His Unwanted Wife: The Genius Artist Returns

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table.

Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen.

"Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over."

I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward.

Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant.

She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest.

As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me.

He hugged her.

"It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you."

The betrayal didn't stop there.

When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police.

When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line-the one meant for life-or-death situations.

He declined the call.

He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife.

That was the moment the chain broke.

As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come.

I opened the door and jumped into the dark.

Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement.

Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

Chapter 1

My husband slid the black velvet box across the crisp white tablecloth.

But instead of the diamond ring expected for a fifth anniversary, a black fountain pen rested inside, waiting for me to sign the separation papers that would save his mistress's life.

"Happy Anniversary, Aurora."

I stared at the pen.

The gold nib glinted under the chandelier lights of Le Bernardin.

Around us, the city's elite dined in hushed tones, unaware that the man sitting across from me was the Underboss of the Bruce Crime Family.

Ethan Bruce didn't look like a monster. He looked like a king.

His tuxedo fit his broad shoulders with military precision, concealing the gun holstered beneath his left arm. His eyes were the color of burnt whiskey-cold, detached, and utterly void of the love he'd once sworn.

"Sign it, Rory," he said.

His voice was low. It was the same tone he used when ordering a hit on a rival cartel member.

"Ilene is spiraling again. She threatened to open her wrists if she didn't see proof that we were over."

I didn't reach for the pen.

Instead, I looked at his hands.

Those large, capable hands that had promised to protect me at the altar were now pushing me into exile for the thirty-eighth time.

This was our twisted ritual.

Ilene Wolf, the Family Ward, would have a manic episode. She would demand my removal. And Ethan, bound by a twisted debt of honor to her dead father, would banish me to a safe house until she calmed down.

Thirty-eight times I had packed a bag.

Thirty-eight times I had played the obedient Mafia wife.

But tonight was our anniversary.

"Is she here?" I asked.

Ethan didn't flinch.

"She's in the car. She needs to see you leave the restaurant alone."

The humiliation washed over me like ice water.

He had brought her to our anniversary dinner. He had left her in the limo like a pet waiting to be let out, while he discarded his wife inside.

"I am not leaving, Ethan."

The air around our table dropped ten degrees.

Ethan leaned forward. The movement was slight, but it radiated the lethal menace that made grown men wet themselves.

"Do not test me tonight, Aurora. I have had a long week. I put three bodies in the ground yesterday to keep our borders secure. I do not have the patience for your defiance."

He wasn't my husband right now.

He was the Underboss.

And I was just an asset that was malfunctioning.

I picked up the pen.

My hand didn't shake; I had learned to freeze my insides a long time ago.

I signed my name on the linen napkin, not the legal paper.

"There," I said. "A souvenir."

Ethan's jaw tightened.

Before he could speak, a shadow fell over our table.

I looked up.

Ilene stood there.

She wasn't in the car. She was wearing a red dress that was too tight and too loud for this venue. Her eyes were wide, manic, darting between Ethan and me.

"You didn't do it," she whispered.

Ethan stood up fast.

"Ilene, go back to the car."

She ignored him.

She looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.

"You're still wearing his ring!" she shrieked.

The restaurant went silent. Waiters froze.

Ilene grabbed the bowl of lobster bisque from the waiter's tray next to us. It was steaming hot.

Ethan moved, but he moved toward her, not me.

He reached out to calm her.

Ilene swung her arm.

The thick, orange liquid hit me squarely in the chest.

The heat was instantaneous. It seared through my silk dress, scalding the skin of my cleavage and neck.

I gasped, the pain stealing the air from my lungs.

I stood up, clawing at the fabric, trying to pull the burning silk away from my skin.

Ethan caught Ilene's wrists.

He didn't look at me. He looked at her.

"Calm down," he soothed. "It's okay. I've got you."

I stood there, dripping with soup, my skin blistering, surrounded by staring strangers.

My husband was hugging the woman who had just assaulted me.

The sharp sting of antiseptic is the scent of my marriage.

I sat on the crinkling paper of the exam table in the private clinic owned by the Family. My silk dress was cut away, lying in a discarded heap on the floor.

The doctor applied a cooling gel to the second-degree burns across my chest. He worked in silence, his eyes fixed strictly on the wounds. He knew better than to ask questions.

The door opened.

Ethan walked in.

He had removed his tuxedo jacket. His white shirt was crisp, unblemished. The chaos of the evening hadn't left a mark on him. Not a drop of soup had touched him.

"How is she?" Ethan asked the doctor.

He didn't look at my face. He looked at the burns.

