From Mafia Pawn To The Don's Queen

It wasn't a gun, but the pen in my hand was going to end my life just the same. Liam, the man I was supposed to marry in a month, pointed to the tablet on his desk. It showed a live feed of my mother’s hospital room. "Sign the confession, Ava," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "Take the fall for the embezzlement. Or the funding for her ventilator stops in ten seconds." My heart hammered against my ribs. The crimes weren't mine. They belonged to Chloe, his mistress. But Liam Valenti, the Underboss of New York, was sacrificing me to save her. "She's fragile," he said casually, adjusting his silk cuffs. "She can't handle prison. You're strong. You'll survive." With tears blurring my vision, I signed the document. I signed away my career as a lawyer and my freedom to save my mother. Liam snatched the paper like a prize. He didn't offer comfort. He just smirked. "Good girl. The wedding is still on, of course. You'll look beautiful in the ankle monitor." He walked out to celebrate with his mistress, thinking he had won. Thinking he owned me. But he forgot one crucial detail. I wasn't just his fiancée. I was the one who laundered his money. I knew where every body was buried—literally and financially. The moment the door clicked shut, I stopped crying. I pulled out a burner phone and opened an encrypted app. I wasn't going to jail. I was going to war. I typed three words to the one man Liam feared most. "Execute Protocol Zero."

Chapters

Chapter 3

Ava POV:

The biting wind whipped around the entrance of the law firm, stinging my exposed skin.

Security had marched me out five minutes ago.

My box of personal effects-a pitiful cardboard tomb for a seven-year career-sat on the curb next to me.

"Disbarred," the senior partner had said, refusing to meet my gaze. "Pending investigation into the fraud allegations."

Liam moved fast.

He had leaked the confession I signed less than an hour ago.

In the court of public opinion, I was already the villain.

I reached into the box and pulled out a stack of research notes.

To the untrained eye, they looked like standard case studies.

To me, they were my insurance policy.

Hidden ledgers.

Routing numbers.

The financial DNA of the Valenti crime family.

"There she is!"

The scream came from the left.

I turned just as something wet and heavy struck my shoulder. A rotten tomato exploded against my white blouse, splattering red pulp across the silk.

A crowd had gathered.

Not paparazzi.

Civilians.

People who had lost their homes, their pensions, and their livelihoods to the Valenti loan-sharking schemes.

Schemes that were now publicly attributed to me.

"Thief!"

"Whore!"

"Give me back my money!"

The mob surged forward like a tidal wave.

I stumbled back, my heel catching on the curb.

My ankle twisted with a sickening pop.

I fell hard onto the asphalt, the research notes scattering across the grime of the street.

"No," I gasped, scrambling to gather them.

A heavy boot slammed down on my hand.

I looked up.

A man with a desperate, angry face glared down at me.

"You ruined my life," he spat.

I didn't argue.

I couldn't tell him that the man who actually ruined his life was standing twenty floors up, watching us like a god in his tower.

I looked up at the glass balcony of the firm.

Liam was there.

He was leaning against the railing, a tumbler of scotch in his hand.

Chloe was beside him, feigning shock, her hand pressed theatrically over her mouth.

Liam pointed down at me.

He was showing me my place.

In the dirt.

Beneath his boot.

The crowd surged again, shoving me.

My head hit the pavement hard.

Stars burst behind my eyes, syncing with the throbbing pain radiating from my ankle.

But then, I heard it.

My phone dinged.

One single, clear tone cutting through the shouting.

I scrambled for it, curling my body to shield the screen from the angry mob.

Package delivered. Mother is in London. Safe.

Ethan.

A laugh bubbled up in my throat.

It sounded jagged, broken-a sound barely human.

The man stepping on my hand pulled back, looking unsettled by my reaction.

"She's crazy," someone whispered.

I laughed harder.

I wasn't crazy.

I was untethered.

I pushed myself up, ignoring the screaming agony in my ankle.

I grabbed the scattered papers, shoving them into my blouse, pressing them against my skin like armor.

"Get away from me!" I screamed at the crowd.

The ferocity in my voice made them recoil.

I limped away.

One step. Two steps.

Dragging my injured leg behind me.

I didn't go to my apartment. Liam would have guards waiting.

I hailed a cab, practically throwing myself into the back seat.

"Hospital," I gasped. "St. Jude's."

I needed to make one final stop before the airport.

I needed visual confirmation that the extraction was clean.

I texted Nex.

Burn it down.

The reply was instantaneous.

Initializing.

The cab screeched up to the hospital entrance.

I threw a wad of cash at the driver and stumbled out.

I needed to see the empty room.

I needed to see the ghost of where she used to be.

I hobbled through the sliding doors.

And ran straight into a wall of muscle.

A hand clamped around my upper arm like a vice.

"Going somewhere, cara?"

The voice was smooth, dark, and terrifyingly familiar.

I looked up.

Liam.

He wasn't smiling anymore.

His eyes were scanning the lobby, paranoid and predatory.

"I'm visiting my mother," I lied, my voice steady despite the fire in my leg.

"Are you?" Liam asked.

He squeezed my arm harder, his fingers digging into my bruise.

"Let's go see her then."

He dragged me toward the elevators.

He didn't know.

Not yet.

But he was about to find out that his bird had flown the cage.

