The Underboss's Secret: A Mafia Bride's Escape

For three years, I was Dante Moretti's secret. I was the Underboss's property, the cure for a violent curse that plagued him. He promised that if he wasn't married by his twenty-fifth birthday, I would be his bride.

But on the eve of that birthday, he ended our arrangement. He brought home another woman, Sienna, and introduced me as "the help."

Sienna, with feigned innocence, knocked a precious memento from my hand, shattering it. When I confronted her, Dante slapped me twice in public, the humiliation searing my soul.

Later, I discovered Sienna had framed me for kidnapping her, a lie Dante readily believed. To force a confession, he had my mother tied in a sack and thrown into the freezing lake to drown. He left her there to die.

That was the moment the girl who loved him died, too. I saved my mother, and we fled the country, seeking refuge with my childhood friend, Julian.

I thought I had escaped. But then Dante appeared in Australia, begging for forgiveness. I rejected him, choosing a future with Julian. I thought it was over.

Until a car, driven by a vengeful Sienna, barreled towards us. The last thing I saw was Dante throwing himself in front of me, taking the full impact.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

The night Dante Moretti ended our arrangement, he gave me a choice: erase myself from his life, or he'd erase me from the world. What he didn't know was that I'd already found my escape.

He came home to the penthouse smelling of blood and victory. The scent clung to his leather jacket-a metallic tang laced with the expensive cologne I'd bought him for his birthday. He was the Underboss of the Moretti crime family, a man carved from violence and power, and tonight, a turf war had been won. He was every inch the king returning to his castle.

He didn't speak. He never did, not at first. His eyes, the color of storm clouds, found me where I stood waiting by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He shed his jacket, letting it drop to the floor. His white shirt was stained, a geography of another man's defeat.

His hands were on my waist, pulling me against him. His mouth was hard, tasting of whiskey and something wilder. This was his ritual. He would take the violence of his world and wash it away inside me. For three years, I had been the silent, willing shore for his brutal tides.

It was a devil's bargain, struck when I was eighteen. After a rival family's assassination attempt left him drugged and drowning in a violent, uncontrollable rage, his father, the Don, had come to me. I was the daughter of a loyal Soldier who had died for them. I had loved Dante with a secret, stupid, girlish heart since we were kids. They knew it. So they made me his cure. His pressure valve. His proprietà.

A promise he'd made echoed in my memory, the ghost of a hope I'd clung to for a thousand lonely nights: "If I have no wife by my twenty-fifth birthday, you will be my bride."

He finished, his body heavy on mine, the storm passed. He rolled off me, his breathing already steadying while my own was still a ragged mess. He stood, walking naked to the bar to pour himself a drink, his back a canvas of muscle and scars.

"It's over, Elara," he said, his voice flat. He didn't even look at me.

My heart didn't break. It just stopped.

"I've found someone," he continued, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "Her name is Sienna Reed. She's going to be my wife. My queen."

He finally turned, his gaze sweeping over me with the disinterest of a man looking at a piece of furniture he was about to replace. He pulled his wallet from his discarded pants, took out a black, unlimited credit card, and tossed it onto the bed. It landed on the silk sheets next to my hip.

"Consider that your severance," he said, a cruel smile touching his lips. "For three years of service."

The air left my lungs in a silent rush. He was mocking me. Mocking the devotion I had given him, the darkness I had absorbed for him.

He took a sip of his drink. "What does a girl like Sienna like? She's... pure. Not like you." He gestured vaguely at me, at the bed. "Your taste is a little common for a Mafia Queen."

I saw her then, in my mind's eye. The woman I'd seen him with in the city. A fragile-looking blonde he was helping into his car, his touch gentle, protective. A woman he wanted to put on a pedestal. And I was the dirty secret he kept in his penthouse.

My phone, lying on the nightstand, buzzed. I glanced at the screen. A text from my mother.

Lara, it's a miracle. Julian Thorne is awake.

The name was a key, unlocking a door in my mind I thought was sealed forever. Julian. The boy who had been my friend before Dante's shadow had consumed my life. The boy who had disappeared.

The words solidified something in my chest. A decision.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I slid off the bed, my limbs feeling strangely light. I gathered my few belongings-the ones he allowed me to keep here-and packed them into a small bag. As I walked to the door, it opened.

Dante stood there, holding it for a smiling Sienna Reed. Her eyes, wide and innocent, landed on me.

"Oh," she said, her smile faltering. "Dante, who is this?"

Dante's arm went around her waist, pulling her possessively to his side. His eyes were ice.

"This is Elara," he said, his voice laced with casual dismissal. "She's the help. She was just leaving."

Sienna's innocent expression hardened for a fraction of a second before melting back into sweetness. As I tried to move past them, she shifted, her shoulder bumping hard against mine. I stumbled, and the small, carved wooden bird in my hand-the last thing my father ever gave me before he died in service to the Moretti family-slipped from my grasp.

It hit the marble floor with a sickening crack, shattering into a dozen pieces.

Elara POV:

The broken pieces of the bird lay scattered on the pristine white marble. It was more than wood. It was my father's last promise, a symbol of a loyalty that had gotten him killed and me trapped.

"Oh, my god, I'm so sorry!" Sienna gasped, but her eyes held a triumphant glint she barely concealed. She bent down, pretending to gather the pieces, and then let out a sharp cry. "Ow! I cut myself."

She held up her finger, a tiny, almost invisible bead of blood welling up.

Dante's entire demeanor shifted. The cold indifference he showed me vanished, replaced by a dark, protective fury. He knelt beside Sienna, taking her hand as if she were made of glass.

"Are you okay?" he murmured, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.

Something inside me, something that had been silent and broken for three years, finally snapped.

