The Unwanted Mistress Becomes The Rival's Queen

The moment Damien shoved me into a waiter's tray to catch his brother's widow, I knew I had lost.

For eight years, I was his sanctuary. But Vivian was carrying the "Family Heir," and that made her a saint.

He didn't just catch her; he moved her into the Master Suite-the room he had promised to me-while I was relegated to the guest wing like a servant.

When Vivian whispered the truth to me with a smirk-that her late husband was sterile and she had drugged Damien to fake the timeline-I rushed to tell him.

"She's lying about the baby, Damien! Aaron was sterile!"

But he didn't believe me.

"Enough of your jealousy, Estelle," he roared, shielding her. "You will respect the mother of my legacy."

To prove my submission, he forced me to take her wedding dress shopping.

When a heavy iron rack tipped over in the boutique, Damien moved with inhuman speed.

He dove to protect Vivian, wrapping her in a safe cocoon.

He left me standing there.

The metal crashed down, crushing my ribs and pinning me to the floor.

As I gasped for air, tasting blood, I watched him carry her out without looking back once.

I woke up in the hospital to the sound of him comforting her in the next room.

He hadn't even asked if I survived.

That night, I didn't cry.

I ripped the IV from my arm, shredded every photo of us in the penthouse, and boarded a plane to a neutral territory where the Don's power meant nothing.

By the time he found the engagement ring I left in the trash, I was already gone.

Chapter 1

The moment Damien shoved me aside to catch Vivian before she hit the marble floor, I knew the bullet I had been dodging for eight years had finally found its mark.

He didn't just catch her.

He cradled her as if she were made of spun glass and the rest of the world was made of hammers.

Damien Jones was the Don of the Outfit, a man who could silence a witness with a single phone call and bury a rival faction before breakfast. Yet here he was, his hands trembling as he held his brother's widow.

"Get the car!" he roared, his voice cracking the polished silence of the gala.

Dozens of armed soldiers materialized from the shadows, surrounding us, but Damien didn't look at me.

He didn't check to see if his shove had knocked me into the passing waiter's tray, or if the champagne was currently soaking into the emerald silk dress he had bought me just yesterday.

"Damien," I whispered, reaching out.

"Not now, Estelle," he snapped, his eyes wild and fixed on Vivian's hands, which were clutching her stomach. "It's the heir. If she loses Aaron's child, the legacy dies."

Then, he turned his back on me.

He carried her out of the ballroom, flanked by men with earpieces and guns bulging under their tuxedos, leaving me standing in a puddle of spilled alcohol and humiliation.

A soldier named Luca stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the exit.

"The Don ordered me to take you back to the Villa, Miss Estelle," Luca said, his eyes fixed awkwardly on the floor. "He said he will explain later."

"Explain what?" I asked, my voice hollow. "That the ghost of his dead brother matters more than the living woman standing right here?"

Luca didn't answer. He couldn't.

I walked out of the hotel, but I didn't get into the armored SUV waiting to take me back to my cage.

"Take me to 42nd and Grand," I told the driver as I slid into a waiting taxi instead.

"The Don said the Villa," the bodyguard argued, stepping toward the cab.

"The Don is busy saving the Queen," I said, my voice cold and sharp, like the ice in the drink I'd just dropped. "Drive."

He drove.

We stopped in front of a nondescript travel agency that smelled like stale coffee and desperation.

It was a front.

Everyone in the underworld knew this was where you went when you needed to disappear without leaving a digital footprint.

I walked inside, my expensive heels clicking loudly on the cheap linoleum.

The clerk looked up, saw the diamond tennis bracelet on my wrist, and immediately straightened his posture.

"I need a visa and a clean identity for Aquinox," I said.

Aquinox was neutral territory. No families, no blood feuds, no Damien Jones.

"That takes time," the clerk muttered, his gaze greedy as he eyed the bracelet.

"How much time?"

"Seven days for the premium package. Untraceable."

Seven days.

I unclasped the bracelet-a birthday gift from Damien worth more than this entire building-and slid it across the counter.

"Start the clock," I said.

When I returned to the Villa, the house was tomb-quiet.

It was a fortress of marble and gold, a place where I had spent eight years hiding in the penthouse while Damien ruled the city.

I walked into the living room and saw the boxes.

Three rooms filled with Hermes bags, Cartier jewelry, and designer dresses.

They were bribes.

Every time Damien had to take Vivian to a public event to "maintain the family image," he came home with a velvet box for me.

I looked at the mountain of luxury and felt nothing but nausea rising in my throat.

