Rising From Ashes: The Mafia King's Bride
I discovered the dark secret my stepmother Beatrice had been hiding for years.
When I threatened to expose the truth to the mafia, my half-brother Angelo and step-sister Carmella locked me in an abandoned Brooklyn warehouse.
Carmella stood there in my mother's expensive silk dress, her voice sweet and venomous as she confessed how she had meticulously stolen my life and my father's love.
Angelo looked at me with cold indifference, pouring gasoline over my feet before striking a match.
"You're insane for threatening to break the code of silence," they laughed, leaving me to burn alive to protect their stolen thrones.
My own father turned a blind eye, letting his trueborn daughter turn to ash just to maintain the illusion of his perfect family.
The smell of charred flesh filled my throat. Until I died, I didn't understand. I had bled for our survival, even taking a bullet for the terrifying Moretti Matriarch.
Why did my father let the bastard children of a Chicago bootlegger steal my inheritance and murder me?
Opening my eyes again, the phantom heat of the inferno faded into a cool New York afternoon.
I was seventeen again, sitting in the backseat of a Cadillac, just returning from my three-year exile in Switzerland.
This time, I wouldn't just scream. I would marry the terrifying Prince of New York and watch my stepmother's entire bloodline burn.
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Chapter 2
Isabella POV
The silence in the grand foyer was deafening after Carmella’s humiliated confession. Beatrice’s jaw tightened, her eyes flashing with a venomous promise as she prepared to force me into the servant’s quarters anyway.
Before she could speak, the sharp, rhythmic thud of a wooden cane echoed from the landing above.
"Enough," a frail but iron-hard voice commanded.
Nonna Elena, the Elder of the Russo family, stood at the top of the stairs. Her sharp eyes, clouded with age but missing nothing, swept over Beatrice and Carmella with thinly veiled disgust. "The girl has bled for our survival. She stays with me in the west wing."
I kept my eyes lowered, playing the obedient, traumatized daughter as I followed my grandmother into her sanctuary. The air in her quarters was thick with the scent of dried lavender, melting beeswax, and old secrets.
As Nonna poured us tea, I wrapped my trembling hands around the porcelain cup. "Nonna," I whispered, letting my gaze drift to a faded family portrait on the wall. "Is it just me, or do Carmella and Angelo look exactly alike? They have the exact same brow... just like that bootlegger from Chicago who used to visit Beatrice. Signor Carmine Kirkland. Do you remember him?"
Nonna Elena’s hand froze mid-pour. The teacup rattled against the saucer. I kept my expression entirely innocent, but I saw the exact moment the seed of ruin took root in her mind. In our world, blood was everything. A bastard was a disgrace; a bastard parading as an heir was a death sentence.
The next morning, Beatrice launched her counterattack. She summoned me to her drawing room—a gaudy, gold-trimmed nightmare of a room that screamed of her desperate need to buy class. Father Antonio, a corrupt priest whose loyalty was bought with Russo coin, sat beside her.
"It is God's will that Carmella remains in the Matriarch's suite, Isabella," the priest purred, his smile oily. "Her presence there brings divine luck to your father's shipments."
I didn't blink. I simply looked at Beatrice. "My blood saved Eleonore Moretti. If my sacrifice isn't respected in my own home, perhaps the Matriarch would like to personally ask why her savior is being treated like a stray dog. Should I have Silvio make the call?"
Beatrice’s face drained of all color, the heavy rouge on her cheeks suddenly looking like clown makeup. The threat of the Dark Don's mother was absolute. To invite the wrath of the Moretti family was to invite death. I turned and walked out, leaving them choking on their own powerlessness.
A week before Christmas, Carmella made one last, desperate play for Nonna’s favor. She stood in the sitting room, waving a gilded invitation. "Five hundred dollars to the parish, Nonna," she bragged. "A private Christmas Eve dinner at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral with Senator Vance. The whole city will see our power."
I stepped out of the shadows. I knew the future. I knew the blizzard that would paralyze New York, and more importantly, I knew the FBI raid that would end Vance's corrupt career that very night.
"A public spectacle with a politician?" I asked softly, my tone laced with genuine concern. "That draws federal eyes, Nonna. It violates *Omertà* (the code of silence). The Morettis value discretion above all. If they see us acting like reckless, attention-starved fools, they will cut ties."
Nonna’s eyes sharpened. She looked at Carmella’s triumphant face, then at my calm, calculating one. "Cancel it," she ordered Beatrice coldly.
Carmella let out a strangled sob, her face twisting in ugly fury before she fled the room.
That evening, as the first snow of the blizzard I had predicted began to fall, I sat beside Nonna’s armchair. I pulled a velvet pouch from my pocket and let the heavy, black onyx beads spill into my palm. The solid silver crucifix gleamed, stamped with a sharp, undeniable 'M'.
Nonna gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "Is that..."
