He Was Doomed to Die Until I Married Him
Ten days before our scheduled wedding, my fiancé, Capo Leo Gallo, came to my family's estate in the pouring rain.
He didn't come to comfort me over my parents' recent deaths. He came to tell me that his mistress, Angelica, would remain by his side and hold the real power in our home. I was to be his wife in name only.
He wanted to publicly humiliate me and steal my family's Brooklyn docks.
In my past life, I didn't realize Leo and his family had actually orchestrated the brutal ambush that left my parents dead in a pool of blood.
I endured his insults, only to be locked away in a gilded cage while they used my six-year-old brother, Luca, as a hostage.
They drained my mother's trust fund, elevated his mistress to rule my home, and eventually sent my little brother and me to our miserable graves.
They thought I was just a powerless orphan they could easily crush.
They thought I didn't know the absolute truth behind the massacre that ruined my family and crippled the Don's eldest son, Damien Moretti.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in the cold drizzle, listening to his arrogant demands.
"As you wish, Leo," I said, burying my burning need for vendetta beneath a mask of hollow defeat.
The moment he left to celebrate his victory, I turned to my loyal maid.
"Send a message to the Mafia Queen. Tell her I am breaking my engagement to Leo. I wish to marry her crippled son, Damien, instead."
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
Isabella POV
"I am not defying you, Don Luciano," I said, keeping my voice steady despite the terrifying weight of his glare. "I am protecting the honor of your original decree."
Luciano’s eyes narrowed, a silent warning that I was treading on thin ice.
"Leo Gallo intends to parade his mistress, Angelica Russo, as the true head of his household," I continued, the words tasting like ash but necessary for my survival. "He plans to publicly dishonor me, and by extension, the Don who arranged the union. To marry him now would be a stain on both the Falcone and Moretti names. Marrying your eldest son—a man of true royal blood—is the only way to salvage that honor."
"Luciano, please," Gabriella Moretti suddenly spoke, her voice trembling with a mother's fierce desperation. She stepped forward, her hands clasped. "She is offering Damien a loyal wife. A chance to rebuild. The other families whisper that our son is a lost cause. Let this girl prove them wrong."
The Don stared at his wife, his jaw clenching at her emotional outburst, before his cold, calculating gaze snapped back to me. He saw the political advantage instantly. By tying the last Falcone to his crippled son, he secured my family's lucrative Brooklyn docks without rewarding the arrogant Leo Gallo.
"You wish to tie your fate to a useless man, Isabella?" Luciano sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. "Fine. The decree is made. You will marry Damien. But know this—when you drown in the mess you have chosen, do not expect me to mourn at your funeral."
"Thank you, Don Luciano," I murmured, bowing my head to hide the dangerous spark of triumph in my eyes.
By the time I returned to the Falcone estate, the rain had stopped, leaving behind a bitter, biting chill. The moment I stepped into the overgrown courtyard, I knew something was wrong.
Guido, the loyal old Soldier who had served my father for decades, was pacing the cobblestones, his hand resting dangerously on the grip of his holstered pistol. Beside him, Chelsea was wringing her apron, her face flushed with indignation.
At their feet sat two small crates wrapped in cheap, gaudy pink silk.
"What is this?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"A gift from Mrs. Gallo," Guido spat, his voice shaking with raw fury. "A mistress's dowry. They sent it to mock you, *Signorina*. To tell the world that a Falcone without a powerful husband is nothing but a whore. Give me the word, and I will go to their townhouse and demand satisfaction in blood."
I stared at the pathetic pink silk. The Gallos thought I was broken. They thought I was a powerless orphan they could humiliate before stealing my inheritance.
"No, Guido," I said, my voice eerily calm.
"But *Signorina*—"
"Take them inside and store them," I ordered, my eyes locking onto the old Soldier's. "On the day Leo Gallo marries his precious Angelica, we will have these crates returned to them. Delivered by a brass band, for all of New York's Five Families to see."
Guido paused, the anger in his eyes slowly shifting into a dark, understanding respect. He nodded once and picked up the crates.
I walked past them and entered the shadowed study. Luca was still curled in the leather armchair beneath our father's portrait. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the hardest part of my plan.
"In ten days," I announced to the room, "I am marrying Damien Moretti."
Chelsea gasped, dropping the silver tray she had been holding. Luca let out a terrified sob and scrambled toward me, burying his face in my skirt.
"No, Bella! Please!" Luca cried, his small frame shaking. "He's a monster! They say he's going to die!"
I dropped to my knees, ignoring the dampness of my dress, and took his face in my hands. "Listen to me, *mio piccolo leone* (my little lion)," I whispered fiercely, forcing him to look into my eyes. "I will not die. I swear it on our parents' graves. I will live, and I will thrive, and I will hold our enemies at bay until you are old enough to take your rightful place as the head of this family."
I stood up and turned to Guido and Chelsea. "Until the Don makes the announcement, absolute Omertà. If the Gallos learn I am taking the docks to the Morettis, they will try to slaughter us before the wedding."
I smoothed down my mourning dress, my mind already calculating the next move. "Tomorrow, we go to the tailor shop on Fifth Avenue. Luca needs a new suit for the wedding, and we must show the city that the Falcones are not hiding in the shadows."
You may also like
7.6
Cierra Monroe never meant to steal her mother's life.
