Where His Love Became My Hell

paid chapters: 6

At our wedding, the big screen suddenly flashed with a photo of me in bed with the heir to my husband's rival family.

Before I could react, Magnus Moretti had already calmly quelled the chaos and completed the ceremony with me, his face a chillingly blank mask.

Once the guests had departed, I went to find him, ready to explain. But instead, I found him pinning my cousin, Lori, to the antique bed—the one meant for the matriarch of the Moretti family—and taking her with a brutal frenzy.

My screams and tears were met with only his cold words:

"Isabella, a bitch like you has no right to play the part of a faithful wife."

After that, Magnus lavished Lori with everything from rare black diamonds to ancient castles. They became an inseparable, public spectacle, turning me, the true Mrs. Moretti, into the laughingstock of the entire Chicago underworld.

I struggled for years, until the day of a family shootout, when a doctor handed me a miscarriage report, and my heart finally shattered.

If his love was my own personal hell, why would I choose to stay?

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1

As the private doctor handed me the miscarriage report, I could hear the muffled voices of Magnus's men just outside my hospital room:

"The Don is completely taken with Miss Lori. She got rattled during the shootout, and he instantly canceled a nine-figure arms deal just to be with her. Her room is overflowing with caviar and vintage champagne. I even saw him cutting her steak himself!"

"That's a Don for you. But I thought he had a wife?"

"You mean that notorious whore? The one who was fooling around with a rival family right before the wedding? It's a miracle the Don let her keep the Moretti name. He should have just locked her away. Does a woman like that even deserve to be called 'Mrs. Moretti'?"

The word "whore" hurled me back to my wedding night.

That night, I’d stumbled into the Moretti ancestral home in my wedding dress, but before I could speak, I saw Magnus pinning Lori to the antique bed—the one meant for the family’s matriarch—and taking her with a brutal frenzy.

The moment I realized it was Magnus and my cousin, Lori, my first instinct was to hurl the crystal wine glasses from the table at them.

Magnus shielded a naked Lori in his arms, draped a silk robe over her, and coolly arranged for a private car to take her home before finally lifting his gaze to me.

On the verge of a complete breakdown, I screamed, "Why?"

He just slowly swirled the whiskey in his glass. "Isabella, don't play the faithful wife. It's not a good look on a bitch like you."

I cried until I dry-heaved. "Magnus, you can't do this to me! And why her, of all people!" I sobbed. "How could you be with her? You, of all people, know what betrayal feels like! The Gallos have your father's blood on their hands!"

The next second, a crimson fury flashed in Magnus’s eyes, and he kicked over the heavy oak table.

"Isabella, so you do know what betrayal feels like!" he roared.

"I fucking treasured you. You were everything to me. All these years, I followed the rules, kept my hands off you even when I was burning with desire, so afraid of scaring you. And what do you do? You turn around and spread your fucking legs in Leo Falcone's bed?"

"What the fuck does that make me!"

So, it was because of that photo.

The day before the wedding, Leo Falcone and I had both been drugged. When we woke up, we were in the same bed.

I immediately had a full medical exam afterward. The blood test, combined with my own fractured memories, confirmed that nothing had happened between us.

I had planned to explain everything to Magnus after the wedding, but I never imagined they would play the security footage of me entering Leo's room for everyone to see.

An ache seized my chest, making it hard to breathe. Through my sobs, I tried to explain,

"I don't know who set me up, but I swear, nothing happened between us!"

Magnus let out a cold, humorless laugh.

"Isabella, do you really think I'll ever believe you again?"

I looked up. "If you don't believe me, then why go through with the wedding? Why marry me?"

Magnus's hand shot out, grabbing the back of my neck. His eyes were utterly devoid of love.

"For revenge, of course! You like being someone's plaything, don't you? Then you'll be my doll in a cage for the rest of your life!"

"Isabella, I will make the rest of your life a hundred, a thousand times more painful than the humiliation I endured today!"

The very next day, Magnus took Lori on his private jet to Sicily for the honeymoon that should have been ours.

Magnus, who had always despised cameras, hired a personal photographer for Lori, posing for hundreds of intimate photos that were splashed across the covers of every major gossip magazine.

By then, the news of my "affair" with the rival family had consumed the Chicago underworld.