The Mistress's Name On His Heart
On my wedding night, while unbuttoning my new husband's shirt, I found a fresh tattoo over his heart.
A bold, jagged letter 'C'.
It stood for Caren—my best friend, the girl I had raised from the servant's quarters like a sister.
Jameson was the Prince of Philadelphia, and our marriage was a blood pact between mafia families.
But looking at that ink, I realized he had already signed a different contract with the help.
The betrayal didn't stop at infidelity.
Weeks later, Caren crashed a family dinner with a "peace offering"—a cake laced with peanuts.
She knew I was deathly allergic.
As my throat closed up and I clawed at Jameson for the EpiPen in my purse, he didn't move.
He stood there and watched me turn blue.
For three eternal seconds, he hesitated, weighing the life of his mistress against the life of his wife.
He wanted me to die so he wouldn't have to expose her.
But I didn't die.
I woke up in the hospital with the Dons of both families standing over me, waiting for an explanation.
Jameson begged me with his eyes to keep his secret, whispering that he loved me and our unborn heir.
I didn't cry. I simply connected my phone to the speaker and played the recording of him mocking me with Caren.
Then, I looked at the man who had hesitated to save my life.
"There is no heir, Jameson," I said, my voice cold as ice.
"I removed it. I will not incubate the legacy of a traitor."
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Chapter 4
Lana POV
The Cavallaro estate was more than just a home; it was a fortress, a gilded cage built of cold marble and silence.
I had been living within its walls for three months.
Jameson thought he had won. He mistook my silence for submission, assuming that because I hadn't run crying to my father, I had accepted my place as a decorative fixture. He thought I was weak.
He didn't know I was building a case.
I sat in the library, the heavy oak door bolted shut against the rest of the house. On the mahogany desk, the landline blinked red.
I lifted the receiver.
"Hello?"
Silence greeted me, followed by the soft, rhythmic sound of breathing. A woman's breathing.
"I know it's you, Caren," I said.
"Is he there?" Her voice was dripping with false sweetness.
"He's out," I lied smoothly. "Earning the money you so enjoy spending."
"He bought me a condo," she bragged. "Did you know? It has a view of the river."
"That's nice," I said, my finger pressing the record button on the small, discreet device I had rigged to the phone. "Does he visit often?"
"Every night," she purred. "He tells me he can't stand touching you. He says you're cold. Like a statue."
"Statues last forever," I countered, my voice devoid of emotion. "Whores are seasonal."
She laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. "He calls me his Lucky Charm. Did you know that?"
I looked over at the corner of the room. Leo, Jameson's African Grey parrot, shifted on his perch, bobbing his head.
"Lucky Charm," the bird squawked, a perfect, haunting mimicry. "Pretty Caren. Lucky Charm."
The bird had been hearing it for months. Before the wedding. Before the contract.
"I have to go," Caren said suddenly. "He's pulling into the driveway. He hates it when I'm on the phone with you. He says it stresses me out."
The line went dead.
I stopped the recording and transferred the file to the encrypted folder on my laptop.
Just then, I heard the front door open. Jameson's heavy footsteps echoed in the grand hall.
"Lana!" he called out. "I'm home."
He sounded cheerful. The dutiful husband.
I glanced down at the wastebasket beside the desk. Inside, wrapped carefully in a tissue, was a plastic stick bearing two pink lines.
I rested a hand on my stomach.
I was carrying the heir. The baby that would cement the alliance. The baby that would make Jameson the undisputed Don one day.
But Jameson was a traitor.
He walked into the library, bringing the scent of rain and another woman with him.
"Hey," he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek. I didn't flinch. "What are you doing?"
"Just reading," I said, closing the laptop.
"We have the family dinner tonight," he reminded me. "My parents. Your parents are flying in. It's a big night."
"Yes," I said. "It is."
He didn't notice the glacier behind my eyes. He was too arrogant to see the knife until it was already buried between his ribs.
"Wear the red dress," he commanded softly. "I like you in red."
"Okay," I agreed.
I would wear red.
The color of war.
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7.3
Jolene flies to Italy broke and desperate for a PA job. She walks into the wrong room and finds a man naked in the shower. She can't stop staring. He notices.
The interview is brutal. Two men, Marco and Enzo, tear her apart, humiliate her, and dismiss her. She thinks she failed.
Then Enzo gets in the car. It was all a test. They wanted to see if she'd break. She didn't. The job is hers.
But they don't want a normal assistant. They want control. They touch her when they want, stand too close, give orders that cross every line.
On her first night, Marco tells her to take off her blouse.
Jolene has to choose: obey or walk away with nothing.
The problem? Part of her doesn't want to leave.
7.6
" Make love to me, Ryan. F*ck me till my legs give way. "
When Amelia said this, she knew she was willing to risk everything... her father's trust and happiness.
