The Don's Betrayal, My Unstoppable Rise

For seven years, I was the perfect, silent wife to Dante De Luca, the Don of the Chicago Outfit. Our marriage was a contract, signed only because his true love, Isabella, left him at the altar. Then, she came back. He made me watch as he chose her, again and again. He took her into a dark closet for Seven Minutes in Heaven, emerging with a fresh love bite on her neck. Then, she framed me for stealing her diamond necklace. "She's a thief, Dante, just like her mother!" Isabella wailed. My husband didn't hesitate. He shoved me against a table and had his men throw me into the family's private holding cell. He knew it was a setup, but he still called me trash, not fit to clean her shoes. I finally understood. I was never his wife. I was just a "low-cost placeholder," a body in his bed until Isabella returned. I was disposable. So when I was finally released, I walked away. His biggest rival was waiting for me with a job offer: Chief Design Director. I would compete against Dante for the city's biggest contract, using the very architectural designs he stole from me and gave to his mistress. I would build an empire on the ashes of his pride.

Chapters

Chapter 6

Seraphina POV:

The library door clicked shut.

The sound was quiet, but in the suddenly hushed room, it felt like a final verdict. Then the room erupted. Cheers, whistles, the clinking of glasses. They were toasting the reunion of the Don and his long-lost love.

I sat there, a statue in a navy silk dress, and felt a chilling finality lodge itself deep in my marrow. It was over. Not just the party, not just the night. Everything.

I had been the only one who ever took our vows seriously. He'd said them to save face. I'd said them because a secret, stupid part of me had hoped.

"You'd think she'd have some dignity," a woman whispered from a nearby table.

"I almost feel sorry for her," her friend agreed, her tone suggesting the opposite. "Almost. She needs to let him move on."

The words were meant for me to hear. Every head was turned in my direction, their eyes a sickening cocktail of pity and scorn. I couldn't breathe. The air was too thick with their judgment.

Unable to bear it another second, I stood up. My legs felt like water, but I willed them to lock. I was leaving.

Just as I turned, the library door opened.

A few minutes. It felt like a lifetime.

Dante and Isabella emerged, blinking in the sudden light. My eyes immediately found the evidence. Isabella's expression was one of pure triumph, a possessive light shining in her eyes that marked him as hers.

My heart, which I thought had been ground to dust, somehow found a way to fracture anew.

I managed to find my voice, though it sounded thin and distant, like it was coming from someone else. "I'm not feeling well. I'm going home."

No one heard me. Or if they did, they didn't care. Dante's eyes were only for Isabella, a soft, possessive look on his face that I had craved for seven years and never once received.

I walked out of the villa, a ghost leaving her own haunting. I called a car and sank into the back seat, the leather cold against my skin.

My phone buzzed. A video file from Isabella.

My fingers trembled as I pressed play. The screen was dark, lit only by the faint light from under the library door. I could hear their breathing.

"You left me at the altar nine times, Bella," Dante's voice was low, a rumble of old anger. "You ran off with another man."

Isabella's voice was a seductive purr. "And you married her. Are you happy, Dante? Is she a good wife?" A pause. "Will you divorce her for me?"

The silence that followed was the most painful sound I had ever heard. It stretched on, each second a new kind of torture. I waited for him to say my name, to defend our marriage, to say no.

His voice, when it finally came, was thick with an emotion I couldn't place. Regret? Longing?

"You know I can never say no to you."

The video ended.

My seven-year marriage, my entire adult life, turned to ash.

I ignored the follow-up texts from Isabella, little digital daggers of triumph I didn't need to see. I arrived back at the cold, empty De Luca mansion and walked straight to our master bathroom.

I twisted my wedding ring. The platinum was heavy, the diamond cold. A seven-year contract. A gilded cage.

I dropped it into the toilet bowl. It hit the porcelain with a small, insignificant clink.

I pressed the handle and watched it swirl, the diamond catching the light one last time before it was sucked away into the darkness.

A sense of liberation, sharp and clean, washed over me. I was free.

I finished packing the last of my things. My design portfolio, the worn photograph of my mother, the few clothes that weren't bought by him.

The front door of the mansion burst open, slamming against the wall.

Dante stood in the entryway, his face a mask of cold fury. Behind him, clinging to his arm and sobbing into his chest, was Isabella.

He stalked toward me, his eyes boring into me with an intensity that felt like a physical weight. "You took her necklace," he stated, not asked. His voice was a blade of deadly calm. "Give it back now, and we can forget this happened. Or we handle this with the full weight of the De Luca name."

It was a setup. Of course it was. "I didn't take anything, Dante."

"Don't lie to me."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "In seven years, have I ever once asked you for a single thing? Have I ever coveted anything in this entire empire you're so proud of?"

He faltered. For half a second, I saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes.

Isabella seized the moment. "It was a gift from you, Dante!" she wailed, clutching at him. "It's priceless to me!" She reached a hand toward me, as if to plead.

My patience snapped. I flinched away from her touch. "Don't you dare touch me."

Isabella stumbled back dramatically, collapsing against Dante's chest. "See?" she cried. "She's a thief! She has always been jealous of what I have!"

My blood ran cold. The air left my lungs. "What did you say?"

Isabella looked up at Dante, her eyes shining with fake tears and real venom. "She has always been jealous of me. People like her are never satisfied."

My control, the iron-clad restraint I had practiced for seven miserable years, shattered into a million pieces.

Before my mind could protest, my hand flew.

The sound of my palm connecting with her cheek-a sharp, satisfying crack that split the suffocating silence-echoed through the grand foyer.