"She will heal," the doctor said, his voice low. "It will scar, though. The soup was boiling."

Ethan nodded, as if receiving a report on a damaged shipment of guns.

"Leave us."

The doctor slipped out of the room instantly.

Ethan stepped closer. The scent of his cologne-sandalwood and cold rain-mixed with the faint metallic tang of blood he always carried. It filled my nose, overpowering the sterile air.

He reached out, his fingers hovering over the raw, blistered skin.

I flinched.

His hand dropped to his side.

"Ilene is sedated," he said.

I didn't answer. The pain in my chest was a throbbing drumbeat, syncing with the rage building in my throat.

"She didn't mean to do it, Rory. She saw the ring. It triggered an episode."

I looked at him then.

I looked into the eyes of the man who ruled the underworld, the man who terrified the police and politicians alike. And I didn't see a monster.

I saw a coward.

"She threw boiling soup on me in a Michelin-star restaurant, Ethan. That wasn't an episode. That was assault."

"Lower your voice."

"No."

I slid off the table, clutching the thin hospital gown to my chest to cover my exposure.

"I want to go home."

"You can't go to the Estate," he said.

My stomach dropped.

"Why?"

"I moved Ilene into the Guest Wing. She needs constant supervision. The doctors say she is a flight risk if she's alone."

I laughed.

It was a dry, brittle sound, like dead leaves crushing underfoot.

"So I am the one leaving. Again."

"It's for your safety, Aurora."

"Don't use that word," I snapped.

My voice cracked.

"Don't you dare talk to me about safety. You are the Underboss. You command an army. You protect drug shipments, casinos, and politicians. But you can't protect your wife from one five-foot-four mental patient?"

Ethan grabbed my arm.

His grip was iron.

"Watch your mouth. Ilene is family. Her father took a bullet for mine. I owe her my life."

"And what do you owe me?" I whispered.

He froze.

His eyes searched mine, looking for the submissive girl he married. But she wasn't there anymore.

She had burned away with the silk dress.

"I owe you everything," he said, his voice rough. "That is why I am sending you to the penthouse downtown. You will be safe there."

He let go of my arm.

He checked his watch.

"I have to get back to her. She wakes up screaming if I'm not in the room."

He turned and walked out.

He left his injured wife alone in a cold clinic to go hold the hand of the woman who burned her.

I looked at the door.

The lock didn't keep people out.

It kept me in.

Instead of going to the penthouse, I took a cab straight to the Estate.

It was a fortress of stone and iron, built to withstand sieges from rival families, but the true enemy was already inside.

I swept through the front doors, ignoring the shocked expressions of the guards. They didn't dare stop me.

I was still the Donna, even if my husband treated me like a mistress.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

I headed toward the main staircase. At the top of the landing, the gallery wall stretched out-a space that was supposed to be covered in our wedding photos. They were large, black-and-white prints of the day two crime families merged.

Now, the wall was bare.

The frames lay shattered on the marble floor below, and glass crunched ominously under my heels.

I looked up.

Ilene stood at the top of the stairs. She was wearing one of my silk robes, looking like a wraith-pale and smiling.

"I thought they looked better down there," she said.

Her voice echoed in the cavernous hall.

"Get out of my house, Ilene."

She tilted her head. "Ethan said this is my house now. He said you were going away for a long time."

Rage, hot and blinding, flooded my veins.

I started up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I didn't care about her fragility. I didn't care about her dead father. I was going to drag her out by her hair.

When I reached the top landing, Ilene didn't back away.

Instead, she stepped forward.

She placed her hands on my shoulders. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

"You are in the way," she whispered.

Then, she shoved.

It wasn't a stumble. It was a calculated, forceful push.

My heels slipped on the polished marble, and gravity took over.

I fell backward.

The world spun.

My back hit the edge of a step with a sickening crack.

My head slammed against the banister.

I tumbled down, a ragdoll of limbs and pain, finally crashing through the shards of my own wedding photos at the bottom.

I lay on the cold floor as darkness crept into the edges of my vision. I couldn't move my legs.

Through the haze, I saw the front door open.

Ethan walked in.

He stopped dead.

He looked at me, broken and bleeding on the floor, before shifting his gaze to the top of the stairs.

Ilene was screaming, fake tears streaming down her face.

"She slipped! Ethan! She tried to hit me and she slipped!"

Ethan looked back at me.

He didn't run to check my pulse.

Instead, he pulled out his phone.

"Erase the security tapes in the main hall," he ordered into the device.

Then he looked at his head of security.

"Get the car. We need to get Ilene out of here before the police come."

Without a second glance, he stepped over my body to get to her.