The Capo Who Forgot His Beloved Wife

Five years ago, Dante Moretti was the Capo who promised to burn the world for me.

Today, he is a monster with amnesia who treats me like a servant while parading his mistress, Carla, in front of me.

When Carla cut her own baby's lip to frame me, Dante didn't ask for proof.

He dragged me into the hotel lobby, claiming I was a monster who hurt children.

He looked at me with cold, dead eyes and said, "You use your voice to lie. You don't deserve a voice."

He ordered his guards to hold me down.

Then, he took a silver needle and thick black thread.

Right there in front of the staff and guests, he sewed my mouth shut.

Three stitches.

One for silence.

One for obedience.

One for the Family.

He thought he had broken me.

He didn't know that while I bled, the walls blocking his memory were already crumbling.

Months later, after I had escaped and built a new life, he found me.

He knelt in the snow outside my gate, weeping, begging to fix what he broke.

"I remember everything, Elena. I love you."

I touched the white scars on my lips and looked down at him.

"You can't fix this, Dante."

"Unless you can give me the last five years back."

Chapter 1

Elena Vitiello POV

I stood before the man who once promised to burn the world for me, clutching the paperwork that would reduce his empire to ash, while he allowed another woman to sit on his lap.

Five years ago, Dante Moretti was the Capo of the New York Famiglia, a man whose shadow alone could freeze a room, and I was his beloved wife.

Today, he is Dante the Reaper, a monster with a hole in his memory where my name used to be. And I am nothing more than the discarded collateral damage of a truce between warring gangs.

The lobby of The Gilded Lily was suffocating.

Gold leaf peeled from the crown molding like dead skin, and the scent of stale cigar smoke clung to the heavy velvet curtains. This hotel was a front for the Moretti money laundering operation, and for the last five years, I had been its glorified housekeeper.

Dante sat on the plush leather sofa in the center of the lobby.

He looked every inch the king he was born to be. His suit was tailored to hide the holsters at his ribs, his dark hair was slicked back, and his eyes were cold shards of obsidian.

Carla Russo was perched on his thigh.

She was a Jersey girl with too much ambition and not enough sense, tracing the line of his jaw with a manicured nail. It was a public display of disrespect that would have gotten a man killed in the old days.

A Made Man does not parade his mistress in front of his wife.

But Dante did not remember I was his wife.

To him, I was Elena Vitiello, a contractual obligation forced on him by the Chicago Outfit.

I walked toward them.

My heels clicked against the marble floor, a rhythm like a ticking clock counting down to his ruin.

Dante didn't look up. He was busy whispering something into Carla's ear that made her giggle, a sound that grated on my nerves like sandpaper.

I cleared my throat.

Dante's eyes snapped to mine. There was no recognition, only annoyance.

"What is it, Elena?" he asked.

His voice was a low rumble that used to make my toes curl. Now, it just made my stomach turn.

I held out the folder.

"Signatures required for the property transfer," I said.

My voice was steady. I had practiced this tone in the mirror for a thousand mornings. It was the tone of a servant-invisible and efficient.

Dante sighed. He reached for the folder without shifting Carla from his lap.

He didn't read it.

He assumed it was another lease agreement for one of Carla's vanity projects or a supplier contract for the hotel kitchen. He didn't know he was signing away the Vitiello shipping routes.

Those routes were my dowry. They were the arteries that pumped cash into the New York Famiglia. Without them, the Moretti family would suffocate within a month.

He uncapped his pen. The ink flowed black and permanent.

I watched the tip of the pen carve his name onto the line. My heart hammered against my ribs. I was stealing back my freedom right under the nose of the deadliest man in New York.

"Done," he said, tossing the folder onto the coffee table.

He looked at me with disdain.

"The scent in here is cheap," he said. "Fix it. Carla deserves organic lavender, not this chemical trash."

Carla smirked at me.

"Dante is so powerful," she cooed. "He gets whatever he wants."

I reached for the folder. My hand shook slightly.

