Left To Freeze: The Neglected Wife's Awakening
I am the wife of Julian Falcone, a powerful mafia boss, but my title in this house is nothing but a joke.
When our car broke down in a deadly blizzard, Julian rushed to the scene, only to bypass me entirely.
He wrapped his heavy coat around his fragile cousin, Livia, and put her in his only available passenger seat.
"Livia's constitution is too weak to survive this cold. I have to take her back first."
He left me to freeze in the pitch-black car for the entire night.
When his men finally dragged my half-dead body out the next morning, they openly mocked me, calling me a piece of "collateral" that the boss wouldn't care about as long as I was breathing.
Back at the estate, Julian didn't even ask if I had survived the frostbite. Instead, he stormed into my sickroom, demanding I treat his mistress with respect just because my absolute silence had hurt her feelings.
His grandmother then publicly humiliated me for failing to provide an heir, while Livia flaunted the custom diamond bracelet Julian bought to soothe her "fright" from the storm.
I finally understood. He didn't marry me out of honor to save my fallen family. He just needed my aristocratic Rossi blood to legitimize his new-money mafia empire.
I was never a wife. I was a transaction he was willing to let freeze to death.
When his men delivered a heavy diamond necklace to buy my submission, I didn't cry or beg.
I dropped the blood diamond into the deepest drawer, and began to plan my escape.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 5
Isabella POV
The blizzard raged on into the next afternoon, burying the estate deeper in its icy grip. My fever had broken, leaving me weak and hollowed out, but when the summons came from Sofia Falcone, refusal was not an option. A *Matriarch* did not ask; she commanded.
I stepped into Sofia's private sitting room. The air was thick with the scent of espresso, stale cigar smoke, and the cloying sweetness of lilies. Dark walnut paneling and a massive painting of the Pietà loomed over the heavy, antique furniture.
The room was already full. Julian's aunt, Francesca, and Caterina, the wife of another *Capo*, sat on the velvet sofas. In the center of their fawning attention was Livia.
As I entered, the lively chatter died instantly. They offered me curt, dismissive nods before turning their backs, effectively erasing my presence. I stood near the door, a ghost in my own home, while they resumed their enthusiastic discussion about the new mink coat Julian was commissioning to "soothe Livia's fright" from the storm.
Suddenly, Gianna, a young Falcone cousin playing on the rug, looked up with wide, innocent eyes. "Nonna Sofia, why didn't Cousin Julian just marry Livia? He loves her the most."
A dead silence fell over the room. The women exchanged loaded glances. Sofia, sitting in her high-backed armchair like a queen on a throne, reached out and gently squeezed Livia's hand.
"Patience is a virtue, *tesoro mio*," (my treasure) Sofia sighed, her voice dripping with maternal affection. "You've been wronged."
The words were a public execution. In front of the entire female hierarchy of the family, Sofia had just validated Livia as the true victim and branded me the usurper. I kept my face perfectly blank, though my stomach churned with disgust at their twisted sense of honor.
After a few minutes, Sofia dismissed the others with a wave of her hand. "Leave us. I need a word with my grandson's wife."
Once the heavy oak door clicked shut, the grandmotherly warmth vanished from Sofia's face. Her sharp, dark eyes cut into me like obsidian blades.
"A wife's job is to secure the line. To give the family a son," she stated, her voice a harsh, unforgiving rasp. "You have been here two years, Isabella. What have you done? You can't even keep your husband in your bed."
I stood perfectly still, my hands clasped in front of me. She knew exactly why Julian wasn't in my bed, yet the blame was laid entirely at my feet.
"Perhaps," Sofia continued, delivering the ultimate humiliation with a sneer, "you should ask Livia how to be a woman a man desires. She seems to have no trouble."
I didn't defend myself. There was no point in arguing with a woman who would burn the world to protect her bloodline. I simply bowed my head slightly, accepting the lashings in silence. My only value to them was as a breeding mare, and since I had failed, I was nothing.
"You may go," she finally snapped, turning her attention to her rosary beads.
I stepped out into the dim, silent hallway, the thick Persian carpet muffling my footsteps. The air here was cooler, but the suffocating feeling remained.
"Izzy!"
Livia was waiting for me near a tall window overlooking the frozen gardens. She linked her arm through mine with a sickeningly sweet smile, leaning in close.