I started grabbing photos from the mantle-pictures of us in the Maldives, in Paris, in this very room-and fed them into the shredder by his desk.

The machine whirred, eating our memories in loud, grinding strips.

Through the window, I saw the headlights of the convoy returning.

I watched from the shadows as soldiers unloaded crates of medical equipment.

Then I saw them.

Damien helped Vivian out of the car.

She was walking fine now, leaning into him, her hand resting possessively on his chest.

He wasn't pulling away.

He led her up the front steps, past the guest wing, and straight toward the Master Suite.

That was my room.

That was the room he had promised me the day Aaron died, the room he said we would share once the "transition period" was over.

I opened my door and stepped into the hallway just as they reached the top of the stairs.

Damien froze when he saw me.

Guilt flashed in his dark eyes, but he didn't let go of Vivian.

"She needs the medical bed," Damien said, his voice rough. "It's for the baby, Estelle. It's just for a few days."

Vivian looked at me over his shoulder.

Her face was pale, but her lips curled into a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"I'm so exhausted, Damien," she whispered, leaning her full weight against him.

"I've got you," he murmured.

Then, without looking back at me, he kicked the door to the Master Suite open.

He walked her inside-into the sanctuary he had sworn was ours-and shut the heavy oak door in my face.

I retreated to the guest room at the far end of the hall.

It was smaller, colder-the kind of sterile space reserved for a distant cousin or a servant you barely wanted to acknowledge.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, the silence of the house pressing against my ears.

My hands gripped the stiff sheets, holding on until my knuckles bleached white.

For eight years, I had been his sanctuary.

I was the one who scrubbed the war from his skin when he returned with blood on his hands.

I was the anchor who held him when the nightmares of his father's cruelty woke him screaming in the dark.

But in the brutal hierarchy of the Outfit, a mistress was just a placeholder.

A widow carrying a "blood heir," however? She was a saint.

The door to my room clicked open.

I didn't look up, assuming it was Damien coming to offer another apology wrapped in a velvet box.

"Cozy," a voice drawled.

I snapped my head up.

Vivian stood in the doorway.

She had discarded the hospital gown. Now, she was wrapped in one of Damien's black silk robes, the sleeves rolled up to accommodate her slender arms.

It was the robe I wore on Sunday mornings.

"What do you want, Vivian?" I asked, my voice tight.

She sauntered into the room, dragging a manicured finger along the dusty dresser.

"I just wanted to see where the help sleeps," she said, flashing the massive emerald on her ring finger.

The Jones Family ring. The ring of the Donna.

"You're supposed to be on bed rest," I said, standing up.

"And you're supposed to be a secret," she countered, stepping into my personal space.

"Do you know what the men call you, Estelle? The Don's mattress. Comfortable, disposable, and easy to replace."

"Get out," I said, a tremor running through my words.

"This is my house now," she hissed, her eyes narrowing into venomous slits.

"My child will be the King of this city. And you? You're just a lingering bad smell."

She stepped back suddenly, her heel catching on the edge of the rug.

But she didn't trip.

She threw herself backward.

It was a calculated surrender to gravity, a performance worthy of a golden statue.

She hit the floor with a sickening thud and immediately shattered the silence with a scream.

"Estelle, no! Don't hurt the baby!"

The door burst open before I could even inhale.

Damien rushed in, weapon drawn, his predator's gaze sweeping the room for a threat.

He saw Vivian on the floor, clutching her stomach, sobbing hysterically.

Then he saw me, standing over her.

He didn't ask what happened.

He holstered his gun and crossed the distance in a blur.

He slammed me against the wall.

My head cracked against the plaster, stars exploding across my vision in a blinding white flash.

"What did you do?" he roared, spit flying onto my cheek.

"I didn't touch her!" I screamed back, clutching my throbbing skull. "She threw herself down!"

"Liar!" Vivian wailed from the floor, her voice trembling with practiced fear.

"She said she would kill it! She said she wouldn't let Aaron's son take her place!"

Damien turned to look at her, the color draining from his face.

He scooped her up, his movements frantic and desperate.

"Call the doctor!" he bellowed at the guards hovering in the hallway.

He looked back at me, and for the first time in eight years, the man I loved was gone.

In his place stood a cold, lethal stranger.

"If my brother's blood is spilled," he said, his voice a terrifying, low rumble, "there is no mercy. Not even for you."

He carried her out, leaving me alone with the echo of his threat.

Ten minutes later, the Consigliere's private physician arrived.

I stood in the doorway of the Master Suite, watching Damien pace by the bedside like a caged animal.

