Marrying The Ex-Fiancé's Ruthless Mafia Brother
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.
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Chapter 1
At our wedding, my fiancé left me standing alone at the altar and ran to another woman.
He openly betrayed our union, lifting his mistress from the floor in his arms.
I walked straight to the head table, to the most feared man in the city-his older brother. The Godfather.
"The Woodward family owes me a husband," I said calmly.
An hour later, I married the Godfather.
But my ex-fiancé refused to accept it.
He went insane. He kidnapped me, just to harvest my blood for his mistress.
But they underestimated the Godfather's loyalty to me.
He came for me. Even if he had to tear the whole city apart, he would find me.
Chapter 1
Eloise's Perspective
My fiancé didn't just humiliate me at our wedding; he single-handedly destroyed his own future.
He left me, a daughter of the Bowles family, standing alone at the altar while he rushed to the side of a woman whose only real illness was a desperate need for attention.
My hands didn't tremble.
In the world of Chicago's underworld, emotion is a weakness.
Softness gets you killed.
I watched my fiancé, Holden, lift a woman off the floor.
Jaidyn, Holden's first love. Her dramatic collapse came at the perfect moment, just as we were raising our glasses to celebrate our union.
Her pale blue dress pooled around her like a martyr's shroud, her eyelashes fluttering delicately against her cheeks. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar.
"She can't breathe!" Holden shouted, his voice cracking.
He looked pathetic. A boy playing dress-up in a man's tailored suit.
"I have to get her to the car. The wedding... we'll have to wait. I can't just watch her die, Eloise."
Three hundred guests filled the ballroom, including the heads of the Five Families. They watched me.
They waited for me to cry.
They waited for the Mafia princess to crumble, to destroy my father's reputation once and for all.
I took a slow, deliberate sip of my champagne.
The bubbles burned my throat, but the cold liquid steadied me.
"Go," I said.
Holden looked at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of relief and guilt.
He thought I was giving him permission.
He didn't realize it was a goodbye.
"I'm sorry, El," he said, lifting Jaidyn.
She let out a soft, pitiful whimper.
"I'll call you from the ER."
He pushed through the double doors, leaving a scandal in his wake.
My father stood to my left, his face mottled with rage, looking ready to draw his gun.
This wasn't just a breakup. It was a breach of contract.
A violation of the peace treaty between the Bowles family and the Woodward family.
I set my glass down on the table. In the silence of the room, the sound of crystal meeting linen was deafening.
I turned my gaze to the head table.
Alphonse Woodward sat there.
The Godfather. The boss of bosses.
Holden's older brother.
He was completely still.
He leaned back in his chair, a glass of whiskey resting on his knee, his broad shoulders straining the seams of his tuxedo like armor. His dark, deep-set eyes were fixed directly on me.
They were cold, merciless. Assessing the damage like a general surveying a battlefield.
He was the most feared man in this city.
I didn't run after my fiancé.
I walked straight to the head table.
His guards tensed, hands instinctively moving towards their jackets, but Alphonse raised a single finger.
They froze.
I stopped in front of him.
"Your brother made a mistake," I said.
Alphonse swirled his whiskey.
"That he did."
"He disgraced my family. He broke the covenant."
"He's emotional," Alphonse said, his voice a low rumble. "He believes he's saving a life."
"He's saving a parasite," I corrected. "And in doing so, he's left the seat next to me empty. A seat crucial for solidifying the alliance between our territories."
Alphonse took a slow sip, his eyes never leaving mine.
"What are you suggesting, Eloise?"
I didn't even blink.
"I'm suggesting the Woodwards owe me a husband. And since Holden is clearly unfit to lead this family, I expect the man in charge to clean up the mess."
The air vanished from the room. Eyes widened as everyone realized what I'd just done. I had just proposed to the devil.
Alphonse stood.
He towered over me, a dark, imposing wall.
He reached out, his rough fingers brushing a stray piece of hair from my cheek. The touch was possessive, terrifying, and electric.
"One hour," he announced, his voice carrying through the room. "Have the pen ready for the marriage contract."
He drained the rest of his glass, set it down, and walked out, not even glancing at the door his brother had escaped through.
I turned to face the crowd.
I lifted my chin.
The wedding was still on.
The groom had just been replaced.
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8.5
Apex Bloom
8.5
Apex Bloom
This is the definitive "Rags to Riches" journey of a woman who was treated as disposable, only to return and conquer the most dangerous man in the underworld. Apex Bloom isn't just a title; it is Franco's survival game-a lethal, high-stakes gauntlet designed to chew up the weak and spit out the broken. Lolita wasn't supposed to survive it; she was supposed to be another casualty. Instead, she broke the game and took the man who created it.
The Disposal
Lolita begins as a woman discarded. Betrayed by her husband, Lyle, she is stripped of everything and thrown into the gutters of London. She is left with nothing but her wits in a world designed to erase her. Lyle didn't just leave her; he disposed of her like a spent asset, assuming she would quietly disappear. He was wrong.
Entering the Game: Franco Rossi
In the wreckage of her life, Lolita is forced into the Apex Bloom-the brutal survival game orchestrated by Franco Rossi. Franco is the underworld's apex predator, a man who believes in a world of absolute Darwinian ruthlessness. His game is designed to test the limits of human endurance, and he expects Lolita to be a pawn, a victim, or a fleeting distraction.
Breaking the Architect
Lolita doesn't just play Franco's game; she dismantles it. Using her brilliant mind and a newfound, weaponised confidence, she turns the Bloom into her own instrument of ascent. But her most calculated victory is over Franco himself.
