Rising From Shadows: True Mafia Bride

I stood at the altar with the most ruthless mafia boss in New York, Salvatore Romano.

But when he lifted my wedding veil, his eyes filled with pure murderous intent.

He realized I was not the woman he loved. My own father stepped forward and publicly declared me a deranged imposter, claiming my half-sister Camilla was the true bride.

I was dragged away, locked in a holding room, and threatened with a bullet to the head.

My father slapped me across the face, ordering me to take a hush-money check and sign away my birthright.

Meanwhile, Camilla gloated in front of me, wearing my dead mother's antique ruby necklace.

She had stolen my identity, my tragic childhood scars, and my position, feeding Salvatore a fabricated fairy tale that he swallowed completely.

For twenty years, I survived the bloody streets of Chicago alone while they pampered a fraud.

It was pathetic how the supposedly terrifying Don was entirely blind to the fact that his beloved fake bride was secretly embezzling millions to fund his worst enemy.

When the truth finally came to light and Salvatore desperately begged me to take the crown as his true wife, I just smiled.

"I have no interest in the Romano billions."

I didn't come here to marry him. I came to burn their entire empire to the ground.

Chapter 1

The instant the most ruthless mafia boss in New York lifted my wedding veil and realized I was not the woman he loved, I had precisely three seconds to establish my legal standing as his bride before his household guard put a bullet in my head.

I stood perfectly still at the altar of the grand Romano estate.

The air in the nave was thick with the funereal scent of lilies and an unspoken expectation of violence.

Salvatore Romano was not a man you tricked.

As the Don of the Romano Syndicate, he held dominion over the smuggling routes of seven eastern seaboard ports and the weekend cash flow of every gambling den in Queens.

His reputation was built on a mountain of bodies and a total lack of mercy.

Right now, his dark eyes were locked onto my face.

The delicate chalice of ceremonial wine resting on the altar fractured under the sudden pressure of his grip, the sound a single, sharp report that travelled up to the cathedral's vaulted ribs.

Shards of glass rained down onto the pristine white marble floor.

He did not even flinch as the sacramental red wine mixed with a drop of blood on his thumb.

He stared at me with a hostility so pure it seemed to draw the warmth from the very air around my skin.

"Who the hell are you?" His voice was not loud, but the vibration of it seemed to stir the dust motes in the candlelight.

The great hall behind us fell so profoundly quiet that the ticking of a pocket watch in the front pew became an intrusion.

Dozens of armed soldiers shifted in the shadows, their hands moving to the weapons hidden under their tailored suits.

"I am Penelope Russo," I said, my voice a calibrated, steady thing.

"And I am exactly who you are supposed to marry."

Salvatore took a single step forward, his polished leather shoe grinding a shard of glass into the marble with a grating screech.

His presence radiated a raw, terrifying energy that made my ribs feel fused to my spine; each attempt to draw breath brought the taste of rust and old blood to the back of my throat.

"You are an imposter," he stated, his tone leaving no room for debate. "You infiltrated my territory. You are wearing Camilla's dress."

I looked up at his handsome, furious face.

"Are you entirely certain you were meant to marry Camilla?" I asked with measured calm.

He let out a dark, mocking laugh.

"Do you think I don't know the name of the woman I have been with for two years?"

"I think you don't read your own contracts," I replied.

I reached into a hidden pocket of my heavy silk gown. The movement was slight, but it was enough to make three of his closest guards draw their pistols.

Salvatore raised a single, dismissive finger, and the men froze as if turned to stone.

I produced a folio bound in heavy, scarred leather, from which I extracted two distinct documents. I unfolded the first-a piece of thick, watermarked paper-and held it out to him.

"The Blood Oath drafted by your late grandfather explicitly demands the union between the Romano heir and the Eldest Russo Daughter."

Salvatore did not take the paper.

He looked at me like I was a rat caught in a trap.

"Camilla is the eldest," he said.

"Camilla is the second daughter," I corrected him, drawing the second document from the folio and unfurling it to reveal a notarized Syndicate bloodline registry.

"I am the firstborn. My mother was Elena Russo, the first wife of Boss Pietro Russo. Camilla is the daughter of his second wife."

A woman in a sharp black dress stepped onto the altar.

It was Mrs. Romano, Salvatore's mother, the cords in her neck standing out against her skin.

"This is absurd," she snapped. "The alliance was negotiated directly with Sofia Russo for Camilla. We know nothing about you."

"The Blood Oath bears my father's personal Boss seal," I pointed out. "Not Sofia's. A wife cannot sign away Syndicate assets."

Salvatore's jaw tightened.

He produced a sleek black telephone from his jacket, depressed a number, and activated the speaker.

The silence in the room was a physical weight as the line rang.

"Don Romano," my father's voice echoed through the ballroom.

Pietro Russo sounded nervous.

"Pietro," Salvatore said, his voice dripping with lethal calm. "There is a woman at my altar claiming to be your eldest daughter. Care to explain why Camilla is not here?"

There was a heavy pause on the other end.

"She is a deranged, disowned child," Pietro said coldly. "Penelope was sent away twenty years ago. She is dead to this Family. Camilla is your bride. My men are tracking Camilla down now. Penelope must have ambushed her."

Salvatore terminated the call, his gaze descending upon me with an expression of pure disgust.

"Your own Don refuses to claim you," he mocked. "You come into my home, ruin my wedding, and your own father calls you a stray."

"He failed to explain why the contract specifies 'Eldest'," I said, my composure a perfect, cold mask, for I had anticipated this betrayal.

"A clerical error," Salvatore brushed it off.

"A dangerous oversight for a Don," I countered.

Footsteps hurried up the aisle as Sofia Russo, my stepmother, glided toward the altar, her features arranged into a mask of frantic maternal concern.

"Penelope, you poor sick girl," Sofia gasped, reaching out to grab my arm. "Come with me. Let us not embarrass the Don any further."

I stepped out of her reach.

"Tell me, Sofia," I said loudly. "Did you read the specifics of the contract before you helped Camilla steal my identity?"

Sofia's eyes flashed with panic.

"Take her out the back," Mrs. Romano ordered the guards. "Clean up this mess."

Two immense soldiers stepped toward me, but I held my ground.

"If you remove me from this altar," I announced, my voice carrying to the very back of the room, "you are officially breaching the Blood Oath."

Salvatore scoffed. "Throw her out."

"I am invoking Clause Seven," I said.

The Consigliere, an older man standing near the priest, suddenly went rigid.

"What did you say?" the Consigliere asked, stepping forward.

I kept my eyes on Salvatore.

"Clause Seven of the Blood Oath," I recited clearly. "The breaching Family must forfeit thirty percent of their Syndicate assets to the offended party."