"He was so worried about me, he stayed by my side all night," she whispered, her eyes gleaming with malice. She casually adjusted her sleeve, making sure I saw the new, glittering diamond bracelet on her wrist. "I heard you had to call for a doctor yourself. How embarrassing."
She paused, waiting for me to shatter. "A smart woman would know when she's not wanted. Why do you keep clinging to a title with no honor?"
The sheer audacity of her words finally snapped the last thread of my restraint. I yanked my arm out of her grasp, turning to face her fully. The feverish weakness in my limbs was replaced by a cold, hard fury.
"If he loves you so much, Livia," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly, icy whisper that echoed in the empty hall. "If he's so desperate to be with you... then why didn't he break the contract with my family three years ago?"
Her smug smile faltered.
I stepped closer, forcing her to look into my eyes. "A man in love would have found a way. Or... was his love for you not strong enough to outweigh what my name, the Rossi name, could give his 'new money' family?"
You may also like
8.0
"IS IT TRUE?" Grayson's voice thundered through the room.
"Yes!" Tessa said softly. "Yes it is!"
"So you've been cheating on me, haven't you?" He spat.
Her hands trembled. "No, I swear, it's not like that."
He grabbed her arm, his grip bruising her wrist as she squealed in pain.
"Then whose baby are you carrying, huh?" His voice was ice cold.
Tessa shivered, tears blurring her vision.
"I don't know."
**********
Pregnant with the powerful Roman Blackwood's child, while engaged to his unstable stepbrother - Tessa Quinn becomes the key to a ruthless inheritance war where love has no place.
As secrets unravel and danger closes in, Tessa must protect her unborn child while trapped between love, vengeance, and men who want to own her fate.
9.4
Michael Carter is an undercover FBI agent on a mission to take down ruthless mafia king Fernando Ramírez-the man he believes killed his sister. But getting close to Fernando means playing a dangerous game, one where seduction and power blur the lines between enemy and lover.
When Michael uncovers a shocking truth, his thirst for revenge turns into a fight for something far more dangerous-his own heart. Now, torn between duty and desire, he must decide: destroy the man he swore to take down or surrender to the one thing he never saw coming.
Love has never been more lethal.
7.3
I was going to tell my husband I was finally pregnant. Instead, I found police at my door, arresting me for his murder.
Someone faked Chris's death and framed me with a man I've never met: Von Castellano, whose wife conveniently provided evidence against us both. The proof is flawless. The conspiracy is airtight. And I'm thrown into a men's prison where I lose everything, including my baby.
But Chris isn't dead. He's alive, living in paradise with my high school rival and my company's fortune, after poisoning me for years to ensure I'd never have his child.
Von isn't just any man. He's the secret son of a mafia king, and he's ready to reclaim the throne he abandoned.
Now we're married. Not for love but for survival. For revenge. For power.
They destroyed us once. Together, we'll become the nightmare they never saw coming.
Because I don't forgive. And I never forget.
9.7
Blurb: She signed the divorce papers. He never signed away his obsession.
Veronica Stanford was the perfect wife-devoted, patient, and hopelessly in love. But when her billionaire husband, Jason Harper, trades her in for her treacherous best friend, Rhea, Veronica's world shatters. Broken and betrayed, she drowns her sorrows in a bar, only to be saved by a dangerously alluring stranger with emerald-green eyes and a lethal reputation: Monte "Four" Zagcanni, the ruthless heir to a mafia empire.
Four is everything Jason isn't-dark, dangerous, and devastatingly protective. When Veronica discovers she's pregnant with Jason's child, she strikes a deal with Four: a fake marriage to shield her from scandal. But what starts as a cold arrangement ignites into a passion neither can resist.
Jason, realizing his mistake too late, wants Veronica back-along with the son he never knew existed. But Four isn't a man who surrenders what's his. And Veronica? She's done being the meek wife.
Betrayal runs deep. Revenge burns hotter.
As secrets unravel-her father's bloody past, Rhea's twisted obsession, and Jason's deadly lies-Veronica must decide: trust the man who destroyed her once, or surrender to the devil who might destroy her forever.
One wants her back. The other wants her forever.
9.3
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.
8.5
My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention.
He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor.
I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don.
"The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly.
An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion.
He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement.
For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple.
"Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her."
As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman.
Then, the steel door detonated.
Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.