The Jilted Mafia Heiress Takes It All

I stood at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the daughter of New York’s most feared Don, ready to lower myself to marry a common soldier. Then, a toddler in the front pew shrieked, "Daddy." Liam didn't squeeze my hand for reassurance. He dropped it like it was a branding iron. In front of five hundred of the criminal elite, he ran down the aisle, scooping up his secret child and the mistress who had been blackmailing him. He left me standing there, humiliated and alone. Three months later, the "Jilted Princess" title still clung to me. Yet, Liam had the audacity to bring her to my father's birthday gala. Sarah, wearing a dress far too tight and a smug smile, cornered me in the middle of the ballroom. She wanted to twist the knife. "He hates you, you know," she screamed, loud enough for the Dons and Capos to hear. "He says sleeping with you was like sleeping with a statue. He chose real love! He chose a family!" The room went deathly silent. Liam looked at me with pity, thinking he had won. He thought I was broken. He thought I was alone. I took a slow sip of my champagne and set the glass down. "I am not alone, Sarah," I said calmly. I turned toward the shadows near the entrance. "Ethan?" I called out. The crowd parted instantly for the scarred, lethal man who stepped forward—The Ghost of Chicago, the most feared Underboss in Europe. He walked over and wrapped a heavy, possessive arm around my waist. "I’d like you to meet my husband," I told a horrified Liam. "And our daughter is waiting upstairs." Chapter 1 Ava Vitiello POV I was standing at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the heavy silk of my custom gown weighing down my shoulders, when a toddler in the front pew shrieked "Daddy" and pointed a chubby finger directly at my groom, shattering the silence and my future in a single breath. The air in the cathedral turned instantly suffocating. Five hundred guests, the elite of New York's criminal underworld, froze in their seats. I felt Liam's hand twitch in mine. It was a spasm of pure terror. He didn't squeeze my hand for reassurance. He didn't look at me with confusion. He dropped my hand. He dropped it as if my skin had suddenly turned to branding iron, and he turned his head toward the pews. I watched him. I watched the man I had lowered myself to love, the man I had begged my father to accept despite his insignificance, make his choice. A woman stood up from the shadows of the pillars. Sarah. I knew that face. I had seen it on the glowing encrypted screen of Liam's burner phone three nights ago. I had seen the texts where he promised her money, promised her safety, promised her he was only marrying me for the position. I had confronted him then. He had fallen to his knees, swearing on his mother's grave that it was over, that she was a mistake, that I was his queen. He lied. Liam took a step away from the altar. He took a step toward them. The toddler, a girl with Liam's dark curls, broke free from Sarah's grip and ran into the aisle. "Daddy," she cried again. Liam looked at me one last time. His eyes were wide, pleading, but not for forgiveness. He was pleading for me to understand his cowardice. Then, he ran. He ran to the child. He scooped her up, shielding her face from the hundreds of stares, and looked at Sarah with a desperation that made my stomach turn. The murmur in the crowd grew into a roar. My father, the Don of the Vitiello crime family, stood up in the front row. The sound of his chair scraping against the marble floor echoed like a gunshot. His Enforcers reached inside their jackets. Liam was a dead man. He had disrespected the Family on the most sacred day. But I didn't want him dead. Not yet. Death was too easy. Death was silence. I wanted him to scream. I stepped forward. My veil was still covering my face, a shroud of lace that hid the fact that my eyes were dry. I didn't cry. I felt a cold, hard stone settle where my heart used to be. "Stop," I commanded. My voice was amplified by the microphone, sharp and cutting. The guards froze. My father looked at me, his face a mask of lethal fury. I reached up and tore the veil from my hair. The expensive lace ripped, but I didn't care. I threw it onto the floor. Liam looked at me over the head of his bastard child. Sarah was clinging to his arm now, looking around with wide, terrified eyes, realizing too late that she had walked into a den of wolves. I looked at the crowd. I saw the pity in their eyes. The whispers. The Principessa, humiliated. The Vitiello bloodline, tainted by a soldier who couldn't keep his zipper up. I wouldn't let them pity me. I gripped the microphone stand until my knuckles turned white. "It seems the groom has a prior engagement," I said. My voice was steady. It was the voice of my father's daughter. Liam flinched. I looked directly at him. I looked at the sweat beading on his forehead. I looked at the cheap suit he wore, a suit I had paid for. "You can keep the ring, Liam," I said, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "You're going to need to pawn it to feed them." I turned to the band, who were looking at me in horror. "Play," I ordered. They hesitated. "Play!" I screamed, the first crack in my armor showing. They scrambled to pick up their instruments. A disjointed, discordant jazz tune began to fill the tense air. I turned my back on the altar. I turned my back on God. I walked down the aisle alone. I walked past my father. He caught my arm. His grip was bruising. "I want his head, Ava," he growled. "Tonight." "No," I whispered. I looked at the doors where Liam was hurrying Sarah and the child out, running like a rat from a sinking ship. "He broke his vows to me, Papa. He broke Omerta." I pulled my arm free. "I don't want his head. I want his life. I want to take it apart, piece by piece, until he begs you to kill him." My father looked at me. He saw the death in my eyes. He saw the girl he raised die on that altar, replaced by something much colder. He nodded once. "It is yours, daughter." I walked out of the cathedral into the blinding sunlight of Fifth Avenue. I didn't run. I didn't hide. I took out my phone and dialed the family lawyer. "Cancel the honeymoon," I said. "And freeze his accounts. All of them." The vendetta had begun.