"Is the heartbeat steady?" Damien asked, wiping a sheen of cold sweat from his brow.

"It's strong, Don Jones," the doctor assured him. "But she needs absolute quiet. Stress could trigger a detachment."

Damien nodded, exhaling a breath he seemed to have been holding for an hour.

He ushered the doctor out and retreated to the bathroom to wash the panic from his face.

I walked into the room.

Vivian opened her eyes.

She saw me and smiled-a slow, predatory stretching of lips that didn't reach her eyes.

"He's so easy to manipulate," she whispered.

"All you have to do is mention 'Family Honor' and he stops thinking."

"You're sick," I breathed. "You'd risk your own child for this?"

Vivian laughed, a dry, brittle sound that grated on my nerves.

"What child?" she whispered, her eyes glinting with malice.

"I drugged him, Estelle. I drugged Damien three weeks ago. I needed a timeline that matched."

She paused, savoring the confusion on my face.

"But the baby? It's not a Jones."

My blood ran cold.

"You're lying."

"Am I?" She smirked, leaning back against the pillows I used to fluff.

"Aaron was sterile. Why do you think we never had kids? But Damien doesn't know that."

Her smile widened, cruel and victorious.

"And a mistress's word is worth nothing against a widow's claim."

I stared at her, the room spinning dizzily around me.

This was treason.

In our world, passing off a bastard child as the bloodline heir wasn't just a lie; it was a death sentence.

"I'm going to tell him," I said, taking a step toward the bathroom door where the water was still running.

Vivian didn't even flinch.

"Go ahead," she challenged, her voice dripping with ice. "Tell him. Tell him the jealous, barren mistress is making up stories to hurt the grieving widow. See who he believes."

The water stopped running.

A moment later, Damien walked out, drying his hands on a plush white towel.

He looked between us, sensing the tension like static electricity in the air.

"Damien," I said, my voice steady despite the frantic pounding in my chest. "You need to listen to me. She just admitted she drugged you. The baby isn't yours. It isn't Aaron's."

Damien froze.

He looked at Vivian.

Vivian immediately burst into tears, grabbing the sheets and pulling them up to her chin as if she were naked and vulnerable.

"See?" she sobbed, pointing a shaking finger at me. "She's doing it again! She's trying to stress me into a miscarriage! She's making up insane lies because she hates me!"

"It's not a lie!" I shouted, stepping forward. "Aaron was sterile! Ask the doctor! Check the records!"

"Stop it!" Damien roared.

The sound of his voice was like a physical blow.

He stepped between us, his back to me, shielding her from a threat that didn't exist.

"Aaron was not sterile," Damien said, his voice shaking with suppressed rage. "My brother was a man. Do not insult his memory."

"She is playing you, Damien!" I grabbed his arm.

He ripped his arm away from my grasp with enough force to make me stumble backwards.

"Enough!" he yelled. "I don't care about your conspiracy theories, Estelle. I care about stability. I care that my men see an heir. I care that the Outfit doesn't crumble into a civil war because you can't handle your jealousy!"

Jealousy.

He thought I was jealous.

"Is that what you think this is?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

"Look at her," Damien gestured to Vivian, who was trembling theatrically. "She is the mother of the future of this family. You will show her respect."

He turned to Vivian, his voice softening instantly.

"I'm sorry, Viv. She's upset. It won't happen again."

Vivian sniffled, wiping her eyes.

"I just want to be safe, Damien. Maybe I should leave... go to the country house..."

"No," Damien said firmly. "You stay here. Where I can protect you."

He turned back to me.

"We have a deal," he said, his eyes hard. "Once the child is born, Vivian goes to the estate in Sicily. Then, and only then, we can talk about us. About marriage."

"Marriage," I repeated, the word tasting like ash.

"I swear it," he said. "Just wait a few more months. Let me pay my debt to Aaron."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black credit card.

"Go to the boutique tomorrow," he said, shoving the card into my hand. "Get a wedding dress. Get whatever you want. Just... keep the peace."

I looked at the black plastic in my hand.

It was money.

It was a bribe to shut up and let him play house with a traitor.

I looked at Vivian. She winked at me from behind Damien's back.

Something inside me snapped.

It wasn't a loud snap. It was the quiet sound of a tether breaking.

"Okay," I said softly.

Damien blinked, surprised by my sudden submission.

"Okay?"

"I'll go get a dress," I said, my fingers tightening around the card. "I'll keep the peace."

I wasn't going to let him drown in his lies.

I was going to let him burn in them.