His Unwanted Mute Wife: Now His Obsession

I was the mute fisherman's daughter who married the King of New York, only to become his prisoner.

Dante Vitiello didn't love me; he used my silence as a weapon and let his mistress, Valeria, rule my home.

When Valeria poisoned herself to frame me, Dante didn't look for the truth.

He drained my blood to save her life, then threw me into a freezing dungeon to rot among the rats.

He planned to marry her while I shivered in the dark, telling me I was nothing but gutter trash.

With no voice to scream and no way to fight, I chose the only escape left.

I swallowed a vial of lethal pufferfish toxin, trading my life for a coma that mimicked death.

I wanted to haunt him. I wanted my cold body to be his punishment.

But when I woke up a year later, the world had changed.

I wasn't in hell. I was in a clinic, and Dante was lying on the floor with a bullet in his temple.

He had discovered the truth too late.

To wake me up, he had accepted a deadly game of Russian Roulette.

He signed our divorce papers with a steady hand, then pulled the trigger to buy my freedom.

The monster was dead.

And for the first time, the silence belonged to me.

Chapter 1

Sienna POV

The live feed on the sixty-inch monitor was grainy, yet the image was sharp enough to stop my heart.

My father was on his knees.

My mother was beside him.

They were bound with zip ties, their ankles weighed down by cinder blocks, teetering on the edge of the rusted pier where I had spent my childhood gutting mackerel.

"Look at them, Sienna."

Dante Vitiello didn't shout.

He didn't have to.

As the Capo dei Capi of the New York families, his whisper carried more weight than a gunshot.

I stood in the center of his mahogany office, my hands trembling at my sides.

I couldn't scream.

I hadn't spoken a word since I was six years old, since the day I watched a rival gang cut out my uncle's tongue.

Dante knew this.

He used my silence like a weapon.

He walked around his desk, his Italian suit cutting a sharp silhouette against the city skyline.

He smelled of expensive bourbon and the cold, metallic tang of violence.

"You have been difficult lately," he said, stopping right in front of me. "Refusing to attend the gala. Refusing to accept Valeria's position in this house."

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

His touch was ice, yet it burned like a brand.

"Valeria is family," he continued, his voice devoid of empathy. "Her father controls the ports. She stays. You accept it. Or the feed goes dark."

He gestured to the screen.

On the monitor, a masked soldier held a pistol to my father's head.

My father, a man who smelled of salt and sweat, who paid Dante protection money every week just to breathe.

I signed frantically, my hands moving in a blur of desperation.

She humiliates me. She treats me like a servant in my own home.

Dante caught my wrists.

His grip was bruising, halting my voice before I could finish the sentence.

"You are not a servant," he growled, his dark eyes boring into mine. "You are a Vitiello. Act like it. Pride is a luxury you cannot afford when your parents are at the bottom of the Hudson."

The door to the office opened.

Valeria walked in.

She was beautiful in a way that made your stomach hurt-sharp, polished, and lethal.

Tall, blonde, vicious.

She wore a silk robe that I recognized.

It was mine.

"Dante," she purred, ignoring me completely as if I were part of the furniture. "My father is asking about the shipment."

Dante didn't let go of my wrists.

"It's handled," he said to her, eyes still locked on me. "Sienna was just agreeing to our terms."

He looked at the screen again.

"Nod," he commanded.

I looked at my parents.

My mother was crying, her shoulders shaking even through the pixelated feed.

I felt bile rise in my throat.

I nodded.

One stiff, broken movement.

Dante released me.

"Good girl."

He pulled his phone out and typed a message.

On the screen, the soldier lowered the gun and stepped back.

But they didn't cut the zip ties.

"They stay there for the night," Dante said, turning his back on me to pour a drink for Valeria. "To remind you of the consequences of disobedience."

I turned and ran.

I ran out of the office, down the marble hallway that felt more like a mausoleum than a home.

I made it to the bathroom and locked the door.

I sank to the floor, hugging my knees against my chest to keep from falling apart.

Accepting Valeria meant accepting death by a thousand cuts.

Refusing meant my parents' death.

There was no way out.

Not alive.

Unless I changed the rules.

I pulled my burner phone from my pocket.

My hands shook so hard I dropped it twice before I could unlock the screen.

I texted Gia.

I need it. The pufferfish toxin. Tonight.

The reply came three seconds later.

Are you sure? There is no coming back from this.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

Pale skin, hollow eyes.

The mute fisherman's daughter who thought she could marry a King and survive.

I'm sure, I typed back.

Bring it to the back gate.

Sienna POV

The night air was thick with humidity, clinging to my skin like a second layer when I met Gia by the service entrance.

She didn't say a word.

She just pressed a small, cold vial into my palm.

It looked like water.

But I knew better. It was liquid death.

"One drop slows your heart," she whispered, her eyes darting through the darkness, scanning for Dante's guards. "The whole vial stops it. You have a window of four minutes before you hit the floor."

I squeezed her hand.

Thank you.

I slipped back into the estate, the glass vial burning a phantom hole in my pocket.

I needed to hide it.

I was heading toward my bedroom when Valeria stepped out of the shadows.

She was holding a glass of red wine, swirling the dark liquid casually.

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Where have you been, little mute?" she asked.

I tried to step around her.

She blocked my path.