As I grabbed the paper, my pinky finger brushed against the back of Dante's hand.

The reaction was violent and instantaneous.

Dante recoiled as if I were acid. He shoved my hand away.

My wrist slammed against the edge of the marble table. Bone met stone with a sickening crack.

Pain shot up my arm, hot and white.

"Don't touch me," he snarled.

He grabbed a bottle of sanitizer from the table and scrubbed his skin where I had brushed him.

"You are unclean."

The word hung in the air. Unclean.

Flashbacks assaulted me.

The car bomb five years ago. Him waking up in the hospital. Me reaching for him, weeping with relief. Him looking at me with blank, hateful eyes and asking who let the trash in.

Five years of servitude. Five years of sleeping in the guest wing while he brought women home. Five years of paying for a crime I didn't commit.

I clutched my throbbing wrist to my chest.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

It was the script. Stick to the script. Survive.

Dante paused. He looked at my face.

For a second, the cruelty in his eyes wavered. He stared at the bruise forming on my pale skin, and his brow furrowed. Something in his broken brain was trying to connect the dots.

Why did my pain bother him?

Before he could process it, Carla pulled out her phone.

"I'm going to livestream the unboxing of the penthouse!" she squealed.

She pointed the camera at me.

"Say hi to the fans," she said.

Dante's face hardened again.

"Go with her," he ordered me. "Carry her bags. Film her if she asks."

I stared at him.

"I am a Vitiello," I said softly. "I am not a maid."

Dante stood up. He towered over me.

"You are whatever I say you are," he said, his voice deathly quiet. "You are a burden. A tax I pay to Chicago to keep the peace. Now do your duty."

He turned his back on me.

Something inside me snapped.

It wasn't a loud crack like my wrist. It was a quiet severance. The tether of hope I had been holding onto for five years finally broke.

Carla shoved her phone in my face.

"Get my good side," she ordered.

I took the phone. I looked at Dante's broad back. I looked at Carla's smug face.

I raised the phone.

But I didn't film her.

I turned and smashed the device against the wall.

Glass shattered. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the silent lobby.

Dante spun around. His hand went to his waistband instinctively.

I didn't flinch.

"She isn't pregnant!" I screamed.

The words tore out of my throat, raw and bleeding.

"She's been lying to you for months to get the ring! She's playing you, Dante! Just like everyone else!"

Dante froze.

His hand hovered over his gun. His eyes went wide.

A vein in his temple throbbed violently. He brought a hand to his head, grimacing as if a spike were being driven into his skull.

He looked at me. Really looked at me.

His lips parted.

"Little Dove?" he whispered.

The name floated across the distance between us.

It was the name he gave me on our wedding night.

But it didn't sound like love anymore.

It sounded like a ghost story.

Elena Vitiello POV

The nickname hung in the air for a heartbeat, fragile as smoke, before Dante blinked and the cold mask slammed back into place.

He shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion, physically trying to dislodge the memory.

"Get out of my sight," he growled.

He didn't remember.

Not really.

It was just a glitch in the programming of a broken machine.

I turned and walked toward the elevators without a word.

My wrist throbbed in time with my pulse, a dull, rhythmic agony, but I didn't cradle it.

I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

I took the service elevator to the Magnolia Penthouse.

Carla was already there, having taken the main lift. She was pacing the floor, her heels clicking sharply against the marble, furious about her phone.

"You owe me a new iPhone, you bitch!" she screeched as I entered.

I didn't offer her the dignity of a response.

I walked to the window and looked out at the New York skyline. From this height, the city didn't look like freedom; it looked like a cage of steel and glass.

The door to the suite opened behind me.

Dante walked in.

But he wasn't alone.

Don Salvatore and Donna Maria Moretti followed him.

My in-laws.

The people who had watched their son turn into a monster and applauded him for it.

Donna Maria was a small woman with hair dyed a severe black and eyes that judged everything they touched and found it wanting.

She held a velvet box in her hands.

