You Can't Buy My Heart, Mr. Vitiello
My father sold me to the Vitiello Crime Family to settle a three-million-dollar gambling debt.
For three years, I was Dante Vitiello’s property. I warmed his bed, tended his wounds, and let him own every part of me.
I thought I was earning my freedom. I thought I mattered.
Then his "true queen," the Mafia Princess Sofia, returned to the city.
Dante pushed me off his lap the moment she walked into the room. He ordered me to leave because, in the presence of his equal, I was nothing more than "the help."
The humiliation didn't stop there.
He evicted me from the penthouse to renovate it for her.
At a gala, he outbid me for my grandmother’s heirloom bracelet—my family's last scrap of dignity—just to gift it to Sofia in front of the entire city.
But the final blow came when he came to my bed drunk one last time.
He kissed me with a desperate hunger, whispering that he was only "practicing" his technique on me so he would be perfect for her.
I realized then that I wasn't a person to him. I was a training dummy. A debt with a pulse.
He told me to wait for him while he took her to Paris. He thought I would stay in the kennel like a good pet.
He was wrong.
While he was gone, I accepted a surgical fellowship in Switzerland.
I snapped my SIM card in half, left his millions on the floor, and boarded a one-way flight.
By the time the Wolf comes home to find his cage empty, I will be gone.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
Elena Rossi POV
The morning light hitting the floor-to-ceiling windows was unforgiving. It didn't just brighten the room; it interrogated it, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the dead air and the hollow emptiness in Dante’s eyes.
He sat at the kitchen island, reading a dossier with the stillness of a statue.
He bore no trace of the man who had unraveled me only hours prior. He didn't look like a lover. He looked like a CEO. A predator sheathed in Italian wool.
"There's a bag on the counter," he said, his voice flat, never lifting his gaze from the papers. "The new season Hermès. Take it."
It was his standard penance. A transaction. Obedience bought with calfskin.
"I don't need a bag, Dante." I poured coffee, hating the way my hand trembled against the china. "I need to know if I'm attending the Starry Night Gala tonight."
He finally looked at me. His eyes were dark abysses, voids that swallowed the morning sun. "Why wouldn't you?"
"Because Sofia Moretti is in town."
The temperature in the kitchen seemed to plummet.
He closed the dossier. The sound was soft, yet final. "Sofia is business. You are... my companion. Do not confuse your roles."
He stood, closing the distance between us with a predator's grace. He reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture mimicked tenderness, but his touch was cold, possessive.
"Wear the black dress. The one with the open back. Be ready by seven."
He left before I could summon the breath to argue.
My phone buzzed against the marble counter. It was my mother.
"Elena! Oh, thank God," her voice chirped, painfully oblivious to the gilded cage I was living in. "Your father's surgery is scheduled for next week. The doctor says the specialist is the best in the country. It’s all thanks to Dante."
Bile rose in my throat, acrid and hot. "That's... good, Mom."
"He's such a good man, Elena. I know he's busy with his... import business... but when are you going to bring him home? We want to thank him properly."
"He's busy, Mom," I choked out, my voice tight as a wire. "I have to go. I have class."
I hung up, the guilt physically gnawing at my insides. They thought Dante was a benevolent logistics magnate who adored their daughter. They didn't know their medical bills were paid with blood money. They didn't know their daughter was nothing more than a glorified concubine.
I spent the day at the university lab, seeking refuge in the sterility of science. Under the microscope, cells behaved predictably. They didn't lie. They didn't hurt you.
At 7:00 PM, I was dressed. The black gown clung to my curves like a second skin, the back plunging dangerously low, exposing my spine to the world. I wore the diamond collar he liked. I looked the part: the Capo's prize.
The driver deposited me at the venue. The Starry Night Gala was the charity event of the season, a convenient masquerade for the underworld to wash its dirty money in public view.
I waited by the entrance, shivering in the biting night air. Dante was supposed to meet me here.
A sleek Rolls Royce pulled up to the curb. The paparazzi flashbulbs erupted like a lightning storm.
The door opened. Dante stepped out. He looked devastatingly handsome, a prince of darkness amidst the strobe lights.
But he didn't reach back for me.
He reached back into the car and took a hand. A hand gloved in pristine white silk.
Sofia Moretti emerged. She wore a gown of crushed red velvet, a blood-red jewel demanding the world's attention. She looked regal. She looked like she belonged on his arm.
Dante placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. They walked up the red carpet together, a united front. The King and his Queen.
I stood in the shadows of a pillar, invisible.
"Who's the mistress?" I heard a photographer whisper to his colleague, gesturing toward the car.
"I thought Vitiello kept a pet," the other muttered.
"Pets stay in the kennel," the colleague sneered. "That woman in red? That's a wife."
I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold. Dante walked right past my hiding spot. He didn't turn his head. He didn't acknowledge my existence.
He had told me to be ready. He hadn't told me I would be a spectator in my own humiliation.
I forced myself to step out, to walk the carpet alone. I held my head high, masking the shattering of my pride with a mask of ice. I entered the ballroom and found a dark corner, away from the prying eyes.
From across the room, Dante caught my eye.
He raised his champagne glass slightly. A silent toast. *Stay there. Be good.*
I looked away.
For the first time, I didn't crave the scraps of his approval.
I wanted to watch his kingdom burn.
You may also like
9.7
I ran through the freezing rain, desperate to escape the Pennington estate. My adoptive family had raised me for one purpose: to be sold off as a bargaining chip in a wealthy arranged marriage.
