Saved By The Ruthless Rival Don

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne's money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars.

I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor.

I was wrong.

On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot.

Marcus didn't look at me. Not once.

He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar.

I was left standing in the open.

The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches.

"My ankle," she whimpered.

Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement.

He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved.

As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus.

It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival.

I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice.

"Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy.

"And then help me burn his empire to the ground."

Chapter 1

Ellie POV

I was securing the clasp of the diamond necklace Marcus had given me for our fifth anniversary when my phone buzzed against the cold marble of the vanity, lighting up with a message that would dismantle my life as I knew it.

It was from Chloe. Attached was a blurry photo taken only five minutes ago outside the very charity gala I was about to host.

Marcus, my husband and the Underboss of the Thorne crime family, was helping a woman out of his car. His hand gripped her waist with a possessive familiarity he hadn't shown me in three years.

The caption read: "He brought her to the family table, El. If you walk through those doors tonight, you aren't the wife. You're the punchline."

My heart didn't race. My hands didn't shake.

Instead, a glacier settled in my stomach, freezing over the anxiety that had lived there for nine years.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

The woman staring back was perfect. Her hair was pinned in a flawless chignon, her makeup was understated but exorbitant, and her dress was a midnight blue silk that cost more than most people earned in a year.

I was the perfect mafia wife. The perfect trophy in a gilded cage.

For nine years, I had laundered their money through my interior design firm. I had smiled at dinners where men discussed murder over risotto. I had turned a blind eye to the lipstick stains on his collars because I believed in the vow we made. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage.

Tonight was supposed to be different.

I had practiced my speech. I was going to ask him for more responsibility. I was going to ask for respect.

Earlier this week, when I had hinted at this during dinner, Marcus had kissed my hand. He had looked at me with those dark, dangerous eyes that once made my knees weak and said, "Play your part, Ellie. The status will come."

I had clung to that promise like a lifeline.

I grabbed my clutch and walked out of the master suite, the heels of my shoes clicking sharply against the hardwood floors of a house that never felt like a home.

The drive to the gala was a blur of city lights and rising nausea.

When I arrived, the cameras flashed, blinding and relentless. I slipped on the mask. The smile. The poise.

I walked into the ballroom, my eyes immediately scanning the head table.

It was empty.

Marcus wasn't there.

I checked my phone. No calls. No texts.

Then I saw the movement near the VIP balcony.

Izzy Hayes.

She was wearing a dress that was too red, too tight, and too loud for a Thorne event. She caught my eye across the room and didn't flinch. She raised her champagne flute in a mock toast, her lips curling into a smirk that screamed victory.

She wasn't just a mistress. She was a statement.

Marcus wasn't late. He was absent. He was using my presence at the table to cover for his indiscretion, while he undoubtedly entertained her in a private suite upstairs.

I was the shield. She was the sword.

The humiliation hit me in waves, crashing over my head until I couldn't breathe. This was the ninth time. The ninth public execution of my dignity.

From being left alone at dangerous negotiation tables to being abandoned in a crossfire because he had to take her call, I had endured it all.

But this silence? This empty chair next to me while the whole city watched?

This was the end.

I stood up. My legs felt like lead, but I forced them to move.

"Mrs. Thorne?" a waiter asked, holding a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "Is everything alright?"

"Everything is clear," I said, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears.

I walked toward the restrooms, but I didn't stop there. I kept walking. Past the marble sinks, past the coat check, out the side exit into the cool night air.

I found a dark corner of the terrace and leaned against the rough brick wall. I gasped for air, trying to loosen the corset of my dress. It felt like a prison.

I remembered the day we married. Marcus had been charming then. He had promised protection. In our world, protection is the only love language that matters.

He had lied.

My phone buzzed again.

It was a text from Marcus's head of security. "Boss got held up. Emergency business. He sends his regrets."

I looked down at my arm. Earlier, when Marcus had briefly stopped by the house to change, he had brushed past me. The scent of vanilla and cheap sugar had clung to his jacket. Izzy's scent.

"Emergency business," I whispered to the empty alley.

I opened my clutch and took out the velvet box containing the diamond earrings he had sent over this morning. A generic gift. A payment for services rendered.

I didn't put them on.

I didn't cry.

I realized then that the pain wasn't from the heartbreak. The pain was from the hope I had refused to kill.

I typed a message to Chloe. "I'm done. Tell me about the New York exit plan."

Then I walked to the edge of the terrace and dropped the velvet box into the dumpster below.

I wasn't going back to the table.

I wasn't going back to be the canary.

Tonight, the cage door was open, and for the first time in nine years, I was going to fly.