Reborn From Fire: The Mafia King's Bride

The fire that melted my skin should have been the end of my story.

I had been the perfect mafia wife. I obeyed my father, I married Dante Genovese, and I even birthed his daughter.

But in return, he locked us in a safehouse and lit a match.

He watched from behind a steel door as I burned to ash, all because his mistress, Sofia, was jealous and wanted me out of the picture.

My own brother had spiked my champagne to ensure I was too weak to fight back.

I died screaming, my lungs filling with smoke and the scent of my husband's betrayal.

But when I gasped awake, I wasn't in hell.

I was in the bridal suite at the Ritz-Carlton.

My hands were smooth. My skin was unblemished. The date on the digital clock burned red in the darkness.

It was three years ago.

It was the night of our engagement. The night it all began.

Dante was in the bathroom right now, humming contentedly as he washed off the scent of his mistress before coming to claim his "lawful prize."

In my past life, I waited for him. I let him take me, thinking my submission would earn his love.

Not this time.

I didn't run to the lobby for help. My family had sold me out.

Instead, I took the elevator to the Penthouse floor.

To the territory of the Outfit.

To the door of Matteo Moretti-The Butcher. The only man ruthless enough to make Dante tremble.

When the door opened, revealing a man with eyes like ice and a gun in his hand, I didn't flinch.

I fell to my knees and looked up at the monster who could save me.

"I am Elena Vitiello," I whispered, the drug in my veins setting my blood on fire.

"And I have a proposition."

Chapter 1

Elena POV:

The fire that had melted my skin should have been the end of my story. But when I gasped awake, my lungs didn't fill with smoke-they filled with the expensive scent of sandalwood and betrayal.

The cologne of the husband who lit the match.

I bolted upright in the bed, my heart hammering against my ribs like a bird throwing itself against a cage.

My hands flew to my face.

Smooth. Unblemished.

No blisters. No peeling flesh. No searing memory of the flames, or of Dante Genovese watching from behind the safety of a locked steel door.

I looked around the room.

It wasn't the safehouse.

It was the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton.

The date on the digital clock by the bedside burned into my retinas in red neon.

It was three years ago.

It was tonight.

The night of the Peace Treaty Gala. The night my brother, Luca, had spiked my champagne to ensure I would be pliable enough to consummate my arranged marriage to Dante.

Heat coiled in my belly.

Not the heat of the fire that killed me.

The heat of the aphrodisiac.

It was starting.

The bathroom door creaked. Steam billowed out, carrying the sound of low, content humming.

Dante.

He was in there, washing off the scent of his mistress, Sofia, before he came to claim his lawful prize.

In the life I had already lived, I had waited. I had been a good girl. I had let him take me, thinking it would make him love me. I had birthed his daughter.

And he had burned us both to ash because Sofia was jealous.

A wave of nausea hit me, stronger than the drug in my veins.

I swung my legs off the bed.

My knees buckled, but I forced myself to stand.

I grabbed a champagne flute from the nightstand and shattered it against the marble edge.

The sound was sharp, final.

I stared at the jagged stem. I didn't want a weapon. I needed a wrecking ball.

I picked up the hotel phone.

My fingers trembled, but not from fear. From rage.

I dialed the number I had memorized from years of stalking his phone records.

"Hello?" Her voice was breathless. Sofia.

She was downstairs in the lobby bar, waiting for Dante to text her that it was done. That he had bedded the Vitiello princess and secured his alliance.

"He wants you," I rasped. My voice sounded wrecked-perfect for the role I was playing.

"Dante?" she asked, her voice pitching up.

"He says I'm boring," I lied, the words tasting like bile. "He needs you to finish what I can't start. Room 402. The door is unlocked."

I hung up before she could ask questions.

The drug was working faster this time. Or maybe my rage was accelerating it.

My skin felt tight. My blood was boiling.

I needed to leave.

But first, I needed to rewrite history.

I stumbled to the door and undid the latch.

I waited in the shadows of the entryway.

Two minutes later, the elevator dinged.

Sofia hurried down the hall, her cheap sequined dress catching the sconce light. She looked eager. Desperate.

She pushed the door open.

"Dante?" she whispered.

"In the bathroom," I choked out, stepping from behind the door.

She jumped, looking at me with wide, triumphant eyes. She thought I was defeated. She thought she had won.

"He's waiting," I said, pointing to the steam-filled room.

She didn't hesitate. She practically sprinted toward the bathroom.

The moment she crossed the threshold of the bedroom, I slipped out into the hallway.

I pulled the heavy suite door shut.

The automatic lock clicked into place.

I leaned against the wood, breathing hard.

Inside, Dante was drugged on his own ego, expecting a submissive wife. Instead, he was about to get the woman he truly wanted.

And by morning, the Vitiello family would know that Dante Genovese had chosen a whore over their daughter on his wedding night.