But before I could reach the highway, I was cornered. Not just by my family's cruel guards, but by Hollis Wall—a terrifying, ruthless billionaire who snapped my tormentor's wrist and dragged me into his car. He didn't want a ransom. He threw a prenuptial agreement in my lap.
I thought he was insane until he took a scalpel to his own arm, and a burning agony ripped across my flawless skin. Because of a near-drowning accident three years ago, our nervous systems were linked. Every time I bled, he felt the agony. He locked me in his fortress to keep me safe, but when I finally escaped back to my adoptive parents, they didn't protect me. Instead, my adoptive father smiled and showed me a live video of my biological father on life support, a guard's hand hovering over the plug.
"You will marry Douglas Cherry tomorrow, or your father dies," he sneered.
My own family was willing to murder my only real flesh and blood just to secure their wealth. I collapsed onto the cold marble floor, my heart crushed in a vice of absolute, suffocating despair.
"I'll marry him," I sobbed, surrendering to the darkness.
But miles away, in his dark study, the ruthless Hollis Wall violently collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as my severe panic attack bled directly into his chest. Our twisted bond was killing him, and I knew he would tear the city apart to find me.
7.3
Power built his empire. Silence protected her heart.
When a billionaire's untouchable world collides with a woman who refuses to be owned by it, a contract meant to save a legacy becomes a risk neither can afford. Signed, Sealed, His is a slow-burn billionaire romance about control, exposure, and the terrifying cost of choosing love when power is on the line.
8.5
I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die.
Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice.
"Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up."
He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake.
I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city.
Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them.
With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece.
"Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."
9.6
I endured years of humiliation and forced sedatives from my billionaire husband's family, hoping my quiet obedience would eventually win his heart. When I finally discovered I was pregnant, I thought the child would be our anchor.
But when I rushed to his office to tell him, I found his untouchable first love sitting in his chair, rubbing her own swollen belly.
She smiled and whispered that she was the one who orchestrated the car crash that left my adoptive mother in a vegetative state.
When I lunged at her in a blind rage, my husband shielded her and shoved me backward with brutal force. My spine slammed against a marble table, and blood pooled at my feet.
"Kingston, please! I'm pregnant too!" I sobbed, clutching my stomach.
He just looked down at me with profound disgust.
"I had a vasectomy five years ago," he hissed, condemning me as a cheating whore before ordering his men to lock me up and forcibly abort the child.
I had never touched another man. I couldn't understand how the man I loved could order the murder of his own flesh and blood without a second thought.
To save myself, I stole his prized Aston Martin and drove it off a bridge into the freezing Atlantic, letting his pathetic, obedient wife drown in the wreckage.
Five years later, I returned to New York as a powerful European executive, ready to burn his empire to the ground.
7.6
Eloise was the adopted stray of the wealthy Foreman family, mocked daily for her tarot cards and dismissed as a mentally unstable burden.
When her adoptive father suddenly collapsed with thick, black veins pulsing up his neck, they didn't blame his corrupt real estate deals. They blamed her.
"She's a witch! She cursed me!" Mitch roared, ordering his doctor and armed guards to forcefully drain her blood to cure his supernatural toxin.
Her adoptive mother revoked her trust fund and threatened to drag her to a psych ward. Her spoiled sister threw a crumpled twenty-dollar bill at her feet, laughing as the security team cornered Eloise against the wall.
Eloise stared coldly at the family that had abused her for years. They had dug up a sacred burial ground to build condos, bringing this deadly curse upon themselves, yet they wanted to bleed her dry to survive.
Just as the guards lunged, the heavy oak doors were violently shoved open.
An aristocratic butler stepped through the freezing rain, flanked by elite operatives who snapped the guards' legs in seconds. He dropped a three-billion-dollar trust document onto the table as mere "compensation" for her shelter.
"Please, Miss Palmer," the butler bowed deeply, offering her pristine white gloves. "Do not dirty your hands in this place."
Leaving her adoptive father to his midnight death sentence, Eloise stepped into a waiting Rolls-Royce, ready to reclaim her place in a hidden global dynasty.
9.7
I woke up in a hospital bed with the sting of antiseptic in my nose and my body feeling like lead. My world had been turned upside down by a crash, but the nightmare was only beginning.
Instead of a doctor, I found my Aunt Ursula and a man named Julian standing over me. They weren't there to comfort me; they were calculating my worth.
"Poor thing," Ursula cooed, pinning my wrist to the mattress.
Julian claimed he was my fiancé, even though I’d spent a year dodging his calls. I tried to scream, but my throat felt like it was filled with broken glass. They were using my silence to paint me as incompetent so they could seize my family’s trust fund. Just as Julian tried to force a ring on my finger, the door slammed open. Hilliard Blackburn, the city’s most ruthless billionaire, walked in and tossed a marriage certificate on the floor.
"I am her legal husband," he said. "Now, get out."
I was a piece of collateral, traded by my dying grandfather to pay off a debt. To Hilliard, I was just an asset in his portfolio. He didn't know that I was secretly "The Analyst," a hacker who moved millions on the dark web. He didn't know about the missing algorithm that could crash the market, or that my mentor had vanished in a lab fire.
The world saw a broken, mute heiress, but I was hiding a secret that could destroy us all. I was pregnant, and my stolen code was already being auctioned to the highest bidder. With Hilliard moving into my house to monitor me, I had to find the truth before my "husband" realized I was his greatest threat.