Jilted Pet Becomes The Mafia Queen

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god.

Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires.

He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family.

In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet.

Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it.

That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed.

I finally understood the promise he'd made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property.

After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash.

So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good.

A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father-his greatest enemy.

Chapter 1

Seraphina POV:

I learned my life was over the day Dante Moretti announced his engagement to another woman.

It wasn't a whisper in the grand, empty halls of the Moretti estate. It wasn't a quiet confession in the dead of night. It was a headline, stark and black on the screen of my phone, a news alert that buzzed on the marble countertop like a dying insect.

*Dante Moretti, Don of New York's Most Powerful Family, to Wed Isabella Vescovi, Uniting Two Criminal Empires.*

The words blurred. My world narrowed to the phone in my hand, the cold weight of it a sudden, shocking anchor in a sea of disbelief. This had to be a mistake. A power play. A lie designed to smoke out an enemy. It couldn't be real.

Because Dante was mine.

He had been mine since I was eight years old. I remember the fire, the acrid smell of smoke and fear that filled my lungs. The Rossi family, my family, was being torn apart, and I was just a piece of collateral damage left behind. Then he appeared through the flames, a boy of sixteen with eyes as dark and unforgiving as the world he commanded. He threw his own body over mine, shielding me from the heat and the blood that splattered the walls.

He had whispered against my hair, his voice rough but steady. "You're safe. You're a Moretti now."

For ten years, that promise had been my religion. In this gilded cage of marble floors and silent, watchful bodyguards, Dante was my god. He was the one who bought me a nightlight when I was ten because the nightmares wouldn't stop, a small ceramic cat that cast a soft, unwavering glow. "It will keep the monsters away," he'd said, his large hand gentle as he plugged it in.

He was the monster, of course. I knew that. The world knew that. But he was my monster, and he kept all the others at bay.

Then, on my seventeenth birthday, I did the stupidest thing a girl in my position could do. I wrote him a letter. A confession, poured out in clumsy, heartfelt sentences, stained with a drop of my own blood for dramatic, teenage effect. I told him I loved him.

I found the letter ripped into a thousand tiny pieces in the trash can outside his study. He cornered me in the library that night, his body caging me against a shelf of leather-bound books. His eyes were blazing with a fury I had never seen directed at me.

"Don't ever love me, Fina," he'd snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "You love me, and you will die. Do you understand?"

I understood. But I didn't believe him. It felt like a test. Another twisted way of protecting me.

Now, staring at the face of Isabella Vescovi smiling beside him, her hand possessively on his arm, I knew. It wasn't a test. It was a prophecy.

He brought her to the estate that evening. I was standing on the grand staircase when they walked in. Isabella was everything I wasn't-tall, poised, with the kind of sharp, beautiful edges that promised a fight. She moved like she already owned the place.

Dante's eyes found mine. There was no warmth, no apology. Just a flat, cold command.

"Seraphina," he said, his voice echoing in the cavernous foyer. "This is Isabella. You will refer to her as the future mistress of the Moretti family."

The words were a physical blow. Mistress. The title that should have been...

Isabella's smile was a weapon. "It's a pleasure to finally meet the little canary Dante keeps so safely in his cage."

My hands went cold. I could feel the eyes of every guard, every servant, on me. I was a Rossi by blood, a Moretti by charity. A stray dog he'd picked up from the wreckage of his enemies. And now, the true queen had arrived to claim her throne.

That night, locked in my bedroom, I stared at my reflection. My hair, a sheet of pale gold, fell to my waist. Dante had always loved my hair. He'd once told me it was the only pure thing in his world.

I walked into my bathroom, found the shears we used for cutting flower stems in the garden, and held a thick lock of that pure, golden hair in my hand.

Snip.

It fell to the cold tile floor, a dead thing.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

I didn't stop until it was all gone, hacked off in uneven, jagged chunks around my ears. I looked feral. Ruined.

I walked out onto my balcony, the cold night air biting at my newly exposed neck. From a hidden pocket in my jacket, I pulled out a cigarette, stolen from one of the guards. My hands trembled as I lit it, the unfamiliar sting of smoke hitting the back of my throat. I coughed, my eyes watering.

I was no longer pure. I was no longer his. I was nothing. And when you have nothing, you have nothing left to lose.

I took another drag, letting the smoke fill me, and made a promise to the unforgiving New York skyline. I would get out. Or I would die trying.

Seraphina POV:

The little ceramic cat nightlight sat on my bedside table, its soft glow a familiar comfort against the darkness. For ten years, it had chased away my nightmares. Tonight, it felt like a mockery.

I reached over and yanked the plug from the wall. The room plunged into an oppressive blackness, so thick I felt like I was suffocating. Good. I wanted to feel it. I wanted the darkness to swallow me whole.

My bare feet padded across the cold wooden floor to my closet. I pulled down a dusty duffel bag from the top shelf. One by one, I gathered the ghosts of my life with Dante. The small, silver locket with the Moretti crest he'd given me for my fifteenth birthday. The bottle of "Coral Sea" perfume he'd bought me because he said it smelled like a place he'd take me to one day, a place with no blood and no secrets.

They all went into the bag. Relics of a dead faith.

Under my bed was a locked wooden box. Inside was my diary. I flipped through the pages, my fingers tracing the frantic, girlish script. It was a pathetic history of my devotion. Every kind word, every small gesture from him, was recorded and analyzed like scripture.

Then I found it. A page from years ago, after a rival had tried to send me a "message" by having his thugs follow me home from school. Dante had dealt with them. I never saw them again. That night, he'd found my diary open on my desk. He didn't say anything, but the next morning, I found a new entry written in his sharp, aggressive hand. It wasn't in ink. It was in blood.

