I Stole My Twin Brother's Bride

My fiancé, the golden boy of the ruthless Blackwood Syndicate, smirked and asked if I could tell him apart from his identical twin brother right before our wedding.

The moment he spoke, a terrifying memory of my own murder flashed before my eyes.

In that timeline, I chose him. He used his twin as a stand-in for our sacred vows so he could secretly run off with his mistress.

When his mistress later died in a tragic shipwreck, he went mad with grief and blamed me.

He dragged me to the roof of a casino and threw me off, screaming that my existence had sealed her fate.

"You should have known it was a game!" he roared as he pushed me over the edge.

As I plummeted to my death, I saw another man jump off the roof after me, desperately reaching out to catch me in mid-air.

I didn't understand why my fiancé would make such a sick wager with our marriage, or why he would murder me when my hand in marriage was the only thing that made him Don.

And I had no idea who the man was that willingly shared my brutal death.

Blinking back to the present reality of the dressing room, I looked at my arrogant fiancé and his silent, lethal twin.

This time, I walked right past the golden boy and threw my arms around the shadow.

Chapter 1

Lily POV

The moment my fiancé smirked and asked if I could tell him apart from his identical twin brother, a terrifying memory of my own murder flashed before my eyes.

In a timeline that had already happened, he married me, his mistress died in a tragic shipwreck, and he threw me off a casino roof in blind grief—screaming that my wrong choice today had sealed her fate.

The vision was so vivid that my lungs forgot how to pull in air.

I could still feel the icy wind rushing past my face.

I could still hear the sickening crunch of my own bones shattering against the pavement.

I blinked, forcing myself back to the present reality of the heavily guarded dressing room.

Outside, the Blackwood Estate was crawling with armed soldiers.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne and a deception so palpable it seemed to displace the very air.

Julian and Jasper Blackwood stood before me.

They wore identical custom Italian suits, their dark hair slicked back in the exact same style.

Even the impeccable tailoring of their jackets was carefully designed to conceal their shoulder holsters.

They were the princes of the Blackwood Syndicate, the most ruthless mafia family on the East Coast.

This arranged marriage was supposed to merge my family’s territory with theirs.

Don Blackwood, their terrifying father, valued raw power over birth order.

He had decreed that whichever twin married the Shaw heiress would inherit the title of Don.

Julian was the arrogant golden boy, the so-called Fallen Heir who thought he could play with the sacred mafia traditions.

Jasper was the shadow.

He was the Syndicate’s lethal enforcer, a man who had wiped out entire rival cartels before his twenty-first birthday.

His name alone made grown men tremble in the underground world.

Julian stepped closer, a mocking grin playing on his lips.

He thought this was a brilliant game.

He thought I was just a collateral bride, a mute counterweight to be placed on the scales.

“Well, Lily?” Julian asked, his voice dripping with fake sweetness.

“Can you even tell your future Don apart from his shadow?”

My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird.

The nightmare had shown me the brutal truth.

If I chose Julian, he would use Jasper as a stand-in for the wedding so he could run off with his toxic mistress, Vanessa, on a smuggling route.

Vanessa would die, and Julian would murder me for it.

I looked at the two men.

Julian’s eyes held a careless, arrogant amusement.

Jasper, however, stood perfectly still, his broad frame seeming to radiate a quiet, dangerous violence.

His dark eyes were locked onto my face, intense and unreadable.

I did not hesitate.

I took a step forward and threw myself against a solid, scarred chest, wrapping my arms around his neck.

I looked up into eyes that were entirely too dark, entirely too lethal.

“I could never fail to recognize my true man,” I purred, letting my voice drip with honeyed devotion.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the room.

Julian exhaled a long breath of relief.

He thought his twisted game was working perfectly.

He thought I had just chosen him by mistakenly embracing his twin.

But the wide, scarred hands that suddenly seized my waist did not belong to Julian.

Jasper’s fingers dug into my flesh with a bruising, possessive force.

The heat radiating from his palms felt like branding irons through the silk of my wedding dress.

I looked up at Jasper.

A sudden, dangerous ambition flared in his dark eyes.

The shadow of the Blackwood family was finally waking up.

He leaned down, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin of my ear.

“You guessed right,” Jasper whispered.

His voice was a low, rough gravel that sent a shiver straight down my spine.

His grip tightened on my waist, a silent, possessive claim that felt less like an embrace and more like the locking of a manacle.

Julian checked his gold watch and hurried toward the door.

“I need to change our ties to complete the swap,” Julian said, his words rushed.

With a single, practiced motion, he unknotted his own silver silk tie, tossing it to Jasper before tearing the darker one from his brother’s collar with a sharp tug.

He shot Jasper a conspiratorial look, completely mocking the sacred blood oath we were about to take.

“Keep her entertained, brother,” Julian laughed, stepping out into the hallway, adjusting the stolen cravat about his own throat.

He left me alone with the most dangerous man in the city.

I feigned perfect ignorance.

I hooked my arm through Jasper’s, feeling the dense cordage of muscle flex like carved granite beneath the fine wool of his jacket.

“Shall we go?” I asked softly.

Jasper looked down at me, the masseter muscle along his jaw ridging for a moment under the skin, like a drawn bowstring.

“You have no idea what you just started, little bird,” he murmured, pulling me toward the door.

I looked up at him and smiled—a smile I’d learned from dying once.

“Neither do you. But I intend to finish it.”

He pulled me toward the door.

Behind us, Julian’s cheap cologne faded.

Ahead, a throne was waiting to be stolen.