She walked past me as if I were nothing more than a piece of misplaced furniture and went straight to Carla.

"Welcome to the family, dear," she said.

She opened the box.

Inside lay a diamond necklace. It was a heavy, intricate piece, the stones set in platinum.

It was the Vitiello family necklace.

My mother had given it to me on my wedding day.

It was part of the dowry Dante had just unknowingly signed back to me. But physically, the metal and stone were still here.

Donna Maria clasped it around Carla's neck.

"It fits you much better," the Don said, looking at me with a sneer. "Elena never had the neck for it. Too thin. Too weak."

Carla preened, touching the cold stones with a possessive smirk.

"Thank you, Donna Maria. I promise to give Dante many strong sons."

The Don nodded approvingly.

"That is all we ask. An heir. Something Elena failed to provide."

The accusation stung, even though it was a lie.

I wasn't barren.

Dante had just never touched me since the accident.

Donna Maria pulled out her phone.

"The boys want to say hello," she said.

She put it on speaker.

Dante's nephews, Marco and Stefano, were on the line. They were ten and twelve, old enough to mimic the cruelty of their fathers but young enough to lack the discipline.

"Is the witch there?" Marco's voice crackled through the speaker.

"Tell her we hate her!" Stefano added. "Tell her she smells like garbage!"

Donna Maria laughed softly.

"Such spirited boys."

She looked at me with cold amusement.

"You upset them, Elena. Your very presence upsets the balance of this family."

She stepped forward and slapped me.

It wasn't a hard slap, but it was sharp.

Her ring caught my cheek, scratching the skin.

I didn't move.

I tasted copper in my mouth.

"Enough, Mother," Dante said.

His voice was bored, not protective.

He was looking at my wrist. It had swollen to twice its size, turning a sickly purple.

He stared at it with a strange intensity, as if trying to solve a puzzle he couldn't quite see.

"I need to check the inventory," I said, my voice hollow.

I needed to get out.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

One buzz.

That was the signal from Luca.

The extraction team was in position.

I walked out of the penthouse.

I didn't run, though every instinct in my body screamed at me to flee.

I took the stairs down to the lobby and exited through the side door into the alley.

The cold air hit my face.

I took a deep breath.

Just a few more blocks.

Luca was waiting two streets over in a black SUV.

"Hey, Witch!"

I froze.

Marco and Stefano were standing at the end of the alley.

They must have been waiting for their parents to pick them up.

They held brightly colored plastic water guns.

Super Soakers.

They were grinning.

"Look what Uncle Dante gave us!" Marco yelled.

He raised the neon green gun.

I sighed.

"Go home, boys," I said.

I didn't have time for this.

Marco pulled the trigger.

A stream of liquid shot out.

I expected cold water.

I expected to be wet and annoyed.

The liquid hit my neck and chest.

It didn't feel like water.

It felt like fire.

It felt like a thousand bees stinging at once.

Smoke rose from my silk blouse.

The fabric dissolved instantly.

Then the skin underneath began to bubble.

I screamed.

It was a sound I didn't recognize, a primal tear in the fabric of the world.

The smell of burning flesh filled the alley.

Industrial cleaner.

Acid.

The boys laughed, high and cruel, and ran away.

I fell to my knees, clawing at my melting skin, realizing that in this family, even the children were executioners.

Elena Vitiello POV

I stumbled into my apartment, a small, converted carriage house on the edge of the Moretti estate, my breath hitching in my throat.

Desperate to stop the burning, I tore the dissolving blouse from my body.

Skin came with it.

I bit through my lip to keep from passing out, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.

I scrambled into the shower and turned the water to cold. The shock made me gasp, but the icy deluge helped neutralize the acid.

I watched a swirl of pink water spiral down the drain.

My chest was a ruin. Angry red welts and blisters mapped the path of the liquid. It would scar. I would carry the hate of the Moretti family branded on my skin forever.

I stepped out of the shower, shivering violently, and wrapped myself in a towel before heading to the living room.

