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 2
Eloise's POV
The City Hall clerk's office.
It was a stark contrast to the gilded ballroom I had just left, but the air in here felt cleaner.
Less suffocating.
Alphonse stood beside me, his heavy, steady hand signing the marriage certificate.
He slashed his name in black ink-a sharp, jagged signature that looked less like letters and more like a scar.
"Sign," he said, sliding the paper toward me.
I picked up the pen. My hand hovered over the paper for a split second.
This wasn't a fairy tale. It was a corporate merger. A hostile takeover. I was handing my freedom over to a man rumored to have cut out a capo's tongue just for interrupting him at the dinner table.
But the alternative was being Holden's pathetic ex-fiancée. The girl who wasn't sick enough to make him stay.
I signed. Eloise Bowers.
The clerk stamped the document with a heavy thud.
"Done," Alphonse stated.
He didn't smile, and he didn't kiss me.
He took the certificate, folded it, and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat, right next to where I knew he kept his gun. "You are under my protection now. Go to my estate; my guards will pack your things."
"I need to go home first," I said. "I need to face him when he gets back."
Alphonse glanced at me. For a fleeting second, I caught a glint in his abyssal eyes.
Was it approval? Or just dark amusement at watching a bug try to fight a hurricane?
"One hour," he said. "If you don't walk out, I'm coming in. And if I come in, I'm burning the house down."
I took an Uber back to the estate I shared with Holden.
It was a sprawling mansion in Lake Forest, paid for with Woodward blood money.
I was packing my jewelry into a velvet box when the front door banged open.
"Eloise!"
Holden.
He stormed into the bedroom, his tie loosened and his hair disheveled. He looked panicked, bordering on frantic.
He reeked of harsh hospital antiseptics.
"Where have you been?" he demanded, pacing the room. "I called you ten times. Jaidyn... thank God, it was a false alarm. Just severe stress. Her heart is fragile, El. You know that."
I didn't look up, my eyes fixed on my jewelry box as I snapped the lid shut.
"I'm glad she's okay," I said. My voice was completely flat, utterly lifeless.
"Why are you packing?" he stopped in his tracks, staring at the suitcase on the bed.
Suddenly, a high, strained laugh escaped his throat. "You're overreacting. It was an emergency. I couldn't just watch her die on the floor. You're being jealous."
He actually looked a little smug.
"Jealousy implies I want what someone else has," I said, turning to face him. "I don't want you anymore, Holden. Not even a little bit."
He flinched. "You're angry, I get it. We'll reschedule the wedding. Next month, once Jaidyn's condition stabilizes."
"There is no wedding next month," I said. "I'm already married."
Holden froze. He went as pale as a wax figure.
"What?"
"I fixed your mistake for you," I said, walking past him toward the door. "I secured the alliance. I married the Don."
Holden grabbed my arm. His grip was harsh, bruising. It was the first time he had ever touched me in anger.
"You're lying," he hissed. "Alphonse wouldn't do that. He knows you're mine."
"I was never yours," I said, looking pointedly down at his hand on my arm until he let go, stung by my icy demeanor. "I was your responsibility. And you failed me."
"You're just doing this to hurt me!" he yelled, following me into the hallway. "This joke needs to stop!"
"I did this to survive," I said. I pulled the front door open.
Outside, a line of black SUVs idled in the driveway. Alphonse was leaning against the hood of the lead car, smoking a cigarette.
Holden saw him and stopped dead in the doorway.
"He's my brother," Holden whispered, his voice trembling with real fear.
"He's your boss," I corrected.
I walked down the steps. The night air was biting, but as I approached Alphonse, I felt a strange, radiating heat. He tossed his cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it under his boot.
He opened the car door for me.
"Did he touch you?" Alphonse asked. He wasn't looking at me; his eyes were fixed on Holden cowering in the doorway.
"No," I lied.
I didn't want to see blood on my wedding night. At least, not yet.
Alphonse nodded. "Get in."
I slid onto the leather seat. As the car pulled away, I watched Holden in the rearview mirror. He looked so small, so utterly insignificant.
But right before we turned the corner, I caught the look in his eyes. It wasn't just heartbreak.
It was sheer, unadulterated madness.
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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.