His Unwanted Trash, The Rival's Treasured Queen

Four years ago, I melted my skin into the asphalt to pull Julian Moretti from a burning wreckage. I spent years in the shadows, nursing him back to health, hiding my scars while he reclaimed his title as the Underboss of New York.

But on the way to our wedding, everything shattered.

Estelle Russo, the woman who caused the crash that ruined me, complained of a stomach ache in the limousine. Julian didn't hesitate.

He ordered the driver to stop on the shoulder of the highway.

"Get out," he barked at me, his eyes cold.

He forced me out of the car in my wedding gown, leaving me stranded in the dust and exhaust fumes just so Estelle could lie down on the seat.

"Take a cab to the church," he sneered before speeding away.

He didn't just leave me on the road; he abandoned me at the altar to hold the hand of the woman who had once tried to kill him. He called our relationship a "debt" he was tired of paying.

I stood there, the lace of my dress heavy with humiliation, realizing I was never his Queen-I was just his collateral damage.

I didn't call a taxi. Instead, I pulled a burner phone from my bodice and dialed the one number that would end his reign.

"The deal is live," I whispered. "He chose her."

I stripped off the wedding dress, climbed over the guardrail, and stepped into the black sedan waiting to take me to his greatest enemy.

Chapter 1

Ember Vane POV

The fire didn't kill me four years ago, but watching the man I saved clasp the hand of the woman who caused the crash was doing a damn good job of finishing what the flames had started.

I stood in the velvet shadows of the wings at the Pierre Hotel, the heavy curtain shielding me from the blinding flash of cameras.

My back itched.

It was a phantom sensation, a cruel, searing reminder of the night my skin had melted into the asphalt of the West Side Highway just so Julian Moretti could keep his pretty face intact.

Julian dominated the podium, gripping the wood with hands I had painstakingly massaged back to life during agonizing months of physical therapy.

He looked every inch the Prince of New York.

The dark Italian suit fit him like armor, and his jawline was sharp enough to cut glass.

He was the Underboss of the Moretti Crime Family, the heir to a throne built on blood and extortion, and tonight was his coronation.

"They said the Moretti line was broken," Julian's voice boomed, deep and smooth, vibrating through the floorboards and traveling up into my heels. "They said I would never walk again. Never lead again."

The crowd of reporters and high-ranking associates murmured in reverent approval.

I smoothed the high collar of my dress.

I wore high collars and long sleeves even in the stifling heat of July.

My body was a map of pain, a secret geography of scars that only doctors-and Julian-had ever navigated.

"But strength isn't just about the body," Julian continued, his gaze drifting to the front row. "It is about the anchor that holds you when the storm hits. The love that pulls you from the wreckage."

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

For four years, I had been that anchor.

I had been the one changing his bandages when the pus and blood made the nurses gag.

I had been the one whispering to him in the suffocating darkness of his coma, enforcing Omerta when rival families circled like sharks, waiting for him to die.

I shifted my weight forward, ready to step into the light as his fiancée-the woman who had sacrificed her beauty for his very breath.

"Estelle," Julian said, his voice softening. "Come up here."

The air vanished from my lungs.

Estelle Russo rose from her seat like a white cobra uncoiling.

She was pristine.

Her skin was flawless, her golden hair cascading over shoulders that had never known the searing kiss of a third-degree burn.

She was the daughter of a powerful Capo, a strategic alliance, a Mafia Princess.

She was also the one driving the Ferrari that clipped Julian's McLaren four years ago, sending him spinning into the concrete barrier.

She walked up the stairs, her hips swaying, and took Julian's hand.

He didn't pull away.

He interlaced his fingers with hers.

"This woman," Julian lied to the cameras, to the Commission, to the world. "She has been my rock. My reason to fight."

The flashbulbs erupted like a supernova.

I stood frozen, the taste of ash filling my mouth.

He was rewriting history.

He was erasing the blood I spilled and replacing it with her perfume.

Julian looked over Estelle's shoulder, his dark eyes scanning the wings until they found me in the shadows.

His expression didn't flicker.

There was no apology.

There was only a cold, silent warning: Know your place.

I wasn't the Queen.

I was the damaged collateral.

My phone buzzed in my clutch.

A notification from a news outlet: The King and his new Queen? Julian Moretti sparks rumors of a union with Russo heiress.

I turned around, my heels silent on the plush carpet, and walked away from the light.

I didn't go back to the penthouse we shared.

I went to the hotel bar and ordered a water, my hands trembling so hard I spilled half of it.

An hour later, my phone lit up again.

It was Julian.

Gas leak at Estelle's place. I'm setting her up at the Plaza for security. Don't wait up.

I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.

A gas leak.

The oldest lie in the book.

He wasn't securing her.

He was comforting her.

I opened my email and found the draft I had saved six months ago.

It was an application for a medical mission in a non-extradition zone in Central Africa.

I hit send.