I couldn't go to the hospital. Dante controlled the doctors; they would simply report it as a clumsy accident, burying the truth under layers of money and fear.

I grabbed the first aid kit I kept hidden under the floorboards, retrieving the essentials: burn cream, gauze, painkillers.

I worked mechanically. I was a soldier patching herself up in the trenches, numb to everything but the mission of survival.

Once the bandages were secure, I went to the bookshelf and pulled out a heavy leather album.

Our wedding album.

I carried it to the metal basin I used for laundry and struck a match. The flame wavered, small and yellow, fragile against the encroaching dark.

I dropped it onto the glossy photo of Dante sliding the ring onto my finger.

The paper curled and blackened. His face melted, warping into a grotesque smear. The fire grew, consuming the lie of our happiness.

Suddenly, the front door exploded inward, sending splinters of wood flying across the room.

Dante stood in the doorway.

He was breathing hard, his chest heaving. He saw me. He saw the bandages on my chest. He saw the fire in the basin.

His eyes darted between the two. For a second, I saw concern-a flicker of the man he pretended to be.

But then he saw the photo burning. He saw his own face being eaten by flames.

He kicked the basin over. Ash and half-burnt photos scattered across the floor. He stomped on the fire, extinguishing it with his expensive Italian leather shoes.

He reached down and picked up a charred remnant. It was a picture of us kissing on the altar.

He looked at it, then at me.

"You did this," he said, his voice dangerously calm.

"You staged this."

"What?" I whispered.

"The acid," he said, pointing at my chest. "You did it to yourself. To frame my nephews. To frame Carla."

I laughed. It was a dry, broken sound.

"You think I poured acid on myself?"

"You're desperate, Elena," he said, stepping closer. "You're losing your grip on the family money, and you'll do anything to stay relevant."

He grabbed my wrist.

The broken one.

I screamed. The pain was blinding, white-hot and immediate.

He didn't let go. He dragged me out of the house, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

I pounded on his back with my good hand. "Let me go!" I shrieked.

He ignored me. He carried me across the lawn to the main house, but he didn't take me inside the front door. He went around the back, to the cellar doors.

"No," I begged. "Dante, please. Not there."

The cellar was where he did his "work." It was soundproof. It smelled of rust and bleach-the scent of old blood and sterile death.

He carried me down the concrete steps and threw me onto the metal table in the center of the room. The cold steel bit into my back.

He strapped my ankles. He strapped my wrists.

I lay there, spread-eagled, staring up at the single lightbulb swinging from the ceiling.

"You are my wife," he said.

He walked to the wall and pulled a lever. A hydraulic hum filled the room.

The "Press."

It was a device designed to crush fingers, to extract information from stubborn rivals.

"You are property," he continued. "You don't get to burn my face. You don't get to leave."

He placed a heavy metal plate over my midsection. He wasn't going to crush my hands. He was going to squeeze the breath out of me.

He turned a dial. The plate descended.

It pressed against my ribs.

Pressure. Immense, crushing pressure.

My ribs groaned under the strain. I couldn't inhale. Panic flared in my chest.

"Admit it," he demanded. "Admit you staged the attack."

I couldn't speak. I could only gasp. The room started to spin, and black spots danced in my vision.

I was going to die here. Killed by the man I had loved for a lifetime.

My mind drifted. I thought of the only person who had ever offered me a way out. The rival. The enemy.

"Luca," I wheezed.

It was barely a whisper. But in the silence of the torture chamber, it was a scream.

Dante froze. His hand hovered over the dial.

"Luca?" he repeated.

The name seemed to confuse him. He flinched, rubbing his temple as if the name itself had physically struck him.

Why would his wife call out the name of the Chicago Underboss?

He looked at me, really looked at me, and for the first time, he saw fear. Not the fear of a liar caught in the act. The fear of a victim.

He stopped the machine.

The pressure eased. I sucked in a ragged breath, coughing as air rushed back into my starved lungs.

Dante stepped back, staring at his hands as if they were foreign objects covered in invisible blood.