Traded For Ambition: The Mistress Strikes Back

I spent five years laundering Ethan Cole's dirty money through my architectural designs, believing his lies that I was the love of his life, not just his mistress.

But the moment he secured a marriage alliance with the Vances, I became a liability. I tried to resign quietly, but his new fiancée, Isabella, wanted sport.

She didn't just fire me; she destroyed me. At a high-society gala, she projected my private, intimate photos onto the big screen while the city's elite laughed.

I looked at Ethan, begging him to stop it. He didn't flinch. He just sipped his scotch and watched me get dragged out by security.

It got worse. Desperate for my severance pay to leave town, I met Ethan one last time. He didn't give me a check.

Instead, he locked me in a library with a corrupt official, telling me I had to "service" the man to secure a zoning permit. He had literally sold me for a signature.

I escaped into the pouring rain with nothing but the clothes on my back, realizing the man I loved was a monster who viewed me as disposable property.

I was shivering in an alley, waiting to die, when a black SUV pulled up. The window rolled down to reveal Noah Miller-the most dangerous Don in the city and Ethan's mortal enemy.

He didn't look at me with lust or pity. He looked at me with cold fury.

"Get in," Noah said, unlocking the door.

"Let's go remind them why you don't throw away a diamond."

Chapter 1

Mia POV

I signed my own execution order with a borrowed pen, acutely aware that the moment the ink dried, the man who had sworn to protect me would likely become the hunter sent to track me down.

The paper sat on the mahogany desk, a single sheet heavy with legal jargon that distilled my life down to one simple truth: I was leaving the Cole Crime Family.

Mr. Henderson stared at me through his wire-rimmed glasses. To the untrained eye, he looked like a benevolent grandfather; however, I knew this was the same man who had orchestrated the 'disappearances' of at least three federal witnesses in the last decade alone.

"You understand what this means, Mia," he said. It wasn't a question. It was a final warning.

"I do."

"Ethan isn't going to like it."

My heart kicked against my ribs, a traitorous, stuttering rhythm at the sound of his name. Ethan Cole. The Capo of the family. The man who had claimed my innocence in a dorm room five years ago, only to slowly dismantle it and replace it with the cold, hard reality of his world.

"He doesn't have to like it," I said, willing my voice to be steadier than my trembling hands. "He's getting married. To Isabella Vance. The merger is complete."

Henderson slid a folder across the desk. "Your severance. It is... generous. But you know the rules. You speak, you die. You return, you die."

I took the folder. I didn't care about the money, yet I knew I would need every cent to survive the run. "I just want out."

Suddenly, my phone buzzed against the polished wood of the desk, the sound like a harsh grate in the silence.

I glanced down. A text from Isabella.

*Penthouse. Now. Or I send the boys to your mother's house in Queens.*

The air vanished from my lungs.

I stood up, snatching my bag. "I have to go."

Henderson didn't try to stop me. He simply watched, his expression detached, like a man observing a car crash in slow motion.

I walked out of the skyscraper I had helped design. The glass facade reflected a woman I barely recognized-pale, hollowed out, and draped in a suit that cost more than my mother's entire existence.

I hailed a cab. The ride to Tribeca didn't feel like a commute; it felt like a funeral procession.

Ethan's penthouse was supposed to be my sanctuary. It was the place where we had whispered promises in the dark, where he swore he loved me even as he prepared to marry the daughter of a rival Don to secure his power.

The elevator doors opened directly into the foyer.

Isabella Vance was waiting.

She was beautiful in the way a switchblade is beautiful-sharp, gleaming, and lethal. She held a sketchbook in her manicured hand. *My* sketchbook.

"So this is the little architect," she said. Her voice was light, laced with poisonous amusement. "The one who thinks she can build a clean world on dirty money."

I stepped forward. "Isabella. I resigned. I'm leaving."

"Leaving?" She laughed, a sound devoid of humor. "You don't get to leave until I say you're done."

With a cruel, deliberate motion, she ripped a page out of the book. The sound of tearing paper screamed through the silent apartment. It was a sketch of a library I planned to build for the kids in the Bronx.

"Stop," I said.

She ripped another page. Then another. "Garbage. Just like you."

The elevator chimed again.

Ethan walked in.

He looked exhausted. His suit was impeccable, his dark hair perfectly styled, but deep weariness was etched into the corners of his eyes. When he saw me, his jaw tightened.

"Mia," he said. Not *baby*. Not *sweetheart*. Just Mia. Cold and distant.

"Tell her to stop," I said, my voice cracking. "Please, Ethan."

Isabella turned to him, smiling. She crumbled a drawing in her fist and let it drop to the floor like trash. "She thinks she has rights here, Ethan. Correct her."

Ethan looked at me. Then he looked at Isabella.

I watched the calculation flicker behind his eyes. I witnessed the precise moment he weighed five years of our love against the alliance that would crown him Boss.

He crossed the room to Isabella and placed a hand on the small of her back.

"She's right, Mia," Ethan said. His voice was ice, utterly devoid of the warmth I used to live for. "You're just the help. You don't make demands."

Isabella stepped forward and slapped me.

The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot. My head snapped to the side. My cheek burned with immediate fire, but the agony fracturing my chest was infinitely worse.

Ethan didn't move. He didn't flinch. He just watched, his hand still resting possessively on his fiancée's waist.

"See?" Isabella purred. "He knows where his loyalty lies. You were just a meaningless release, darling. A warm body to keep his bed occupied until a real woman arrived."

I looked at Ethan, waiting for him to deny it. Waiting for the man who had held me while I sobbed over my father's death.

He looked... bored. Indifferent.

"Are we done here?" he asked Isabella.

"Not yet," she said.