Betrayed By The Don: Her Ultimate Escape

On our anniversary, I was basting the roast when my husband's encrypted laptop lit up on the kitchen counter.

Alex Bradley, the ruthless Underboss of New York, never made mistakes. But tonight, he left a chat room open.

The notification shattered my world: "Is the idiot eating the dog food yet?"

It was from his mistress, Charlotte.

They were betting on whether I would eat the red velvet cake she had spiked with her Rottweiler's excrement.

I realized then that my marriage was a long-con. I was just a "placeholder" wife to secure his promotion to Don.

To survive, I had to play the part.

Alex sat on the bed, feeding me the tainted cake with a loving smile.

"Eat up, Jillian," he purred. "It's to die for."

I swallowed every bite of the filth, forcing myself not to vomit until he left the room.

The humiliation didn't stop there.

I found out our marriage license was void.

He publicly bought me a twenty-million-dollar necklace at a gala, then abandoned me to face the debt, forcing me to hand over my grandmother's earrings as collateral.

He even watched calmly as his family beat me for a prank Charlotte orchestrated.

But the final blow came when I overheard him planning our "romantic" getaway.

"The blizzard hits Friday," he told Charlotte. "It'll look like a tragic accident. Hypothermia."

He thought he was taking a lamb to the slaughter.

He didn't know I had been counting down the days.

When we arrived at the cabin and he went to prepare my "accident," I didn't cry.

I tossed one of my boots over the cliff edge to stage my death.

Then I climbed into the black extraction van waiting in the snow.

Alex Bradley thought he had killed his wife.

He had no idea he had just set her free.

Chapter 1

Jillian Andrews POV

I was dutifully basting the anniversary roast, the rosemary and garlic scenting the air of a perfect life, when my husband's encrypted laptop sliced through the domestic tranquility.

The screen lit up with a notification that would dismantle my existence: "Is the idiot eating the dog food yet?"

The screen shouldn't have been on.

Alex Bradley, the Underboss of New York's most violent crime syndicate, did not make mistakes.

He executed men for a stray glance.

He carved out tongues for interruptions.

But tonight, in a display of fatal arrogance, he had left his digital armor chinked open on the marble island.

I froze.

My hand tightened around the basting brush until the wood bit into my palm, grounding me against the sudden vertigo.

I walked over, drawn by a morbid gravity.

The chat room was titled "The Jillian Andrews Comedy Hour."

There were five participants: Alex, his top soldiers, and Charlotte Burgess.

I scrolled up, my breath hitching in a throat that had suddenly constricted.

Charlotte: I told her red was her color. She actually bought that hideous dress for tonight. She looks like a desperate tomato wrapped in silk.

Marco: Boss, you sure you can stomach dinner with her?

Alex: I'll be thinking of you, Charlotte. Just like I do when I'm in bed with her. It's the only way I can perform.

My stomach bottomed out.

The floor seemed to tilt dangerously beneath my feet, the kitchen spinning in a nauseating blur.

I forced myself to read on.

Charlotte: Make sure she eats the cake. I put a special treat in the batter. A little souvenir from my Rottweiler.

Alex: Good girl. She'll eat every crumb if I tell her to. She's desperate for my approval.

Charlotte: And the necklace? The Star of Bradley?

Alex: Eleanor is giving it to you tonight, Char. You're the Queen. Jillian is just the placeholder until the Commission vote clears.

I stared at the words, letting them brand themselves into my retinas.

Placeholder.

The reconciliation. The agonizing months of him wooing me back after our separation. The flowers, the whispered promises that he had changed, that the brutality of his world wouldn't touch me again.

It was all a lie.

It was a game.

A long-con to secure his seat as the next Don, requiring a "respectable" wife on his arm for the optics of the transition.

Charlotte was the prize.

I was merely the entertainment.

I didn't cry.

Tears were for people who still had hope.

Instead, I felt a cold, hard stone settle in the center of my chest, displacing the heartbreak.

This was the cold anger. The survival instinct that Alex thought he had beaten out of me years ago.

I closed the laptop gently, ensuring the latch made no sound.

I walked to the pantry and reached into the back of the shelf, pulling out a burner phone I had concealed inside a box of tampons three months ago.

I dialed the number for the Delphi Agency.

They were a myth. A terrified whisper among the wives of the made men.

"I need an exit," I whispered into the receiver.

"Code?" a distorted, metallic voice asked.

"Canary," I said.

"Timeline?"

"Seventy-two days," I replied, my eyes drifting to the calendar. "The night of the blizzard."

The front door beeped, signaling the end of my privacy.

I shoved the phone back into the box and slid the box onto the shelf just as the heavy oak door swung open.

Alex walked in.

He looked like a god of war tailored in a Tom Ford suit-tall, with broad shoulders that carried the weight of a thousand sins.

His eyes were like ice, but his smile was warm. It was the smile that had fooled me twice.

"Happy anniversary, baby," he said, his voice rich with false affection as he held out a massive bouquet of blood-red roses.

He kissed me.

I tasted the lie on his lips, bitter beneath the mint.

"Happy anniversary, Alex," I said, my voice steady.

He glanced at the calendar on the wall, where I had circled a date in red marker.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to the date seventy-two days from now.

"A surprise," I said.

And for the first time that night, I wasn't lying.