Chapter 1 1

Isabella POV

The crimson silk sheets of my four-poster bed felt like ice against my skin. I leaned back against the heavy mahogany headboard, my pale reflection caught in the gilded mirror across the room. Every piece of furniture in this suite, every crystal on the Venetian chandelier above, had been paid for by my dowry.

Yet, the people standing at the foot of my bed looked at me as if I were the intruder.

Angelo Riggs, my husband, stood tall and polished in a bespoke suit that my mother's money had bought. He had just returned from Yale Law School, reeking of expensive cologne and newfound arrogance. Clinging to his arm was Cecelia Pearson, a judge's daughter with pristine blonde hair and a smile that didn't reach her calculating eyes.

Behind them hovered Angelo's siblings-Kandi, Geno, and Boone. They watched me with the greedy, glittering eyes of hyenas waiting for the lioness to bleed out.

"It's done, Isabella," Angelo announced, his voice echoing with a cold authority he hadn't earned. "For the future and legitimacy of the Riggs family, I am taking Cecelia as my wife."

The sheer audacity of his words hung in the stifling air.

Cecelia stepped forward, her voice dripping with a sickeningly sweet hypocrisy. "We don't want to cast you out, Isabella. I know how much you've... contributed. I am more than willing to share him. We can live like sisters, serving Angelo and the family together."

A bitter, hollow laugh scraped its way up my throat. The exhaustion that had plagued me for days evaporated, replaced by a glacial fury.

"Sisters?" I tilted my head, locking eyes with the judge's daughter. "In our world, Miss Pearson, there are only wives and *comares*. Are you telling me a respected judge's daughter is eager to become a whore?"

Cecelia's delicate face flushed a mottled red, her mouth opening and closing in silent outrage.

"Watch your mouth, Isabella!" Angelo snarled, stepping protectively in front of his new prize. The polished Yale graduate vanished, replaced by the ruthless thug he truly was. "This isn't a negotiation. Don Antonio Falcone has personally given his blessing for this union. His word is absolute."

He sneered, looking down at me with utter disdain. "You are a merchant's daughter. You don't understand true honor or the political alliances required to survive in the Cosa Nostra. Cecelia brings us power. You only brought a checkbook."

My hands curled into fists beneath the silk sheets, my nails biting into my palms.

"A checkbook?" I kept my voice deadly quiet, refusing to give them the satisfaction of my tears. "You forget the Blood Vow you swore to my dying mother, Sofia Cantrell. You forget that your tuition, the bribes you paid to Pearson's father, and the very roof over your parasitic family's heads were funded by my millions."

Kandi shifted uncomfortably in the background, while Geno and Boone exchanged nervous glances. They knew the truth, even if they chose to ignore it.

"Business investments," Angelo dismissed coldly, though a muscle feathered in his jaw. "And the Don's command overrides any vow made to a dead woman."

He thought he had won. He thought the name of the old Don was an impenetrable shield that would force me to swallow this ultimate humiliation and remain his silent ATM. He had sold them all a fairy tale of a brilliant, self-made man catching the eye of a noblewoman.

But I knew the rot beneath the floorboards.

I slowly pushed myself up, sitting perfectly straight. I didn't look at Cecelia, nor the hyenas in the back. I fixed my gaze entirely on the man who had sworn to protect me.

"Don Antonio made his decision based on the lies you fed him, Angelo," I said, my tone dropping to a lethal whisper. "I wonder... how the new King of Chicago, Mr. Damien Falcone, would react if he heard the actual truth about your little empire."

The smug satisfaction on Angelo's face shattered. The silence that followed was absolute, heavy with the sudden, suffocating weight of a threat he hadn't anticipated.