Sold to the Mafia king
His eyes returned to me-slow, assessing. Then, without warning, his hands shot up and clamped around my throat.
I gasped, instinctively clawing at his arms. He didn't move. "Disobey me again," he said, voice low, stripped of warmth, "and we won't be counting next time."
Even shaking, I lifted my chin. "Then don't mistake silence for obedience," I said hoarsely.
Carlino's voice followed-calm, absolute, as if nothing had happened. "Lock her floor tonight."
That was when it settled. There was no mercy here. No exaggeration. Every word, every threat-he meant them.
He wasn't pretending to be the devil. He simply didn't bother hiding it.
---
She hates him.
He refuses to let himself want her.
Lina Gray never thought love would betray her. Until the man she trusted, traded her life to pay his debts. Delivered into the hands of Carlino Lacentra, the Mafia king whose name ends conversations. Lina is stripped of choice and crowned Donna to secure a throne she never asked for. In his world, power is law, loyalty is currency, and a woman beside the king is never just a woman.
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Chapter 3
Lina's POV
Wait... how was that even possible?
I pushed myself off the cold floor, palms slipping once before they found purchase. My legs trembled, weak beneath my weight.
The director? The rumors, the whispers about him-none of it aligned. Panic crept up my spine, slow and invasive.
"Don't let your thoughts wander too far, Lina," he said. Cool. Detached. There was no warmth in his voice. Not even a crack. Each word felt wrapped in ice before being forced down my throat, freezing everything in its path.
"Why have you taken me?" My voice fractured despite my effort to steady it. "I don't even know the man who brought me here. Please-just let me leave. I swear I won't say a word to anyone."
I hated how small I sounded. Hated that begging was the only thing I had left. He watched me, unmoved.
"Lina Gray," he said slowly, deliberately, "you're mine now. My property. You have no one but me-get used to that."
The words struck like blades, precise and merciless, slicing through what little of me remained intact.
"I already told you, princess," he continued, a faint curl of mockery tugging at his mouth. "You are mine."
The princess wasn't affectionate. It was a weapon. Cold. Cruel. It slid through me like steel pressed against a fractured bone.
"Please..." My chest tightened, breath hitching. "My life was already falling apart. You fired me-wasn't that enough? Why are you so determined to ruin what's left of it?"
Silence.
Then movement.
His hands slipped into his pockets as he stepped closer. One step. Then another. Slow. Intentional. A devilish smirk carved itself onto his lips, the kind that made my stomach twist instinctively.
When he stopped in front of me, he bent down to my level until we were eye to eye.
Too close.
The air between us thickened, suffocating, before he finally spoke.
"It's unfortunate," he clicked his tongue. "Unfortunate that you trusted people you shouldn't have." He paused, tilting his head slightly. "No-that's not quite right. You trusted him when you weren't supposed to."
His words felt deliberate, like pieces of a puzzle he wasn't done handing me yet. "What do you mean?" I asked.
I had never trusted blindly. Trust was earned. Carefully given. And no one in my life-no one-had ever given me reason to doubt them.
"You really are clueless," he said, straightening. "Ruciano."
The sound of his name hit me like a physical blow. My heart dropped, dragging my breath with it.
"What do y-"
"Are you stupid," he cut in flatly, "or do you just enjoy pretending to be ignorant?"
I flinched.
"Ruciano took €180,000 from my loan sharks," he continued, voice calm-almost bored. "The man you trusted traded you to clear his debts. You were nothing more than leverage."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The words landed anyway. Slow. Crushing. One by one, pressing down on my chest until breathing felt like work.
I didn't feel shocked. Not immediately. It was betrayal that seeped in first-quiet, corrosive. Like realizing you'd been bleeding long before you noticed the wound. My mind resisted the truth, pulling away from it, because accepting it meant admitting something worse.
To him-I was never a person. I was a solution.
The humiliation didn't scream. It settled in my throat, heavy and bitter, whispering that my life had been weighed, measured, and assigned a number. That I had been worth just enough to erase his mess.
Then fear followed.
Not panic-something sharper. A fear with teeth. The kind that makes you think too clearly. Not just about what the man standing in front of me could do-but about how easily it had all happened. How simply Ruciano had handed me over, like my consent had never mattered.
Like I hadn't been there at all.