*Fina is Moretti property. Touch her and die.*

Property.

The word slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs. Not a sister. Not a ward. Not even a person. I was a thing. An asset to be protected, like his cars or his collection of antique weapons. His protection wasn't about love. It was about ownership.

A sob tore from my throat, raw and ugly. With frantic, shaking hands, I began to rip the pages from the diary. I tore through every cherished memory, every secret hope, until all that was left was a pile of confetti-sized pieces of my own foolish heart.

The next day, Isabella officially moved into the room adjoining Dante's. My room. The one I used to have before I was moved to the guest wing last year because I was "becoming a woman."

She summoned me to the sitting room. The entire family-Dante's capos, his lieutenants-was there, a silent audience for my humiliation.

Isabella smiled, a condescending, placid expression. "Seraphina, darling. A welcome gift."

She held up a necklace. It wasn't the delicate silver or gold I was used to. It was a thick, gaudy band of some cheap, dark metal, studded with glittering stones that formed the Vescovi family crest. It wasn't a necklace. It was a collar.

My breath hitched. I was allergic to cheap alloys. Dante knew this. He'd once thrown away a bracelet a school friend had given me, his lip curled in disgust as he saw the red rash forming on my wrist.

I looked at him, pleading with my eyes. *Don't do this. Please.*

His face was a mask of indifference. He met my gaze, his dark eyes cold and empty, and delivered the sentence.

"Take it."

His voice was flat. Final. It was an order. In front of everyone, he was showing them my new place in the hierarchy. Below him. Below her.

My hands trembled as I reached for the collar. Isabella's fingers brushed against mine as she fastened it around my neck. The metal was cold, heavy.

"It suits you," she purred, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Every pet should have a collar."

The laughter was polite, but it felt like stones being thrown at me. I stood there, my head bowed, as the metal began to warm against my skin. The familiar, burning itch started almost immediately, a ring of fire tightening around my throat.

I didn't scratch it. I didn't cry. I just stood there and let it burn, branding me with the truth. I was property. And I had just been handed over to a new owner.

Seraphina POV:

That night, the sounds from Dante's bedroom bled through the walls. Muffled laughter, the low murmur of voices, the squeak of bedsprings. I lay in my own bed, stiff as a corpse, staring at the ceiling. The cheap metal collar burned my skin, a constant, agonizing reminder of my place.

I finally gave up on sleep and went to the balcony, lighting another cigarette. The smoke was still harsh, but the burn in my lungs was a welcome distraction from the fire around my neck. I smoked the entire pack, one after another, until the sun began to stain the horizon a sickly gray.

The next morning, I found Isabella in the dining room, sipping tea as if she'd lived here her whole life.

She looked up at me, her eyes lingering on my butchered hair and the raw, red welt on my neck. A small, cruel smile played on her lips.

"Dante's birthday is in a few weeks," she said, her voice like honey laced with poison. "It's also going to be our engagement party. I was thinking of a theme. What do you think he'd like? You've known him for so long."

The question was a calculated strike. She was asking me to plan the celebration of my own demise.

A memory surfaced, unbidden. A rainy night, years ago. Dante had just returned from a "business meeting," his knuckles bruised and a fresh cut over his eye. He'd found me in the kitchen, and for a rare moment, the mask had slipped. He'd looked tired, almost haunted.

He had leaned against the counter, his voice barely a whisper. "When I'm done with all this, Fina, when all my enemies are gone, I'm going to take you to my private island. No one will ever find us there."

The memory was so vivid it hurt. I pushed it down, deep into the black hole where I kept all the other beautiful lies.

"I wouldn't know," I said, my voice hollow. "I don't concern myself with Don Moretti's affairs."

Just then, Dante walked in. He looked from me to Isabella, his gaze impassive.

"My affairs," he said, his voice clipping the air, "are none of your concern." He was speaking to me, reinforcing the boundary he had drawn.

I turned to leave, my cheeks burning with shame.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

"To the embassy," I said, my voice tight. "I need to handle my visa for school." The lie came easily. The forged university acceptance letter from Toronto was tucked safely in my purse.

Dante's entire demeanor shifted. The indifference vanished, replaced by a flash of violent possession. He crossed the room in two strides, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him. His fingers dug into my jaw, hard.

"What school?" he hissed. "And with who? Don't think I don't know what you are, Seraphina. You dare to start running around with some filthy mutt from outside these walls, and I will break his legs. Then I'll break yours."

His words were laced with a familiar, terrifying jealousy. The same jealousy that had once made me feel safe, cherished. Now it just felt like a chain.

Isabella stepped forward, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "Dante, darling, let her go. You're scaring her. She's just a child."

He released me, his eyes still boring into mine. I stumbled back, the urge to touch my bruised jaw overwhelming. I resisted. I would not show weakness. Not in front of her.

Later that day, standing outside the Canadian embassy, my phone buzzed. It was a notification from Dante's private social media account, one I was privileged to follow. He had posted a photo.

It was a professional shot of him and Isabella. He was in a perfectly tailored suit, she in a stunning evening gown, standing before the massive, carved Moretti family crest in the grand hall. They looked like a king and queen.

The caption was two words.

*My Queen.*

My vision swam. It felt like the world tilted on its axis, throwing me off balance. That word. Queen. He had killed the princess and crowned a new queen, all in one fell swoop.

My fingers moved on their own, tapping out a comment from a new, anonymous account I'd created just for this purpose. I wrote it in Latin, a language he'd forced me to learn, a language of empires and endings.

*Sic transit gloria mundi.*

*Thus passes the glory of the world.*

Then, I blocked him. I blocked his account, deleted his number, and wiped every digital trace of him from my life. It was over.