The Underboss's Obsession: Stealing The Bride
Three days before the wedding.
I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman.
Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress.
The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem.
It didn't spell Elena.
It read Sofia.
He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name.
Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife.
He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance.
I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared.
"The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?"
"Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport."
"Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys."
I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday.
He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.
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Chapter 5
Elena Vitello POV
The smell of antiseptic pulled me out of the dark.
Fluorescent lights burned my retinas. I squeezed my eyes shut against the assault.
I blinked. The world swam into focus, gray and blurry.
Hospital room.
My head throbbed.
I tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea pushed me back into the pillow.
"Don't move," a voice said softly.
I turned my head toward the door.
Luca stood there.
He looked different. Disheveled. Tie undone, hair messy. The picture of a worried fiancé.
If I hadn't seen the video. If I hadn't heard the things he said in that club. I might have believed the performance.
Sofia sat in the corner chair, scrolling through her phone.
She looked bored. Like my fainting was an inconvenience in her schedule.
"You passed out," Luca said. "You fell down the stairs at the club. What were you doing there, Elena?"
I stared at him.
"Checking on my investment," I whispered, my voice raw.
He frowned. Confusion flickered in his eyes. "What?"
"Nothing."
The doctor bustled in then, clipboard in hand.
"Miss Vitello, you have a mild concussion and some bruising, but you're lucky. Looks like severe low blood sugar combined with alcohol shock exacerbated the situation. You need complete rest. No stress."
I laughed.
It was a dry sound. It scraped my throat.
"No stress. I'm getting married in two days."
Luca squeezed my hand.
"Maybe we should postpone," he said, the concern in his voice a lie. "You're not well."
He didn't care about my health.
He wanted time. He wanted to figure out how much I knew.
"No," I said, my voice hard. "The wedding is Saturday."
Sofia sighed dramatically in the corner.
Luca shot her a warning look, then turned back to me.
I pulled my hand away.
"I need to go home," I said.
"I'll drive you," Luca offered immediately.
"No. My father is sending a car."
Luca's face darkened, his easy charm evaporating. "Why are you calling your father?"
"Because he's family, Luca."
"Family protects its own."
I swung my legs off the bed. The room tilted violently, threatening to spin off its axis, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to be still.
I stood. Walked past Luca without looking at him.
I stopped in front of Sofia.
She looked up at me. Defiance flickered in her eyes. Mockery.
"Hope you feel better," she said sweetly. "Would be a shame to miss your big day."
I smiled. It didn't reach my eyes.
"Oh, I won't miss it, Sofia." I leaned closer, until my face was inches from hers. Until I was sure only she could hear.
"Saturday. Wear waterproof mascara."
"You'll need it."
I walked out. I didn't look back.
I walked down the sterile hospital corridor, the thin gown flapping against my legs, my head pounding like a war drum with every step.
I reached the exit. The automatic doors slid open. Cool night air hit my face.
A black SUV idled at the curb.
The window rolled down.
It wasn't my father's driver.
It was a man with eyes like black ice and a jagged scar cutting through one eyebrow.
Dante Cavallaro.
"Get in," he said.
I opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat. The interior enveloped me.
Leather and gun oil. The smell of vengeance.
"Ready?" he asked, eyes on the road ahead.
I looked back at the hospital entrance. Luca was running out, scanning the street.
He saw the car. He saw me. He might have seen Dante.
I turned to Dante.
"Drive," I said.
He hit the gas.
We left my past in the rearview mirror, shrinking until it was dust.
The war was coming.
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9.7
Prostitution wasn't exactly the future Ariella pictured for herself. But a series of unfortunate events landed her in a brothel she couldn't escape. Until he came in.
His name is Killian Morozcov. He moved liked he owned the world and planted bullets in the heads of men who looked at him the wrong way. He came into the brothel and left with her, and no matter how much she pleaded, he refused to tell her why.
In Ariella's experience, she's learnt that you either stab someone in the back or they'll do it to you. Yet Killian showed her a side of humanity she'd never seen before and her defences fall, leading to a love that they both knew couldn't last.
he was an heir to a Mafia kingdom, and she was a girl from a brothel with no familial backing.
their love was doomed the moment Killian saved her.
especially since he saved the wrong girl. he'd gone to the brothel thinking Ariella was his lost sister, Stella Morozcov.
he'd been wrong and in the process of continuing his search for Stella he grew attracted to Ariella. so much that he felt that he couldn't breath without her.
Their love is built on nothing but pain and deceit...skeletons rotting in their closets. They both have secrets that could tear them apart.