Continue to next part

I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me-because he didn't have the balls to do it himself. I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn't been enough for him, if I'd been stupid for marrying him in the first place. I'm at work one night when he walks inside-the most beautiful man I've ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it's the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again. I just want him as an anti-depressant-but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he's hooked. I don't get much of a say in the matter, and that's not surprising when I learn why-because he's the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules-or pay. And now I'm his.

Billionaire Mafia Modern

9.5

Discarded Wife: The Shadow Strategist Returns

9.5

I stood in the center of the ballroom, watching my husband accept credit for the massacre I had meticulously planned. To the underworld, Craig Snyder was the King, a strategic genius who had crippled the Russian mafia. To me, he was the man who had just re-gifted my anniversary present—a Patek Philippe watch—to match the diamond bracelet dangling from his mistress’s wrist. The Senator’s daughter, Chanel, laughed at a joke only he could hear, wearing a red dress and a look of naive adoration that used to be mine. When I confronted him, expecting an apology, Craig didn't just dismiss me. He slapped me across the face in front of the city's elite, the sound echoing like a gunshot. He yanked the wedding ring off my finger, drawing blood, and placed it into Chanel’s palm, calling me a hysterical, barren relic. Later, I found the forged documents. He had signed my name to transfer every asset we built together into his sole possession, leaving me with nothing but a hush-money check. He thought I was just a scorned wife. He forgot that I was the architect of his empire. So, I drove my car off a bridge. I let the world believe I was dead. I let him mourn the woman he destroyed while I watched from the shadows, erasing his existence from my accounts. Six months later, at the Global Crime Summit, Craig stood up with a diamond ring, ready to beg my memory for forgiveness. But the doors opened, and I didn't walk in alone. I walked onto the stage holding the hand of his deadliest rival, Felix Tyson. I wasn't there to take him back. I was there to take his kingdom.

Mafia Modern Romance

7.6

Divorce Unleashed Her: The Mafia Empress Awakens

7.6

She was the heir of a criminal syndicate, bred to command the underworld. For seven years she loved the wrong man, serving his family and building their fortune. Her payment was betrayal-his affair with her best friend. During her three-year coma, he hissed, "Don't wake up." They carried on at her bedside, then plotted her death to steal the company. She woke anyway and shattered them, rattling high society as a mafia heir and lethal fighter who ran the black-market economy. He begged. She kicked him aside and chose the man who'd waited a decade-the world's top arms dealer. "I'm yours."

Mafia Modern Romance

8.3

Fake Amnesia, Real Betrayal: I Left, He Crawled Back

8.3

In the fifth year of Irene Shaw's marriage to Ethan Hart, he was involved in a car accident and lost his memory. No matter how she tried to prove that they had once loved each other, Ethan still insisted on a divorce. His reasoning was hard to refute. "If I really loved you as much as you claim, how could I forget you?" The childhood sweetheart who had once cut him off without hesitation had now become his sole emotional anchor. He looked at Irene coldly. "Since you know this is a mistake, why not end it cleanly?" The hands that had once refused to let her go now recoiled from even her lightest touch. Disheartened and exhausted, Irene signed her name and pushed him completely out of her life. Not long after, Ethan stopped her in the rain, his eyes red from crying. "Irene, don't leave me. You said I'd never lose you." As the car window slid shut, the arm around her waist tightened instinctively, and someone spoke before she could. "Drive on. Irene said she doesn't know him." She lowered her gaze, feeling a serene detachment, "I really don't know him."

Mafia Modern Romance

7.6

He Faked Death, I Married The Don

7.6

I was arranging white lilies on the cold marble of my husband's grave when I saw a ghost. Walking through the cemetery gates was a man who looked exactly like my dead husband, Dante. Logic said it was his twin brother, Matteo. But a wife knows the slope of a man's shoulders. She knows the arrogant tilt of his chin. My husband hadn't been blown up in a car bomb three years ago. He had faked his death to steal his brother's rank, his fortune, and his mistress. For three years, I had forced our son, Leo, to kiss a photograph goodnight. We lived in a damp, peeling apartment, surviving on the "charity" of the Family. Meanwhile, Dante was living in a mansion, driving cars that cost more than my life, playing house with another woman. When he came to our cramped apartment to drop off the monthly "pension" money, pretending to be Uncle Matteo, he didn't look at me with love. He looked at his watch. When Leo ran to hug him, shouting "Papa," Dante peeled the boy's small arms off his expensive suit like he was removing a piece of lint. "Don't call me that," he snapped. "I am your Uncle." My grief turned into ice. He chose another woman's comfort over his own son's hunger. I grabbed Leo's hand and walked out the door. "You walk away, and you get nothing!" Dante shouted after me. "You'll be on the street!" I didn't stop. I walked straight to the black SUV idling at the curb. The window rolled down, revealing Salvatore Vitiello. The Don. The most lethal man in the city. "Get in, Elena," he commanded. I opened the door and slid onto the leather seat next to the devil himself. As we drove away, leaving my husband in the dust, I realized I had just traded a liar for a killer. And I didn't regret it for a second.

Mafia Modern Romance

8.3

Revenge Is Sweet: Marrying His Worst Enemy

8.3

I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction. Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world. "The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella." I froze. My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival. He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen." I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours. Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content. He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's. Then, he pushed me off the edge. As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing. I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement. "Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game." He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life. But he forgot that I knew his secrets. I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson. "It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt."

Action Mafia Romance

From Mafia Pawn To The Don's Queen

Chapter 3

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