Chapter 1

My husband, a Mafia Underboss, built me a perfect life. I was the Chief Resident at a top hospital, the accomplished Dr. Falcone. But my world shattered when a woman brought her four-year-old son to my clinic.

The boy had a rare genetic allergy-one that runs only in my family. On his intake form, his father's name was listed as "Emilio Thomas," my husband's secret middle name. Then, my husband's voice came through the woman's phone, and I saw him pick them up from my office window, a perfect, secret family.

That night, at our family's most important gala, the boy ran up to me, screaming, "You're the bad lady trying to take my daddy away!" The crowd turned on me, whispering that I was the other woman. On the boy's wrist was the custom bracelet I gave my husband on our first anniversary.

When I reached for it, Emilio shoved me. I hit my head on a table, and a sharp pain ripped through my abdomen as blood soaked my dress. I lost the baby I didn't even know I was carrying-the legitimate Moretti heir. My husband turned his back on me, leaving with his other family as I bled on the ballroom floor.

He never visited me in the hospital. His mistress, Hayden, did. She gloated that she'd planned it all, and that Emilio swore he'd never have another child after their son was born. I was just a barren, placeholder wife.

But this was more than a betrayal; it was a declaration of war. That night, I stared at two pink lines on a pregnancy test I'd taken before the gala. I was six weeks pregnant with the true Moretti heir, and now, I had a weapon.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

The first crack in the perfect life my husband built for me didn't come from a gunshot or a rival family. It came from a four-year-old boy in my clinic, a boy who carried my family's blood in his veins.

It was my first day as Chief Resident. The title was a culmination of years of work, a testament to a brilliance that had nothing to do with being Mrs. Emilio Moretti. Here, in the sterile white halls of the hospital, I was Dr. Falcone-my name, my own accomplishment.

Then she walked in.

She was beautiful in a sharp, hungry way, her clothes too expensive for a walk-in clinic. She held the hand of a small, dark-haired boy.

"We have an appointment," she said, her voice smooth. "For Leo."

I nodded to the nurse and led them into an exam room. As I went through the standard questions, I noticed a faint rash on the boy's wrist.

"Any known allergies?" I asked, my pen hovering over the chart.

"Just perfume," the woman, Hayden, replied. "A specific kind. It gives him hives."

Ice slid through my veins. I looked at the boy, truly looked at him, and saw the faint, tell-tale pattern of the rash. It was a rare genetic allergy, a marker carried by only one family I knew.

Mine.

My breath hitched. I forced my eyes back to the intake form. Under "Father's Name," she had written "Emilio Thomas."

Not Moretti. Thomas. My husband's middle name. A name he never used. A name, I realized, whispered between them-a secret I was never meant to know.

The name hit me like a physical blow. The world, so solid and pristine just moments before, began to splinter at the edges.

"It's so important that he has his father in his life," Hayden said, her eyes fixed on me, a deliberate, venomous glint in them. "A boy needs his father."

The words were a direct shot at the empty nursery in our penthouse, at the five years I'd spent as the childless wife of the Moretti Underboss.

Her phone buzzed. She answered it, her voice turning sickly sweet. "Hi, honey."

A low, familiar rumble came through the speaker. A voice I heard every night before I went to sleep. The voice of my husband.

Emilio.

My own phone felt cold and heavy in my trembling hands. My thumb hovered over his contact.

Where are you? I typed.

The reply was instant. In a meeting with the Capos, cara. Long day. I'll be home late.

A lie. So easy. So quick.

I stood and walked to my office window, which overlooked the clinic's private entrance. I didn't have to wait long. A black sedan, the kind that announced power without a word, pulled up to the curb.

The back door opened.

Emilio got out.

He didn't look like a man coming from a meeting with his soldiers. He looked like a father. He smiled as he opened the passenger door for Hayden, then leaned in to unbuckle the small boy from his car seat. He lifted Leo into his arms, the three of them a perfect, sickening portrait of a family.

The betrayal was no longer a crack. It was a chasm that opened up beneath my feet, swallowing me whole.

That night, alone in my office, I pulled up the email I had bookmarked weeks ago. An offer for a prestigious, completely isolated medical fellowship in Zurich. A neutral territory. An escape.

My finger hovered over the screen.

Then, my hand steady, I tapped Accept.