The money didn't hurt the most.
What hurt was knowing that the man I had loved looked at my life and decided it could be traded.
"You'll be taken to my house in a few minutes," he said, glancing at his watch. "Thirty, at most." He paused, as if recalling something insignificant. "And one more thing-be on your best behavior."
He wasn't threatening me. I could hear that much.
But behind every word sat something far worse than a threat-certainty.
A quiet understanding that disobedience wouldn't be forgiven. And that I wouldn't survive the cost twice.
I couldn't speak. It felt as though my tongue had been bound by something unseen. My body reacted before my mind could catch up-my breaths turning shallow, uneven, like my lungs were rationing air without my permission.
He didn't wait for a response. He didn't need one. He turned and walked away.
"No," the word tore out of me before I could stop it. My voice shook, but it carried defiance. "You don't get to walk away like that."
He paused.
Not fully. Just enough to let me know he heard.
But he didn't turn back.
The door shut.
Ruciano.
The name burned.
How could he do this to me?
I pushed myself up, my palms slipping against the cold floor before my strength failed. I refused to stay down. My legs gave out anyway, and I hit the concrete hard, the impact knocking the breath from my chest.
I had given him everything. Every piece. Every fragile part I should have protected. And this-this-was what I was worth?
The cold crept into my bones, but I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to sit upright. I wouldn't curl in on myself. I wouldn't make it easier.
My family had warned me. My parents had begged me to leave him before he destroyed me. Cathy too. I had brushed them all off, convinced love meant enduring. It didn't. I know that now.
A sharp, humorless laugh escaped me.
"You didn't break me," I whispered, more to the room than to him. "You just showed me who you are." The words steadied me, even as tears burned my eyes.
My life wasn't over. He didn't get to decide that.
I was still sitting there when footsteps approached. I lifted my head before they reached me. I wouldn't let them take me by surprise.
Two men stepped inside, dressed in black. When they grabbed me, I resisted-not violently, not foolishly-but enough to make it clear I was aware, present, alive.
"Don't touch me like I'm nothing," I said through clenched teeth.
One of them hesitated. Only for a second. They lifted me anyway, but I kept my head up as they carried me out of the cellar. The warehouse stretched ahead, cold and endless.
Each step echoed.
This couldn't be the end.
He could claim ownership. He could lock doors and give orders. But he didn't own my will. He didn't own my mind. And that was enough.
I clenched my fists, nails biting into my palms. The fear was still there-but now it shared space with something sharper.
Defiance.
And if he thought I'd stay down forever-
He was about to find out just how wrong he is.
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7.5
I was the adopted daughter of the wealthy Ruiz family, but the moment their true heir appeared, I was thrown away like trash.
Not long after being kicked out, my adoptive father and uncle hired a hitman to stage a fatal car crash on Mulholland Drive.
Pinned under an overturned Porsche with a shattered leg, I watched the hitman point a suppressed pistol between my eyes.
"The Ruiz family sends their regards."
Before this, my reputation had already been completely destroyed by a director, a pop idol, and a reality TV star, leaving me blacklisted and universally hated.
My adoptive family didn't just want me ruined; they wanted me permanently silenced to tie up loose ends.
The hitman pulled the trigger, and the original Alicia died in despair, tasting only rain and blood.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand.
Why did the family she loved treat her like a disposable object? Why did those three men maliciously frame her and turn the world against her?
Opening my eyes again, the fear was gone, replaced by an ancient, cosmic indifference.
I, the Arbiter, had taken over this deceased vessel.
Moving faster than the human eye, I crushed the hitman's steel gun with my bare hand and turned his soul into dust.
Looking at the memories of those who wronged this girl, I signed a contract for the very reality show they were starring in.
Since I borrowed this body, taking out the trash is a required courtesy.
8.2
When our family empire crumbled, my sister and I were sold off as collateral to the Chicago Outfit.
My fierce sister Frankie was forced to marry Damien Moretti, the terrifying Don. I was shackled to his brother Leo, a notorious, degenerate playboy.
I thought my life was over, but the real nightmare began on our wedding night. A terrified maid handed me the wrong room key. Exhausted and numb, I crawled into a dark honeymoon suite, praying my new husband would be too drunk to find me.
Instead, the heavy door opened, and a man fueled by a drug-laced drink stepped in. He was ruthless, punishing, and entirely stripped away my dignity in the pitch black.