But I wasn't safe yet.

I was in the Genovese wing of the hotel.

If his guards saw me, they would drag me back.

I pushed off the door.

The hallway stretched out, long and dizzying.

I couldn't go to the lobby. Luca was there. He would just put me back in the room, thinking he was saving our family.

I needed sanctuary.

No. I needed a monster to kill a monster.

I stumbled toward the service elevator.

My vision blurred. The heat in my body was becoming unbearable. I needed a man. Any man.

No.

Not just any man.

I pressed the button for the Penthouse floor.

The elevator climbed.

The Penthouse didn't belong to the Genovese family. It didn't belong to the Vitiellos.

It belonged to the Outfit.

It belonged to Matteo Moretti. The Butcher.

The man who controlled the ports, the unions, and half the city's police force. The man who had skinned a rival Capo alive for insulting his mother.

He was the only man Dante feared.

The elevator doors opened.

I fell out onto the plush carpet.

The hallway was silent.

There was only one set of double doors at the end.

I dragged myself toward them.

My body was screaming for release. My mind was screaming for vengeance.

I reached the door and pounded on it with my fist.

"Open up," I gasped.

Nothing.

I hit it again. "Please."

The lock clicked.

The door swung inward.

A wall of muscle blocked my view.

I looked up.

Matteo Moretti filled the doorway. He was wearing black dress pants and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the dark ink of tattoos that climbed his throat.

His eyes were like ice. Cold. Dead.

He held a glass of whiskey in one hand and a gun in the other.

"You have five seconds to explain why you're still breathing," he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in my chest.

I fell to my knees at his feet.

I grabbed the fabric of his pants.

"I am Elena Vitiello," I panted, the drug setting my senses on fire. "And I have a proposition."

Elena POV:

Matteo remained motionless.

He surveyed me from his height, looking at me as if I was a stain on his expensive carpet.

"A Vitiello." The name tasted like poison on his tongue. "In my territory."

He crouched down, bringing his face level with mine.

The cold barrel of his gun touched my chin, forcing my head up. The metal was ice against my burning skin.

"Did Dante lose you in a card game?" he asked.

"Dante is dead to me," I whispered.

My body betrayed me. I leaned into the touch of the gun, desperate for any sensation to ground me in reality.

Matteo's eyes narrowed. He saw the unnatural flush on my chest. He saw the dilated pupils.

"Drugged," he stated. It wasn't a question.

"Help me," I begged, the words rasping in my throat.

"Why should I?" He stood up, the warmth of his presence vanishing as he pulled away from me. "Your father and I are at war. Returning you would be a gesture of goodwill. Keeping you invites a bloodbath."

"He won't fight for me," I said. "He sold me for a trade route."

Matteo took a sip of his whiskey, watching me writhe on the floor with clinical detachment.

"Get up."

I tried. My legs were liquid. I clawed at the doorframe, dragging myself upright with trembling limbs.

"I need sanctuary," I said, my voice breaking. "I can give you the Genovese family."

That got his attention.

He paused, scrutinizing me for a heartbeat. Then he stepped back, opening the door wider.

"Inside."

I stumbled past him into the penthouse.

The space was dark, sleek, and heavy with the scent of leather and whiskey.

The city skyline glittered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, indifferent to my suffering.

Matteo locked the door behind us.

The sound was heavy. Final.

"Talk," he commanded.

"Dante is weak," I said, the words spilling out fast before my mind could cloud over again. "He's skimming from the Commission. He's planning to move on your ports next month using a shell company."

Matteo walked to the bar and poured a glass of water. He didn't offer it to me.

"Old news," he said. "I know about the shell company."

I felt a spike of panic. I needed to offer him something he didn't have.

"I know where he keeps the ledger," I said. "The real one. Not the one he shows the IRS or his father."

Matteo paused.

He turned to face me slowly.

"And why would you give me that?"

"Because I want him ruined," I said. "I want him to have nothing."

The heat in my body flared again, a sharp cramp that made me double over. A whimper escaped my throat.

Matteo watched me without pity.

"You're in no condition to negotiate."

"I'm not negotiating," I gasped. "I'm trading."

I looked at him. Really looked at him.

He was terrifying. A predator in a tailored suit. But in my past life, I had heard the whispers. Matteo Moretti was brutal, but he followed the Old Laws. He didn't hurt women. He didn't hurt children.

He was the opposite of Dante.

"Take me," I said.

Matteo's eyebrows lifted slightly.

"You're offering yourself as payment?"

"I'm offering you the ultimate insult to the Genovese name," I said. "If you take me tonight... Dante can never claim me. I become spoiled goods. The alliance breaks."

He walked toward me.

The air in the room shifted. It became heavy, charged with violence and anticipation.

He stopped inches from me.

He reached out and traced the line of my jaw with his thumb. His skin was rough, calloused from violence.

