missed my birthday dinner to comfort her on a Ferris Wheel, leaving me to celebrate with a single candle on a slice of toast. I finally realized that to him, I wasn't a wife to be cherished. I was just property to be owned. Something inside me didn't just break; it clicked into place. I stopped waiting for him to come home. I left my wedding ring on the table, blocked his number, and walked out into the night. Now, Dante is tearing the city apart to find me, claiming he realizes his mistake. But he's too late. Because the man standing beside me now isn't offering me a diamond ring or empty promises. He just handed me a loaded Glock and asked if I wanted to be his Queen.

My fiancé Jaret Frazier promised to protect me on my nineteenth birthday. By the next year, he had married a Mafia Princess for power and locked me in a hidden apartment as his secret mistress. When his new wife discovered I was pregnant, she didn't file for divorce. She sent her enforcers to my bedside. They held me down while a back-alley butcher tore my unborn son from my womb. Jaret never came to save me. For ten years, I rotted in that gilded cage, watching him use my money to become an Underboss while I faded into a ghost. I died alone, completely erased. Then, I opened my eyes. I was back in my own bed, unscarred, the calendar turned back to the year my life was destroyed. Jaret was still just my fiancé, not yet my jailer. And this time, I wouldn't be the one who ended up in a cage.

My father arranged a marriage for my half-sister, Emmalee, with Don Damian Griffith, the ruthless "King of New York." But Emmalee, in love with a penniless lawyer, refused and, weeping, pointed at me, the illegitimate daughter, offering me as the sacrifice. My stepmother packed cheap plastic pearls and copper chains, and my father coldly told me to "bleed quietly" if the Don decided to cut me. "Don't think you've won, Isabell," Emmalee hissed, handing me a shimmering emerald gown, the signature color of the Don's volatile mistress-a clear death trap. Why did my own family want me dead? As the armored car pulled away, I dumped the green silk, put on a dress of pure ivory, and fastened our family's stolen midnight-blue sapphires around my neck. They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter, but I was walking into the lion's den with a hidden blade.

I made one mistake - I saw something I was never meant to see. Now I belong to him. The most feared mafia king in the city. Cold. Ruthless. Untouchable. He says marrying me is the only way to keep me alive. A contract. A deal. A cage made of gold and blood. I should hate him for forcing me into his world of violence and secrets. I should fear the darkness in his eyes... and the power in his touch. But the closer I get to him, the more I see the man beneath the monster. The man who would burn the world to keep me safe. And the most terrifying part? I'm not sure I want to escape anymore.

To save on the outrageous wages of hired movers, I, Jade Lawson, bought a werewolf who had been returned three times from a secondhand trading site. The seller warned me he was vicious, wild, and prone to biting. What caught my eye wasn't his temperament. It was his build. Six foot three, solid muscle, the kind of body that looked like it could haul six hundred pounds of packages without breaking a sweat. When he arrived, he was indeed vicious. He kept sneaking into my room at night, pressing his scorching body against mine and grinding his teeth against the back of my neck. I thought he was teething. Or worse, developing rabies. I contacted the seller immediately to request a return. After hearing my description, the seller went quiet for a long time. "We don't recommend returning him." "He's not teething. Werewolves only feel the urge to bite the back of their mate's neck during their rut phase. It's a mate-marking instinct." "He wants you. He's trying to get you to bear his pups."

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?"