When the morning light finally broke, I turned my head, expecting to see Leo's boyish face. Instead, I saw a profile carved from ice.
Damien Moretti. The Don. My sister's husband.
The very man who had previously called me a "liability" and ruined my life. When he realized who I was, his eyes filled with absolute, chilling disgust. He dragged me out of the ruined sheets, threw me onto the floor of a freezing shower, and demanded to know why I had sneaked into his suite.
"You ruined me. How am I supposed to look at Frankie? You should have just killed me. Kill me now, Damien. It would be a mercy compared to this."
I sobbed, the freezing water mingling with my tears. He just stared down at me with cold, unreadable intent. I was now trapped in a house of monsters, carrying the Don's darkest secret, and I had to figure out how to survive without destroying my sister.
9.7
She came to kill him.
He made her his queen.
Valeria Romano spent five years with one purpose ... destroy Lorenzo De Luca, the mafia king who murdered her father. She trained in silence, sacrificed everything, and finally had him in her crosshairs on a cold Sicilian night.
Then he showed her the truth.
Her father's killer was never Lorenzo.
It was the man who held her at the funeral. The man she called every week for five years. The man who handed her the wrong name and watched her walk toward the wrong target while he rebuilt his empire on her father's grave.
Her uncle Marco.
Now Valeria is bound to the enemy she came to destroy ... in a contract marriage she didn't choose, inside a world she doesn't yet understand, hunting a man who has been ten steps ahead of everyone for twenty years.
But Marco has never faced a woman who has nothing left to lose.
As the truth unravels and the bodies pile up and the line between hatred and something far more dangerous begins to blur ... Valeria must decide who she is willing to become to protect the people she loves.
Because in Lorenzo De Luca's world, power is everything.
And she is about to become the most powerful thing in it.
Some wars are fought with guns. The deadliest ones are fought from the inside.
8.5
"You are getting married, huh?" A shrill voice asked me from behind. "You don't look happy.'
"It's a complicated situati..." He cut me off.
"I can make you happy."
My eyes darted between his lips and eyes, he noticed my indecision and locked his lips with mine.
While battling with betrayal, Iris melts into a mafia's touch without knowing who he is. Now she must bear all the consequences that follow.
9.2
I was sold to Damien Russo, the ruthless Don of Chicago, as collateral in a shipping route transaction. I was expected to be a silent, obedient bride in a cold, loveless marriage.
But the moment I stepped into the Russo estate, I realized my new family wanted to completely destroy me.
My mother-in-law, Eleonora, and her arrogant relatives immediately targeted me. They set traps in the solarium, mocked my late mother's heritage, and tried to force me into humiliating submission using their strict mafia traditions. They wanted to break my spirit so Damien would replace me with the bride they actually wanted—a purebred mafia princess. They expected me to cower in fear, isolated and helpless, while the whole family watched my public humiliation and waited for my downfall.
Did they really think I was just a fragile girl who would cry and run away? They completely underestimated the survival instincts of a woman who grew up in this bloody world. I learned long ago that tears are worthless.
"My rules are simple. Vendetta is a two-way street."
Instead of breaking, I smiled. I weaponized their own legendary ancestors and the sacred promise of an unborn heir to trap the Matriarch in her own rules, forcing her into a suffocating silence. If they wanted a war for the throne, I would gladly show them exactly why I am the undisputed Mafia Queen.
9.3
"I was told I was a monster. My father told me I was a pawn. He didn't realize I was a Queen."
For seventeen years, Kaia has been locked in a gilded cage, hidden from the world and her own reflection. As the Kentrikos Territory's best-kept secret, she is the White Wolf-a myth, a legend, and a target. Now, her father is selling her to the highest bidder to secure his legacy.
The rules were simple: Choose a mate. Secure the alliance. Don't ask questions.
But as Kaia is paraded through the four territories to meet her potential Alphas, her sheltered existence begins to unravel. Her wolf, Selah, isn't looking for a mate-she's looking for blood. From the frozen wastes of the north to the high-tech laboratories of the west, Kaia uncovers a trail of secrets.
In a world of Alphas, the rarest wolf of all is done playing nice. Kaia must decide: will she be the submissive mate they expect, or the Alpha they should have feared?