Rejected by the Mafia Don, Claimed by His Rival

Alessia POV:

I came to with a roar of voices ringing in my ears. I was back in the infirmary. My clothes were still soaked, clinging to my skin, and a violent, uncontrollable shivering seized my body. The voices-raw, furious-were coming from the hallway.

It was Luca and Dante.

"You tried to murder her!" Luca roared, his voice cracking with a raw fury I'd never heard from him before. "You held her under, Dante! I saw you! You tried to drown my sister!"

"She deserved it," Dante's voice was as cold and unyielding as ice. "She put her hands on my woman. She's obsessed, pathetic... and disgusting."

Disgusting.

The word struck me harder than the fall, harder than the crushing weight of the water. My eight years of devotion, of a love I thought was pure and unwavering, was disgusting to him.

A sickening thud, followed by a grunt of pain. Luca had broken the unspoken rule: he had struck his Don.

I had to stop him.

A surge of pure adrenaline shot through me. I threw back the blankets and stumbled out of the room, my injured leg sending a fresh bolt of agony up my side. I shoved myself between them, my small frame a trembling but resolute shield.

"Stop," I whispered, looking at my brother. "Please, Luca. For me."

The fury in his eyes fractured, replaced by a wave of pain as he took in my desperate expression. He released his fistful of Dante's shirt and guided me back toward my room, his arm a solid, protective wall around my shoulders.

A moment later, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a text from Dante. Not a call. Not the decency of a final, face-to-face command. Just cold words on a screen.

Stop this pathetic act. Stay away from Isabella.

That was it. The final, cowardly blow. The carefully constructed fortress I'd built around my heart didn't just crack; it detonated. A single, ragged sob tore from my chest. I collapsed into Luca's arms, the full weight of my shattered world finally crushing me.

"He thinks my love is disgusting," I wept, the words tearing from my throat.

Luca held me tight, his own body trembling with a violence he was barely holding back. "I'm so sorry, Alessia," he choked out. "God, I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what?" I sobbed into his chest. "That I'm disgusting? That I've wasted years on a man who hates me?"

"No," he said, his voice thick with pain. He pulled back just enough to look at me, his expression tortured. "That's not it. It was never about you. Not really. For a decade, he's been obsessed... but not with her. With a scent. He thought it was yours, Alessia. All this time, he's been chasing a ghost."

He pulled back fully, his hands framing my face, his own eyes burning with a fierce, unwavering loyalty that eclipsed everything else. "I don't care about him. I don't care about the Moretti Family," he swore, his voice thick with raw emotion. "I care about you. If you want to leave, I'll get you out. If you want to fight, I will burn this entire family to the ground for you. I am with you, Alessia. Always. Unconditionally."

I stared at my brother-the one person in this world who had never, ever failed me. And in his promise, I saw his death sentence. A war with his Don. A war he would lose.

I couldn't let that happen.

My tears stopped as if a faucet had been shut off. In their place, something cold and hard settled in my chest. Resolve. As unbreakable as steel.

"We're leaving," I said, my voice quiet but firm. "I have to get you out of here."