One veil. One signature. One wedding meant to save her family....But lies spoken at an altar don't disappear.
Dominic Vance remembers the girl who stood beside him. The way she trembled. The way her eyes lingered.
And when the truth comes out, he doesn't let her go.
What starts as a secret turns into obsession.
What feels like protection becomes control.
And love quickly turns violent.
Cierra is hunted, locked away, and forced to choose between men who all want her for different reasons.
Her boyfriend fights for her freedom.
Her protector betrays her trust.
And her stepfather decides she belongs to him.
Blood is spilled.
Guns are raised.
Promises are broken.
And Cierra learns too late that some vows never end... even when they were never meant to be real.
Because not all that glitters is gold.
Sometimes... all that glitters is my stepdad.
9.1
Waking up with a cold, scaly hand wrapped around my throat wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was realizing I'd transmigrated into the body of Terra Mason—the most despised woman in the entire Enclave. She drugged high-level beast-men and forced them into life-binding bio-contracts. She locked an aquatic warrior in a dry basement until his organs failed. She treated the most lethal males in the city like broken toys.
Zev, the Level 6 serpent who's currently choking me, would rather blow up his own heart than spend another day as my slave. His affection metric? Negative ninety. His trust? Zero.
Then my system activates: the Kore AI. It gives me exactly 500 credits, a medical nano-gel, and a recipe for neutralizing the radioactive poison in mutant meat. Real food. In this world, that's worth more than gold.
I save Rhys, the dying aquatic male everyone left for dead. I season a slab of purple mutant steak until Sam, a battle-scarred grizzly shifter, groans at the taste—and his trust points finally tick above zero. When my backstabbing ex-best friend tries to steal my males and destroy me, I don't scream or throw a tantrum like the old Terra. I dismantle her with the truth.
But earning their trust means more than grilling meat. A scorpion swarm ambushes us at midnight. Sam throws himself between me and a stinger the size of my arm. As he stands over the corpse, fur receding from his claws, he stares at me and whispers, "You were testing me."
Yes. I was. Because in this world, the weak don't survive. And I refuse to be weak again.
Four beast-men. Four contracts. One system. And a whole lot of steak. Let this dystopian wasteland know—I'm not the monster they remember. I'm worse. I'm the one who's going to feed them until they'd kill for me.
7.7
Three days after my fiancé publicly dumped me for my stepsister, the Supreme Don issued a command that silenced the entire estate.
I wasn't being cast aside. I was being sold to Damien Russo.
The "Broken Don." A crippled, scarred monster rumored to have murdered his last two wives.
My adoptive mother, Elena, didn't cry for me. She smirked.
To her, I was finally being disposed of.
She was so confident I was walking to my death that she decided to loot my corpse before I even left.
She forged documents to steal my entire inheritance—my biological mother’s trust fund—to pay for my stepsister’s lavish wedding to my ex.
"She won't need money where she's going," my stepsister laughed, wearing a dress bought with my stolen funds.
They thought they were sending a lamb to the slaughter.
They thought I was too weak, too stupid, and too afraid of the monster to fight back.
But they made a fatal mistake.
With my aunt’s help, I didn't just find the proof of their embezzlement; I found a weapon.
I’m not running from the monster. I’m going to marry him.
And when I hand him the evidence that the Herrera family stole from his bride, he won't be my executioner.
He will be my vengeance.
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."
8.1
A slow-burn romance about love, loss, and becoming worthy of the heart you almost lost.
Julien Moreau has everything-money, charm, and women who fall for him too easily.
What he doesn't have is the ability to stay.
In Paris, he is known for loving without commitment and leaving without explanation. Hearts break behind him, and he never looks back.
Until Amélie Laurent.
She is different.
She doesn't chase him.
She doesn't beg for love.
And when she realizes Julien isn't ready to love honestly, she does the one thing no woman before her has done-
She walks away.
What follows is not a chase, but a reckoning.
As Julien is forced to face the emotional damage he has left behind, he learns that love isn't about desire or charm-it's about responsibility. And Amélie learns that loving someone should never cost her self-respect.
In a city where romance is everywhere, two hearts must decide:
Is love something you run from...
Or something you grow into?
Hearts Don't Break in Paris - They Teach is an emotional, slow-burn romance filled with self-discovery, redemption, and a love that chooses honesty over fear.
7.4
MAFIA DESIRE
7.4
In the city where power was inherited through bloodshed and silence, love was the most dangerous liability of all.
She emerged from the shadows like a secret the underworld had failed to bury-elegant, unreadable, and far more lethal than she appeared. Every step she took echoed with intention. Every smile concealed a calculation. Men underestimated her. They always did. And they always paid for it.
He was young, brilliant, and already feared. A rising king in a world that devoured the weak, carrying ambition like a loaded weapon. He didn't trust easily, didn't hesitate, and didn't believe in fate-until her presence began to unravel everything he thought he controlled.
Their connection wasn't born of innocence or chance. It was forged in danger, sealed by secrets, and fueled by a hunger neither of them dared to name. In a world ruled by betrayal, they found something far more terrifying than enemies-each other.
Because when desire collides with power, and love becomes a threat, survival is no longer guaranteed.
And in the mafia, nothing is more deadly than wanting what you're not supposed to have.