Mafia King's Debt: My Family's Fury
At my husband's nephew's christening, I saw him across the ballroom holding a newborn with another woman. I was four months pregnant with his heir, but he was presenting her son as his own.
He had built a criminal empire, and our marriage was a strategic alliance. But now, the men who toasted our wedding were congratulating him on another woman's child, their gazes sliding right past me. My mother confirmed my worst fears: he'd been paying for his mistress's apartment for months.
His mistress, Selena, cornered me, her voice dripping with venom. "He chose me. And our son." The stress brought on sharp, agonizing cramps, but when my husband, Dante, rushed over, he took her side. "Calm down," he commanded. "You're making a scene."
He accused me of being hysterical, of cornering his fragile mistress who had just given birth. Through a haze of pain, I watched him shield her from me, his wife, telling me to go home and "be rational."
The public humiliation was absolute. In the lawyer's office, Selena slapped me, then knocked over her own baby's carrier and screamed that I had attacked her child. Dante believed her without question. As I collapsed from the pain, the last thing I saw was his back as he walked away with his new family.
I woke up in the hospital. He arrived with his mistress, not to see if I was okay, but to demand I apologize to her.
That was the moment the woman he married died. And in her place, someone new was born.
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Chapter 3
Seraphina POV:
The penthouse was a mausoleum of our dead marriage. Every photo, every piece of art we'd chosen together, felt like a mockery. I moved through the rooms like a ghost, a black trash bag in my hand, sweeping his expensive colognes and silk ties into it with a detached fury.
My phone buzzed. A society blog. The headline was a punch to the gut: A MORETTI WELCOME: DANTE MORETTI AND PARTNER SELENA COLE CELEBRATE THE CHRISTENING OF THEIR SON.
The photos were a public declaration of my erasure. There he was, beaming, with Selena on his arm. The caption called her his "lovely partner." As if I didn't exist. As if the child growing inside me was a figment of my imagination.
This wasn't just an affair. It was a campaign.
The rage that filled me was cold and sharp. It burned away the last of my tears. He thought I was disposable. He was about to find out just how essential I had been.
When he came home late that night, he found me standing beside a packed suitcase.
"Are you still on about the christening?" he asked, his tone laced with a patronizing calm.
"I'm not upset, Dante," I said, my voice flat. "I'm finished."
He reached for me, the old, familiar gesture that used to make me melt. I sidestepped him. "Don't be like this, cara. It was a misunderstanding."
"Was paying for her apartment for eight months a misunderstanding?" I countered. "I want a divorce."
Disbelief warred with anger in his eyes. He still thought this was a negotiation.
The doorbell rang. A sharp, intrusive sound. A flicker of panic crossed Dante's face before he opened it.
There she was. Selena, standing in the hallway with her own luggage and the baby in a carrier. She breezed past him into my home, our home, as if she owned the place.
Dante was caught, the architect of his own disaster, standing between his wife and his mistress. He made his choice.
He turned to me, his voice now lethally cold. "If you can't accept this, Sera," he said, gesturing vaguely between Selena and me, "then you're the one who should leave."