The Betrayed Wife's Ruthless Mafia Comeback

Katarina De Luca POV:

The scene inside was worse than I had imagined.

Alessandro wasn't on the sofa. He was sitting on the edge of the massive mahogany desk, his father's desk, and Aria was perched in his lap, her arms draped around his neck.

The air was cloying, a nauseating mix of expensive whiskey and her sickly-sweet perfume.

Her silk dress was wrinkled, one strap hanging off her shoulder, exposing a wide swath of skin. When she saw me, she let out a small gasp, burrowing into Alessandro’s chest like a startled animal, but her eyes, when they met mine, were filled with pure, unadulterated triumph.

Alessandro’s reaction was colder. There was no panic in his eyes, only the faint, irritated frown of a man interrupted during an unimportant meeting.

He didn't even push her off his lap. That single, deliberate inaction was the most profound insult of all.

My gaze swept over the desk. A confidential file, one I had prepared, was crushed beneath Aria’s elbow. My heart sank. This wasn't just an affair. This was a desecration of the rules, of everything our world was built on.

I forced myself to be still, to lock my eyes on my husband's face.

"Alessandro." My voice was a sliver of ice, devoid of any emotion.

He finally spoke, his tone dripping with impatience. "Who told you to come in without knocking? Where are your manners?"

The irony was so thick I almost choked on it.

I held up the encrypted ledger. "I came to report on the North European Energy acquisition. It's done."

His eyes flickered to the drive, a flash of grudging admiration in their depths before it was replaced by annoyance.

"Good," he said, his voice like a razor's edge. "Put it down and get out."

Aria shifted in his lap, a smug little adjustment, her eyes fixed on me like a predator watching its prey bleed out.

I didn't move. My pride wouldn't let me.

"We need to talk," I insisted, my voice dangerously quiet.

That was it. The final straw for him. He pushed Aria aside and stood, his tall frame casting a long, oppressive shadow over me. He walked until he was standing directly in front of me, looking down at me with undisguised contempt.

"Talk about what, Katarina?" He tapped the ledger in my hand with his finger. "Why are you always so boring? You're just like this thing. Precise, efficient, and as cold as a spreadsheet."

His words were surgical, aimed at the very things I had cultivated to survive in his world.

"And I," he said, turning to gesture at Aria, who was now preening by the desk, "need a living, breathing woman. Not a perfect ice sculpture to display in the parlor."

*Ice sculpture. Spreadsheet.*

The perfect mask I wore shattered into a million pieces. The blood drained from my face.

Aria chose that moment to slink over and wrap her arm around his, her voice a syrupy poison. "Darling, don't be so harsh. *Sister* is only trying to do what's best for the family."

That single word, *sister*, was a declaration of war.

Alessandro looked at my pale, stricken face, and it only seemed to irritate him further. He felt no guilt. Only anger that I had dared to make him feel it.

He pointed a finger at the open door, his voice low and final.

"I told you to get out. Don't you understand English?"