****
" Damnit, Amelia! He's my friend! " Her father snarled.
" And he's my lover! " She yelled right back.
Bryan shook his head, " No, child. Ryan is too dangerous for you. "
" And old, " he added in a whisper.
" I'm not a child anymore, daddy. I'm 21 " Amelia answered.
" Who knows nothing! End it with him or I'll disown you! " He was shouting now.
She stomped her feet on the ground like the child her father had called her, " I'm going to be with him, Dad! Get used to it. "
" He's being called a monster for a reason. Don't you know why? "
" Stupid reason. He doesn't deserve it. " she retorted and added, " And isn't he supposed to be your friend? "
Bryan shook his head, " You come first, Mel. I'm going to protect you from him. "
" At all cost. "
8.4
I was exactly three thousand words away from eviction when the heir to the New York underworld smashed my laptop and offered me a job instead of an apology.
Dante Vitiello wanted me to write a memoir that would paint him as a saint.
I moved into his penthouse, thinking I could keep things professional. But when his arranged fiancée, the daughter of the Chicago Outfit, arrived, she didn't see an employee. She saw a threat.
She didn't just humiliate me; she leaked fake evidence to the press, branding me as a federal informant.
I woke up in a hospital bed with the word "RAT" plastered across every gossip site.
Sofia’s guards were stationed outside my door, blocking even the nurses. I was a liability. A stain on the Vitiello name.
I knew how these stories ended. The Prince always chooses the Family. The Alliance is more important than the girl.
I was packing my bag, shaking with fear, ready to disappear into the night to save him from ruin.
But Dante didn't come to fire me. He walked into the boardroom where his father and the Chicago Boss were waiting for him to beg for forgiveness.
He looked at the crown that was his birthright, then he looked at the gun on the table.
He didn't kneel. He didn't apologize.
He slammed his weapon down, shattering a hundred-year alliance and forfeiting his empire with a single sentence.
"Keep the crown. I take the girl."
8.0
I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair.
They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves.
Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment.
But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger.
In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.
9.3
I was gasping for air on the cold marble floor of the Syndicate Ball, my lungs seizing in a familiar, lethal rhythm.
My inhaler was just five feet away, but it might as well have been miles.
Dante Moretti, the man who bought my life with his blood eight years ago, looked right at me.
He saw my panic. He saw the weakness he despised.
Then, he turned his back on me to continue waltzing with his mistress.
That betrayal was just the beginning.
When the elevator trapped us days later, the lights flickering and the air growing thin, Dante didn't hesitate.
He pried the doors open and carried Sofia out like a fragile bride.
He left me—his wife with a diagnosed respiratory condition—alone in the suffocating dark to die.
He missed my birthday dinner to comfort her on a Ferris Wheel, leaving me to celebrate with a single candle on a slice of toast.
I finally realized that to him, I wasn't a wife to be cherished. I was just property to be owned.
Something inside me didn't just break; it clicked into place.
I stopped waiting for him to come home.
I left my wedding ring on the table, blocked his number, and walked out into the night.
Now, Dante is tearing the city apart to find me, claiming he realizes his mistake.
But he's too late.
Because the man standing beside me now isn't offering me a diamond ring or empty promises.
He just handed me a loaded Glock and asked if I wanted to be his Queen.
8.9
Three years after I buried an empty casket for my husband, I found him alive in a grocery store parking lot.
He was rubbing a stranger's pregnant belly, smiling a soft smile I had never seen in our years of marriage.
My husband, the ruthless Don of Chicago, had become "Arthur," a gentle man with no memory of the empire he ruled or the wife he left behind.
To protect his happiness, I swallowed my agony and lied.
"I am his cousin," I told his pregnant fiancée, Mia.
I brought them home to his estate, enduring the torture of watching him give her the tenderness that used to belong to me.
But my mercy was rewarded with cruelty.
Dante looked at me with cold, unfamiliar eyes and slapped divorce papers onto the table.
"Sign them," he demanded, his voice devoid of emotion. "I want to marry Mia before the baby comes. I want a fresh start."
He didn't know I was dying of a heart defect caused by the stress of grieving him.
He didn't know I stalled for two weeks not for money, but because I wanted to be buried with his name.
I died the morning the deadline arrived, taking the secret of my love to the grave.
Ironically, that very night, a bullet grazed his temple during an ambush, unlocking the memories he had lost.
He remembered the peach orchard. He remembered our blood oath. He remembered that I was his soulmate.
He ran to my brother’s gates, screaming my name, blood pouring down his face, desperate to beg for forgiveness.
But my brother just stood there, blocking the entrance to the cemetery with a cruel smile.
"She waited for you every single day," he spat.
"And you killed her."