Through an intoxicating display of dominant power and erotic prowess, Lolita targets the man behind the machine. She doesn't just win; she breaks Franco's stoic, masculine code, forcing a full surrender of his will. She seduces the power away from the enforcer, turning the architect of the game into her most devoted subject. She proves that her dominance isn't just about force-it's about a total, soul-deep conquest that leaves the city's most dangerous man kneeling at her feet.
The Rags to Riches Ascent
The journey from a discarded wife to the Queen of the Apex Bloom is paved with the ruin of those who underestimated her. Lolita uses her sexuality and her intellect as twin blades, seizing the wealth and the territories of the men who thought they were players. By the time the dust settles, she has achieved unimaginable riches and undisputed authority, standing at the head of an empire built on the shattered remains of Franco's former life.
The Final Sovereignty
The book concludes with Lolita standing at the absolute summit. Her marriage to Franco in the Cotswolds is the ultimate victory lap-a coronation where the man who once ran the game now serves its new Queen. They are bound by blood and law, but it is Lolita who holds the reins.
The story ends with The Syndicate, the global masters of the underworld, watching in shock. They thought they were dealing with another street-level syndicate; instead, they have found a woman who took the most lethal survival game in existence and made it her own.
7.5
For six years, Isabella Rossi used her family's immense wealth to save her husband's Mafia empire from bankruptcy while he fought on the front lines.
Her reward? Don Damien Moretti returns with a mistress, a secret son, and a demand: Accept them, and keep paying the bills.
He expects her to swallow her pride. Instead, Isabella closes her checkbook. She demands a divorce, cuts off their funding, and leaves his "glorious" empire to starve.
But a Queen stepping down draws wolves. Enter Giovanni Falcone-the ruthless, untouchable King of the New York Underworld. He doesn't want her money; he wants her.
Now, her ex-husband is begging for her back. But Isabella? She's too busy building her own empire-and watching his burn.
9.0
For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe.
On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring.
Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger.
Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family.
When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence.
"Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets."
My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet.
He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts.
He was wrong.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use.
Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed.
*I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.*
His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning.
*The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?*
I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me.
I looked down and typed three letters.
*Yes.*
8.1
My fiancé, the ruthless Mafia Underboss, tore my dead mother's necklace from my throat and fastened it around another woman's neck.
"Diana needs it," Arthur said, his eyes cold. "My blood remembers loving her. It calms her anxiety."
He was referring to the bone marrow transplant that saved his life. Diana was connected to the donor, and Arthur believed his new blood made him belong to her.
I became a ghost in my own home, forced to watch him crown a usurper.
When Diana faked a fall at a gala, accusing me of pushing her, Arthur didn't hesitate. He decided to "discipline" me publicly to teach me respect.
He raised the whip.
"Arthur, please, I'm pregnant!" I screamed, shielding my stomach.
"Don't lie to me," he spat, and the lash came down.
I lost our baby on that cold marble floor in a pool of blood. He didn't believe me. He stepped over my body to take Diana to dinner.
He didn't stop there. He let my grandmother die in the ER to tend to Diana's bruised nose. He even dug up my grandmother's grave because Diana wanted the view for a garden.
I finally fled, vanishing into the night.
It wasn't until months later, when he found the autopsy report of our unborn child and the toxicology results proving Diana had been drugging him, that the fog lifted.
He tracked me down to a small town, where I was finally healing with a good man.
The feared Underboss fell to his knees in the pouring rain, holding the whip he had used on me, shaking violently.
"Beat me, Ella," he begged, tears mixing with the mud. "Hurt me. Make us even."
I looked at the monster I used to love and dropped his ring into the dirt.
"You can't bring back the dead, Arthur," I whispered. "And you are dead to me."
9.2
My husband, a ruthless mafia Capo, brought his pregnant mistress to our anniversary party. He then ordered me to give her a blood transfusion, knowing my heart condition could kill me. As my life drained away, I knew my nine-year marriage was finally over.
It was my ninth wedding anniversary, and I stood in an expensive gown, watching Dominick Reyes, a feared mafia Capo, celebrate with our guests. But the celebration wasn't for us; Dominick had brought Chastity, his pregnant mistress, and then publicly ordered me out of our master suite. Chastity, who had faked her pregnancy, then framed me for an attack. Dominick forced me to give a blood transfusion to Chastity, knowing my heart condition made it potentially fatal. As my blood drained from my veins, sustaining the woman who had stolen my life, I felt my consciousness fading, hoping I would not wake up.
When I woke, Dominick had already paraded Chastity to a gala. He had drained me, used me, and then abandoned me in a hospital bed, breaking his promise of a divorce. I was nothing more than a debt payment, a pawn in his brutal game. Knowing he would never truly let me go, I calmly called a trusted contact. I would disappear from his world, become someone new, and this time, Dominick Reyes would pay.
7.4
In a world ruled by guns, secrets, and blood-soaked loyalties, love is the most dangerous currency of all.
Alessandro De Luca is the unseen king of a global cartel-ruthless, brilliant, and feared across continents. His word is law, his mercy nonexistent. Until one night, one woman, and one mistake unravel everything he has built.
Elena Hart is innocent but unbreakable, drawn into the underworld through a debt she never created. She should have been collateral-nothing more. Instead, she becomes his weakness.
As enemies close in and betrayal festers within the cartel, Alessandro must choose between the empire crowned in blood... or the woman who threatens to destroy it.
Love was never part of the plan.
Survival was.
And in this world, both demand a price.