"Dante is in the shower," she said, leaning against the wall with practiced ease. "He told me how you begged for your parents. Pathetic."

I clenched my jaw.

I raised my hands and signed, Get out of my way.

She laughed.

"Or what? You'll wave your hands at me?"

Her eyes flicked toward the hallway, listening.

Suddenly, she threw the wine.

Not at me.

She hurled it at the wall behind her.

The glass shattered on impact. Red liquid splashed everywhere, looking horrifyingly like a crime scene.

Then she screamed.

"Help! Dante! She's crazy!"

She threw herself onto the floor amidst the broken glass, deliberately slicing her palm on a shard.

Footsteps thundered down the hall.

Dante appeared, a towel wrapped low around his waist, water still dripping from his chest.

He saw the wine. The glass. Valeria bleeding on the floor.

"She locked me in!" Valeria sobbed, pointing a shaking finger at me. "She tried to push me into the wine cellar and lock the door! She's jealous, Dante! She's insane!"

Dante turned to me.

His face was a mask of terrifying calm.

I shook my head violently.

Liar, I signed frantically. She is lying.

Dante didn't even glance at my hands.

He looked only at the blood on Valeria's palm.

"I told you to accept her," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "I told you to behave."

He grabbed my arm.

He didn't drag me to the bedroom.

He hauled me through the kitchen, past the stainless steel counters, to the heavy industrial door at the back.

The walk-in freezer.

The Vitiello front business was seafood distribution.

The estate kitchen was always stocked.

Dante threw the door open.

A blast of sub-zero air hit me like a physical blow.

It smelled of ozone and dead fish.

My stomach lurched.

The smell took me back to the docks. To the scaling knives. To the blood under my fingernails that I could never scrub away.

"You like to act like a gutter rat?" Dante snarled, shoving me inside. "Then you can cool off with the rest of the inventory."

I stumbled back, falling onto a crate of frozen halibut.

The cold bit through my thin silk dress instantly, seeping into my bones.

"Dante!" I tried to scream, but only a choked gasp came out.

I scrambled to the door, pounding on the metal.

He stood on the other side, unmoving.

"Think about respect, Sienna," he said.

Then he slammed the heavy door shut.

The latch clicked.

Darkness swallowed me.

The only light came from the small temperature gauge on the wall.

It read -10 degrees.

I curled into a ball on the metal floor, shivering violently.

The smell of fish was suffocating.

It coated my tongue.

It filled my lungs.

I wasn't the Don's wife in here.

I was just the fisherman's daughter again.

Worthless.

Disposable.

I touched the vial in my pocket.

It was the only warm thing left in my world.

Sienna POV

Two hours later, Rocco finally yanked the freezer door open.

He didn't look me in the eye.

"Boss says get dressed. We're going to the Gala."

My lips were cracked and blue.

My fingers were numb claws, so stiff I could barely button the designer dress Dante had laid out on the bed.

It was white.

Pure, innocent white.

It felt like a cruel joke.

The charity gala was held in a ballroom that reeked of old money and corruption-a spectacle that cost more than my father's entire lifetime of earnings.

Light refracted off massive crystal chandeliers, dancing over champagne towers.

Everywhere I looked, there were men who killed for a living wearing tuxedos that cost five grand.

Dante clamped his hand onto my waist as we entered.

His touch was warm, possessive.

"Smile," he whispered against my ear, his breath hot against my frozen skin. "You look pale."

I wanted to vomit.

Valeria was there, of course.

She was draped in blood-red silk.

She stood by her father, a Capo who controlled the Brooklyn docks, looking like royalty.

The auction began an hour later.

It was a "Charity Date Auction."

Rich men bidding on dances with the eligible women of the Family.

It was all for show. Money laundering with a smile.

When Valeria took the stage, the room went dead quiet.

She beamed, blowing a kiss to the crowd.

"Starting bid at five thousand," the auctioneer called out.

"Ten thousand," a voice yelled.

"Twenty," said another.

Dante stepped forward, detaching himself from my side.

He raised his hand.

"One million."

The room gasped.

Silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

Valeria's smile widened into a victorious smirk. She looked directly at me.

Dante didn't look at her. He looked at the crowd, challenging anyone to defy him.

He was marking his territory.

And I was just the furniture.

Suddenly, I felt a vibration in my clutch.

Then another.

Around the room, phones started lighting up like fireflies.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd, growing louder like an approaching tide.

People were looking at their screens, then looking at me.

Some were laughing.

I saw a woman near me whisper to her husband, covering her mouth but not her eyes. Her eyes were mocking.

With trembling fingers, I pulled out my own phone.

I had a notification. A mass text sent to everyone on the guest list.

The Don's Catch of the Day.

I opened the attachment.

It was a photo of me from five years ago.

I was wearing rubber overalls, covered in fish guts, holding a scaling knife. My hair was matted with blood and slime. I looked feral. Poor. Dirty.

Beneath it was a caption: You can take the girl out of the gutter, but you can't take the smell out of the girl.

I dropped the phone.

The screen cracked on the marble floor.

I looked up.

Dante was walking Valeria off the stage.

He had his hand on the small of her back.

He hadn't seen the phones yet.

Or maybe he had.

And maybe he didn't care.

I stood there in my white dress, surrounded by diamonds and silk, and I had never felt filthier in my life.