Continue to next part

Elena Marlowe is a quiet and gentle woman who never looked for trouble. But everything changes the night she meets Damien De Luca, a powerful Mafia boss known for being cold, arrogant, and ruthless. From the beginning, Damien wants her-and he always gets what he wants. At first, Elena is afraid of him, but as time passes, she sees another side of the man everyone fears. With her, Damien becomes softer, more human. And for the first time, he learns what it means to love. Their love is strong, but danger follows them everywhere. Friends turn into traitors, and even family members plot against them. Surrounded by lies and betrayal, Elena and Damien must fight for each other and for the life they dream of. This is a story of love and danger, of passion and betrayal-where even in the darkest world, love can change everything.

Action Mafia Romance

7.6

Conquering The Cold Zillionaire Surgeon Heiress

7.6

When the Pollard family kicked Alyssa out into the freezing rain, Walter threw a ten-thousand-dollar check into a dirty puddle. "Take it and get out. Don't ever come back," he sneered. Her adoptive mother and stepsister stood on the mansion's porch, mocking her as a worthless country girl who tarnished their wealthy name. They laughed, claiming she wouldn't even be able to afford community college and would be begging on the streets in a week. They looked at her cheap clothes and worn backpack with absolute disgust. They were completely unaware that for the past five years, Alyssa was the secret mastermind who had built their failing gallery into a multi-million-dollar investment empire. Every key investment, every fortune they made, came from the anonymous notes she had slipped into their unread books. They genuinely believed they were business geniuses, while treating the true architect of their wealth like a stray dog. Looking at their smug, arrogant faces, Alyssa didn't feel a shred of sadness, only a cold, sharp irony. They actually believed they had raised her. She stepped close, whispered the master code to Walter's most secret offshore account, and watched the blood completely drain from his face. "I raised you," she said, turning her back on the mansion without hesitation. Walking into the storm, she pulled out a heavily encrypted phone and gave a single, cold order. "Initiate a full hostile takeover of the Pollard Group." It was time to end this little game and step into her true life—as the world's most elusive medical genius, and the long-lost billionaire heiress of the Summers dynasty.

Billionaire Mafia Modern

7.6

Discarded Heiress: Reborn from Mafia Prison

7.6

Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift—a way to protect me from a worse fate. Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes." My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life. They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous. They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word. It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash. That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."

Billionaire Mafia Modern

8.4

From Discarded Wife To The Don's Successor

8.4

I was tightening my husband’s tie for the photographers at the gala when my phone buzzed against my thigh. A single notification stopped my heart dead. Julius had just wired five million dollars—capital I had secretly stolen from my father to build his company—to an account named 'K. Drake'. When I confronted him later that night, he didn't apologize. Instead, he lured me to an empty warehouse and detonated a rigged gas line. I woke up in a hospital bed, my body broken and my mind racing. Julius stood over me, checking his watch, looking terrifyingly calm. "The baby is gone," he said dismissively, referring to the pregnancy I hadn't even told him about yet. "But Kenzie needs a bone marrow transplant. You're a match." He was holding our daughter, Ava, hostage. He told me if I didn't give his mistress my marrow, I’d never see my child again. He looked at me with total contempt. To him, I was just a boring, civilian housewife. A prop he had used and was now ready to discard. He had no idea who I really was. He didn't know that the "bank loans" I secured for him were actually laundered syndicate money. He didn't know that the father I "didn't talk to" was Horacio Horton, the most feared Don on the East Coast. I let them take the marrow. I let them believe they had broken me. Then, as soon as Julius left the room, I reached for the phone and dialed a number I hadn't used in ten years. "Papa," I whispered into the receiver. "Send the army." The civilian Florence died in that bed. The Mob Princess had just returned to take her throne.

Mafia Modern Romance

8.7

Mafia's Forbidden Touch

8.7

Synopsis: She thought she could forget him by morning. She was wrong. Catherine Moretti wanted to escape her past. As the daughter of a powerful mafia boss, her life was full of danger, lies, and control. So she ran, hoping to start over, far from the world she was born into. But one reckless night turned her life upside down, just to find out later she's pregnant with the hot Italian stranger's baby, the one she spent the night with! Now, she's pulled back into the mafia world, only this time, into Nico's. She ran from one mafia king... and ended up in the arms of his enemy However, Nico isn't the kind of man you walk away from. And in his world, one night can turn into forever.

Action Mafia Modern

9.0

My Kidney For His Mistress: Never Again

9.0

I woke up from surgery with a jagged scar on my side and a missing kidney. My fiancé, Dante Moretti, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, hadn't saved me from an illness. He had harvested me like spare parts to save his mistress, Sofia. "She pays the tithe," he had told the surgeon coldly while I was paralyzed by anesthesia. For ten years, I was his loyal shadow. I managed his legitimate empire, took bullets for him, and even aborted our child three years ago because Sofia threw a tantrum about bloodlines. I thought my absolute loyalty would eventually earn his love. But when the Cartel held us both over the edge of a bridge days later, Dante didn't choose me. He tackled Sofia to safety and watched as I fell backward into the freezing black river. He thought I drowned. Or worse, he assumed I was a dog that would eventually swim back to its master, no matter how hard he kicked it. He was wrong. I dragged myself out of that water, but the woman who loved him died in the depths. Seven days later, I didn't return to the Moretti penthouse. I walked straight into the headquarters of his mortal enemy, Enzo Falcone. "Do you still want to marry me?" I asked the man who wanted Dante’s head on a spike. Enzo didn't hesitate. "I will burn the city down before I let him touch you again." Now, Dante is crawling at my gates, paralyzed and ruined, holding a medical box containing my stolen kidney. But he forgot one thing: I don't want it back.

Mafia Modern Romance

The Don's Betrayal, My Unstoppable Rise

Chapter 6

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