"She's lying," I said, my voice trembling, raw with a fury I hadn't realized was coiled inside me. "She did it on purpose. Check the security cameras, Dante."

I took a step forward, and Sienna flinched back against him, her eyes wide with fake fear. "Dante, she's scaring me."

That was all it took.

I slapped her. The sound was like a gunshot in the silent penthouse.

Dante's head whipped toward me. His face was a mask of disbelief that quickly hardened into pure menace. He saw my defiance. An insult to his authority, in his home, in front of his future bride.

"You dare?" he whispered, the word a low growl.

He rose to his full height, a towering shadow of rage. He stalked toward me, and I braced myself. He raised his hand-the same hand that had held me and hurt me and promised me a future. For a second, I saw the blow coming. A public, final humiliation.

But he stopped, his hand hovering inches from my face. The violence in his eyes was worse than any physical strike.

"Don't you ever touch her again," he snarled, his voice laced with a lethal promise. "Get out."

I didn't need to be told twice. I grabbed my bag and fled, not even looking back at the wreckage of my father's memory on his floor. Out in the hallway, the elevator doors slid open. As I stepped inside, I caught a final glimpse of him, his back to me, gently dabbing Sienna's finger with his handkerchief.

The cold Chicago rain hit me the moment I stepped outside. Soaked in seconds, I dragged my suitcase down the street, the memory a cruel twist in my gut. I remembered being thirteen, when a group of older boys from a rival territory had cornered me. Dante, only sixteen himself, had appeared out of nowhere. He'd broken one boy's nose and another's arm, standing over me like a guardian devil. "Nobody touches what's mine," he had growled then.

Now, I wasn't his anymore.

The next few days were a blur of grief and grim determination. I stayed in the small apartment my father's pension had paid for and booked a flight. One way. To Australia. To Julian.

The door to my apartment crashed open, splintering the frame.

Dante stood there, his face a mask of cold fury. Rain dripped from his black coat onto the worn floorboards. He advanced on me, backing me up against the wall until my head hit the plaster.

His hand closed around my throat, not enough to choke me, but enough to hold me captive. His eyes were wild.

"Where is she?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

I stared back, bewildered. "Who?"

"Don't play dumb with me," he snarled, his grip tightening. "Sienna. She's gone. Left a note saying you threatened her, that you told her to disappear if she knew what was good for her."

He leaned in, his face inches from mine. "So I'll ask you one more time. Where is she?"

Elara POV:

Dante's soldiers were brutally efficient. Silent. They dragged me from my apartment and shoved me into the back of a black SUV without a word. The city lights blurred into streaks as we sped toward the industrial expanse of the Chicago docks.

They pulled me out onto a private pier where a sleek Moretti yacht bobbed in the black, churning water. And there, on the deck, the world fell out from under me.

My mother, Elena, was tied to a chair. A gag was stuffed in her mouth, her eyes wide with terror.

Dante stood beside her, a silhouette against the dim lights of the distant city-the devil himself, cloaked in shadow and absolute power.

"I asked you a question, Elara," he said, his voice deceptively calm. "Where is my fiancée?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I choked out, my eyes fixed on my mother.

He laughed, a short, ugly sound. He pulled a phone from his pocket and shoved it in my face. On the screen, a string of text messages gleamed. Sent from a burner phone to Sienna, filled with threats. And signed with my name.

"You're pathetic," he spat. "You couldn't stand being replaced, so you kidnapped her out of jealousy." He leaned in closer, his breath hot against my ear. "I told you. You were always just a convenience. You will never be my wife."

Every word landed like a physical blow.

"I didn't do it, Dante. I swear." My pleas were lost to the wind.

He straightened and gave a curt nod to his Capo, a burly man named Rocco. Rocco and another soldier untied my mother from the chair. They forced her frail body into a heavy burlap sack.

"No!" I screamed, lunging forward, but two soldiers grabbed my arms, their grips like vices.

"Dante, please, her heart... she's not strong!"

"Then you'd better start talking," he said, his face impassive.

Rocco tied a weight to the bottom of the sack and, with a grunt, heaved it over the side of the yacht. It hit the freezing water with a sickening splash and began to sink.

I thrashed against the men holding me, a raw, animal sound tearing from my throat. I could see the sack disappearing into the darkness. My mother. My whole world.

Dante watched me, his expression unreadable. He was waiting for me to break.

Just as I was about to scream out a confession to a crime I didn't commit, a phone rang. It was Dante's.

He answered it, listened for a moment, a flicker of relief crossing his face. "Found? Where?" He listened again. "Good. I'm on my way."

He hung up and turned to his men. "Let's go. They found her."

They released me and followed him off the pier without a backward glance. They didn't cut the rope. They just left her there, sinking in the icy depths of Lake Michigan.

For a heartbeat, I was paralyzed. Then, adrenaline surged through me. I scrambled onto the yacht, found a knife in a utility box, and hacked at the thick rope. It finally snapped.

Without a second thought, I dove into the black, frigid water. The cold was a physical blow, a vise grip on my lungs, but I kicked frantically, my hands searching in the dark. My fingers brushed against the rough burlap. I grabbed it, pulling with all my strength, my lungs burning.

I dragged her to the pier, hauling her dead weight out of the water. She was unconscious, her skin a deathly blue.

I tore the gag from her mouth and started CPR, my movements clumsy and desperate. As I pressed on her chest, one thought burned with terrifying clarity: This was the line. He had tried to murder my mother to punish me.

Her body convulsed, and she coughed up a lungful of water. She was breathing. Barely.

My fingers shook so badly I could barely unlock my phone. There was an unspoken rule in Dante's world. A code. You don't call outsiders. You handle things internally. You call a Moretti doctor. But he had left her to die.

I broke the code.

My voice was a raw whisper when the operator answered. "9-1-1, what's your emergency?"