"The late Don Moretti's," I murmured. "Signora Eleonore gave it to me." I reached out and gently pressed the cold, heavy beads into my grandmother's wrinkled hands. "She told me it belongs with the true Matriarch of the Russo bloodline. Wear it to Sunday mass, Nonna. Let everyone know that a strike against us is a declaration of war against the Moretti family."
Nonna Elena stared at the rosary, her fingers trembling as she traced the silver 'M'. When she finally looked up at me, the pity she once held for her fragile granddaughter was gone, replaced by a profound, unshakable awe.
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8.7
I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella.
Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark.
But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved.
Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies.
When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel.
While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest.
The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella.
He ordered my father to punish me.
I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth.
That night, the love in my heart finally died.
On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape-the only proof that I was Seven.
Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney.
By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.
8.4
"Are you going to treat me like the enemy?" Raffaele asked, hovering over me like a predator.
"You are the enemy," I sneered.
He smiled. "Careful. You're hurting my feelings."
"I hope I can hurt much more than that."
His eyes darkened. "You forget-I'm the one who can break you."
I vowed never to give my heart to a man. Never let one bend me. Never let one own me.
Then a single night changed everything.
When my best friend became a target, I took her place and caught the attention of the most dangerous man in the city. Raffaele, My friend's older brother, wasn't supposed to see me. We were never meant to meet but the moment his eyes locked on mine, I became his new obsession.
I don't bend and he doesn't let go.
Suddenly caught up in a world of blood and power, resisting a man like Raffaele might cost me everything...heart, body, and soul.
He wants me, dead or alive.
7.8
BLURB
"Beg for it, Bella," his rasped voice whispered against my ears as his dick rubbed against my thighs.
"I want you to f**k me until my tongue knows nothing but your name. Please, Daddy," I begged shamelessly until he finally slipped into me.
-
The first time I saw him, I understood why people ruin their lives for dicks.
He was standing in the sunlight, watching me like he already knew how the story would end. I had a boyfriend. He was my best friend's father. And ninety days should have been easy to survive.
Then I opened the wrong door, and after everything burned.
Alexander Moreau doesn't touch you first. He studies you, learns you, and makes you feel like the only person in the room. And somewhere between midnight swims and locked doors, I stopped pretending I didn't want him.
I'd go through hell and come back friends with the devil if it would mean him sticking his dick inside me again.
But houses made of glass don't protect secrets, and by the time summer ended, I had lost my best friend, my relationship, my future, and the version of myself I thought I was. Because falling for Alexander Moreau wasn't the danger.
His ex-wife was.
9.2
I stood on the tarmac clutching white magnolias, watching the man I loved hand his loyalty to the woman born to destroy me.
Dante Cavallaro, the Ruthless Underboss, didn't just leave me for Sofia Moretti.
He revealed that for two years, I wasn't his lover. I was a human shield.
The heavy iron bangle he forced me to wear wasn't a gift for my protection.
"It's a Malocchio anchor," he sneered as I lay paralyzed on the floor. "It drains the wearer's luck to keep Sofia healthy. You are just the filter."
My body began to rot from the inside out, my nerves dying one by one.
When I was finally on my deathbed, unable to move or speak, Dante didn't cry for me.
He cried because his tool was broken.
He forced the cursed bangle onto his own wrist, begging the universe to keep me alive so I could continue to suffer in Sofia's place.
"Please," he sobbed into my sheets. "Don't leave me alone with the bad luck."
I used my last breath to make a wish—not for him, but for my freedom.
I closed my eyes and died.
Exactly one hour later, Dante's phone rang.
It was his father.
"Sofia just collapsed," he said. "Her heart just stopped."
I was the vessel.
And now that I was gone, the poison had come home to the King.
7.9
They Faked a Marriage in Summer. But Autumn had a Plan of Its Own.
Ivy Monroe is in a bind. She's got a shot at the research grant of her dreams. There's just one catch: it's for couples only. No husband? No deal.
That's where Lake Hart comes in. He's a broody, charming filmmaker who needs quick cash. She needs a fake husband. It's supposed to be simple: pretend to be married for one summer, fool a few people, and walk away richer.
But nothing about this fake marriage is simple.
They arrive at a romantic mountain retreat and things get complicated-fast:
- Weird "touch therapy" that's way too intimate
- One tiny bed that squeaks like crazy
- "Practice" kisses that don't feel fake at all
- Judges watching their every move-and a prize on the line
Ivy swore she wouldn't catch feelings. Lake never sticks around long enough to. But the more they pretend, the more real it starts to feel.
One lie. One summer. So many sparks.
If you love:
- Fake marriage shenanigans
- Forced to share a bed (and a shower)
- Enemies-to-lovers tension
- Slow burn with major payoff
- Hilarious, messy, steamy rom-coms
Then this is your next read. Funny, flirty, and full of feels.
8.9
My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket.
He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent.
But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress.
Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you."
To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife.
When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala.
He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent.
He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters.
He thought he had broken me.
He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage.
But he made a fatal error.
He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign.
They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me.
And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck.
I didn't jump to die.
I jumped to be reborn.
And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.