But the past is a funny thing... no matter how much you run from it, it always guns you down in the end.
9.0
For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe.
On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring.
Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger.
Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family.
When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence.
"Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets."
My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet.
He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts.
He was wrong.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use.
Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed.
*I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.*
His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning.
*The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?*
I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me.
I looked down and typed three letters.
*Yes.*
7.8
BLURB
"Beg for it, Bella," his rasped voice whispered against my ears as his dick rubbed against my thighs.
"I want you to f**k me until my tongue knows nothing but your name. Please, Daddy," I begged shamelessly until he finally slipped into me.
-
The first time I saw him, I understood why people ruin their lives for dicks.
He was standing in the sunlight, watching me like he already knew how the story would end. I had a boyfriend. He was my best friend's father. And ninety days should have been easy to survive.
Then I opened the wrong door, and after everything burned.
Alexander Moreau doesn't touch you first. He studies you, learns you, and makes you feel like the only person in the room. And somewhere between midnight swims and locked doors, I stopped pretending I didn't want him.
I'd go through hell and come back friends with the devil if it would mean him sticking his dick inside me again.
But houses made of glass don't protect secrets, and by the time summer ended, I had lost my best friend, my relationship, my future, and the version of myself I thought I was. Because falling for Alexander Moreau wasn't the danger.
His ex-wife was.
7.9
They Faked a Marriage in Summer. But Autumn had a Plan of Its Own.
Ivy Monroe is in a bind. She's got a shot at the research grant of her dreams. There's just one catch: it's for couples only. No husband? No deal.
That's where Lake Hart comes in. He's a broody, charming filmmaker who needs quick cash. She needs a fake husband. It's supposed to be simple: pretend to be married for one summer, fool a few people, and walk away richer.
But nothing about this fake marriage is simple.
They arrive at a romantic mountain retreat and things get complicated-fast:
- Weird "touch therapy" that's way too intimate
- One tiny bed that squeaks like crazy
- "Practice" kisses that don't feel fake at all
- Judges watching their every move-and a prize on the line
Ivy swore she wouldn't catch feelings. Lake never sticks around long enough to. But the more they pretend, the more real it starts to feel.
One lie. One summer. So many sparks.
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8.0
"Don't you dare touch me. You bloody monster," Eric whispered glaring at me, which only turned me on the more.
A beautiful smile crossed my lips; luckily for us, his fake mother was so focused on Katherine, she did not know I was fucking her son before her eyes.
"So I am now a monster, huh? That was not what you said yesterday. Or have you forgotten about our hot night?" I asked as I traced my way to his lap again, approaching his groin area.
He swallowed hard, his eyes roaming around. "Damien. I am Katherine's fiancé. your niece" He reminded me as my hands reached his groan, caressing it through the layers of his trousers.
"Yesterday you were Mike's boyfriend, and what did I tell you? I don't give a fuck!," I whispered back. "Now be quiet and try to control yourself" .
Eric's life is thrown upside down when his brother is killed on his coronation day, and he now has to become the king. and he can't because he is gay and he has a boyfriend who he loves dearly, or so he thought until he met Damien Monetro, his fiancée's uncle and his former one-night stand
7.7
Three hours ago, I was the revered Bianchi princess, standing at the altar in a million-dollar gown to seal New York's most powerful Mafia alliance.
Instead, my fiancé Julian Falcone didn't show up, publicly slaughtering our sacred pact for a rising actress and turning me into the laughingstock of the underworld.
In a drunken haze of humiliation, I used my silent, lethal bodyguard, Damien Moretti, to numb my pain.
But the next morning, he didn't just walk away.
He showed me a video of my willing surrender and cornered me.
"Marry me. Become Mrs. Moretti."
My own father froze my accounts, demanding I get on my knees to beg the cheating Falcone heir for forgiveness, or face a fifty-million-dollar penalty.
I was stripped of my assets, betrayed by the man I loved for a decade, and sold out by my own blood.
I had no choice but to agree to Damien's marriage of convenience to survive.
But what terrified me most was my new husband himself.
A mere bodyguard shouldn't carry an invitation-only Centurion black card.
A mere bodyguard shouldn't be able to terrify a Mafia heir with a single, murderous look.
Who on earth was Damien Moretti?
With no money and my back against the wall, I was forced to join a reality show alongside my cheating ex and his mistress.
They thought they could continue to humiliate the discarded bride on live television.
But they didn't know I was walking into this warzone with a monster at my back.