The Substitute Wife Escapes Her Gilded Cage

Everyone thought I was the pampered queen of Marcus D'Angelo, New York's most feared Don. But I was just a placeholder for the woman he couldn't have: his cousin, Izzy.

The truth shattered everything at a family dinner. A waiter tripped, sending a tureen of scalding soup flying toward the table.

Without a second of hesitation, Marcus threw himself over Izzy to shield her.

He left me exposed.

The boiling liquid seared my legs, but the real agony was watching him cradle her face, checking for scratches, while I screamed on the floor.

"In my hierarchy of pain," he later told her, ignoring my burns, "her death is an inconvenience. A scratch on you is a tragedy."

He didn't know that while he was comforting her over a bruise, I was in emergency surgery losing our unborn child.

When I woke up, he didn't ask about me. He didn't ask about the baby he didn't know existed. instead, he asked if I would donate blood to help Izzy recover.

That was the moment the old Liv died.

I signed the divorce papers with a steady hand.

And inside the envelope with the legal documents, I tucked a single, devastating medical report.

*Diagnosis: Spontaneous Abortion. Cause: Trauma.*

I left it on his desk and disappeared into the night.

By the time he realizes he sacrificed his own heir to save his mistress, I will be a ghost he can never touch again.

Chapter 1

Liv POV

The moment I realized I was nothing more than a well-dressed ghost in my own marriage wasn't during a fight, but in the silence of my husband's private study, holding a photograph that looked exactly like me, yet wasn't me at all.

I stood frozen, my hand trembling over the open drawer, while the sounds of the gala downstairs drifted up like a distant, mocking melody.

Marcus D'Angelo was thirty-eight, the Don of the most ruthless crime family in New York, a man whose name made grown men cross the street. And I was just Liv.

I was the twenty-year-old daughter of a foot soldier, the girl he had plucked from obscurity and placed in a gilded cage.

I used to think I was his queen. I used to think the way he looked at me-intense, consuming, possessive-was love.

Earlier that evening, he had given me a pendant. It was a bloodstone, dark and heavy against my skin. He had fastened it around my neck, his calloused fingers brushing my pulse, and whispered that it was for my protection. I had melted into him, believing I was the only thing in his world that mattered.

I was a fool.

The gala was suffocating. I had escaped upstairs to find him, to tell him my head hurt, to ask him to take me away from the noise. I found him slumped in his leather chair, a glass of amber liquid in his hand, his eyes glazed over.

It was rare to see Marcus drunk. He was a machine, a weapon of precision. Alcohol was a weakness he didn't permit himself.

"Marcus?" I whispered, stepping into the dim light. "Let me help you to bed."

He looked up. For a second, his eyes softened. He reached out, pulling me close, burying his face in my stomach.

"Isabella," he groaned.

My blood ran cold. I froze, my hands hovering over his shoulders.

"I'm Liv," I said, my voice barely a tremor.

He shoved me away.

The force of it sent me stumbling back against the bookshelf. The softness was gone, replaced by a cold, jagged irritation.

"Get out," he snapped, rubbing his temples. "Just get out."

I fled the room, but I didn't go far. I hid in the shadows of the hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. That was when I saw her.

Izzy. Isabella.

She was walking down the corridor toward his office, confident, sharp, dangerous. She was Marcus's cousin, a woman of the family, forbidden and powerful. She didn't look like a canary. She looked like a hawk.

I watched through the crack in the door as she entered. I saw the way Marcus looked at her-not with the protective, stifling gaze he used on me, but with a raw, desperate hunger. I saw the way she smirked, a challenge in her eyes that I could never replicate.

My chest constricted. It felt like a physical blow, a hand squeezing my lungs until they threatened to burst.

When they finally left the room to return to the party, Marcus fixing his tie and Izzy smoothing her dress, I slipped inside. I needed to know.

I went to the desk. I pulled open the drawer he always kept locked.

It wasn't money. It wasn't hit lists.

It was her.

Dozens of photos. Izzy laughing. Izzy at sixteen. Izzy at twenty. Letters written in his sharp, angular handwriting, detailing a love that was sick, twisted, and enduring. A love that the *Omertà*-the code of silence-and their bloodline made impossible.

I picked up a letter dated three years ago.

*They say I need an heir. They say I need a wife. I will find someone who has your eyes, Izzy. I will find a vessel, and I will pretend it is you.*

The paper crinkled under my grip.

I walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall. I looked at my reflection. The dark hair. The shape of the nose. The curve of the jaw.

I wasn't Liv to him. I was a shadow. I was a tool to breed an heir that would look like the woman he couldn't have.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from my father, asking if I was happy.

I didn't answer. I couldn't breathe.

I took the photos. I took the letters. I walked to the fireplace where the embers were still glowing from earlier in the evening.

One by one, I dropped them in.

I watched Izzy's face curl and blacken in the heat. I watched Marcus's words turn to ash.

He came back later that night, smelling of whiskey and her perfume. He sat on the edge of the bed, loosening his tie.

"I promised I'd be more careful next time," he said, referring to the shove, his voice devoid of real apology.

I didn't look at him. I stared at the wall, my eyes dry, my heart a smoking ruin.

"That's fine, Marcus," I said, my voice so calm it scared me. "Just be careful."

He didn't notice the change. He didn't notice that the girl who worshipped him had burned in the fireplace along with his secrets. He just nodded, laid his head on the pillow, and went to sleep, dreaming of a woman who wasn't his wife.

I lay awake, listening to his breathing, and for the first time, I didn't feel safe.

I felt like I was sleeping next to a monster. And I knew, with a terrifying clarity, that I had to escape before he ate me alive.