"You are asking me to start a war, Elena."

"I'm asking you to win it," I whispered.

He stared into my eyes, searching for the lie. He wouldn't find one. I had already died once. I had nothing left to fear.

He set his glass down on the side table.

His hand moved to the back of my neck, his grip firm, possessive.

"If I do this," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous growl, "there is no going back. You belong to the Outfit. You belong to me."

"I know."

"You will be mine to protect," he said. "And mine to use."

"Yes."

He didn't kiss me gently.

He claimed me.

His mouth crashed onto mine, demanding and hard. It wasn't romance. It was a seal on a contract written in ash and ruin.

And for the first time since I woke up, the fire in my veins didn't feel like death.

It felt like power.

Elena POV:

I woke up alone.

The sheets were charcoal silk, cool against my heated skin.

My body ached, but it was a deep, satisfied ache, not the sharp agony of the drug I had anticipated.

I sat up, pulling the sheet against my chest.

The penthouse was silent.

Matteo was gone.

Naturally. I wasn't surprised. Men like him didn't stay to cuddle. They conquered, took what they wanted, and moved on to the next battle.

But he had left something on the nightstand.

A bottle of water. A bottle of aspirin. And a single, perfect red apple sitting mockingly on the glass surface.

I stared at the fruit.

It felt almost biblical. Like I had taken a bite of forbidden knowledge and doomed myself.

Or maybe, just maybe, I had saved myself.

I dragged myself to the bathroom.

The mirror showed a stranger staring back.

My hair was a tangled mess, a chaotic halo around my face. My lips were swollen, bitten red.

And on my neck, right where the collar of a modest dress would sit, was a dark, violet bloom.

A mark.

Matteo hadn't been careful. Care was for lovers. He had been territorial.

I traced the mark with my fingertip, wincing slightly.

It was a declaration of war.

I didn't cover it.

I showered quickly, scrubbing the sterile scent of the hotel soap off my skin, though the memory of his touch remained.

I put on the ruined dress from the night before, the fabric feeling foreign now.

I took the elevator down to the lobby.

I strode out the front doors of the Ritz-Carlton, ignoring the doorman's questioning glance, and hailed a taxi.

When I arrived at the Vitiello estate, the gates were open.

Cars were in the driveway. Genovese cars.

My stomach twisted, but I forced my spine straight. I was done cowering.

I walked through the front door.

Voices echoed from the drawing room. My father's booming baritone clashing with Dante's frantic tenor.

I walked in.

Silence fell like a guillotine blade.

Dante was standing by the fireplace. He looked disheveled. His tie was loose, his hair a mess.

My father, a man who loved power more than his children, looked at me with relief that quickly curdled into anger.

"Where the hell have you been?" my father demanded. "Dante has been out of his mind with worry."

I looked at Dante.

He didn't look worried. He looked like a man caught in a noose. Guilty.

"I woke up and you were gone," Dante said, stepping toward me. He tried to sound like a concerned fiancé, but his eyes were cold, calculating.

"I thought you were kidnapped."

"I wasn't kidnapped," I said calmly.

"Then where were you?" He reached for my arm.

I stepped back, out of his reach.

"I was in the hallway," I lied smoothly. "Listening."

Dante froze.

"Listening to what?"

"To you and Sofia," I said.

The room went deadly quiet.

My father looked at Dante, eyes narrowing. "Who is Sofia?"

Dante's face paled. "She's... nobody. A mistake. Elena, you were confused. The champagne..."

"I wasn't confused when I heard her screaming your name in my bridal suite," I said, my voice devoid of emotion.

I saw Luca in the corner. My brother. He looked green. He knew what was in that champagne. He knew I should have been unconscious hours ago.

"You abandoned me," I said to Dante. "On the night of our engagement. To sleep with a whore."

"It was an accident!" Dante shouted, losing his composure. "She came onto me! I thought it was you!"

"You thought the woman in the cheap sequins was me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in mock disbelief.

Dante flushed red.

"It doesn't matter," he snapped, waving his hand dismissively. "We are getting married. This changes nothing."

"It changes everything," I said.

I lifted my chin, brushing my hair aside to expose the bruise on my neck.

Dante's eyes dropped to it.

His pupils dilated.

He knew that mark. He knew it wasn't his.

"What is that?" he whispered.

"Proof," I said.

"You whore," he hissed. He lunged at me.

Luca stepped forward, blocking him with his shoulder.

"Don't touch her," Luca warned, his voice low.

Dante pointed a shaking finger at me. "She slept with someone else! She broke the contract!"

"You broke it first," I said, my voice ice cold. "You brought a mistress into our bed. I just... sought comfort elsewhere."

"With who?" Dante screamed. "Who touched you?"

I smiled. It was a small, cruel thing.

"Someone who knows exactly how to treat a woman," I said.

"The engagement is off, Dante. Get out of my house."