The Unwanted Wife He Broke In Rain

My husband, the ruthless Don of Chicago, forced me to kneel in the freezing mud to apologize to his mistress.

He believed her fake tears over my dignity.

While the icy rain soaked through my dress, a sharp, jagged cramp seized my body. I screamed for him, begging for help as I felt the life slipping out of me.

But Dante didn't move. He just lit a cigarette, his eyes cold as steel.

"Get up when you are ready to learn respect," he said.

He walked inside with her, locking the door and leaving me to bleed out in the storm.

I lost the baby that night. The doctors told me the damage was permanent-I was barren.

I thought that was the bottom, but I was wrong. When I returned to the estate, a ghost in my own home, he threw me into a flooded cellar full of rats because Elena accused me of poisoning her son.

He tortured me for days to protect a child that wasn't even his.

That was the moment the love died.

So, while he was away on business, I didn't just pack a bag. I executed a plan three years in the making.

I vanished.

But before I disappeared, I left him a gift on his desk. A USB drive containing the security footage of Elena's lies, the medical report of the miscarriage he caused, and a paternity test proving he had destroyed his true family for a stranger's bastard.

By the time he fell to his knees screaming my name, I was already gone.

Chapter 1

My knees slammed into the freezing mud, the impact sending a jolt through my body that threatened the fragile, secret life growing inside me. All because the man I loved-the ruthless Don of Chicago-decided his mistress's tears were worth more than my dignity.

The rain in Chicago was never just water. It was industrial runoff, cold as iron and heavy as judgment. It soaked through my thin silk dress in seconds, plastering the fabric to my shivering skin like a second, suffocating layer.

I kept my hands hovered protectively over my flat stomach, a futile attempt to shield the two-month-old secret nestled there from the biting wind.

Dante Moretti stood on the covered veranda of the estate. He was dry. He was warm. He was the Reaper, the Capo dei Capi, a man who had slaughtered the entire Russian Bratva leadership in a single night to consolidate his power.

He was also my husband.

Ten years ago, my parents took bullets meant for him. They bled out on the asphalt so the young prince could live to become the King. He had taken me in, the grieving orphan, and promised to burn the world to keep me safe. Three years ago, he defied the Commission to marry me.

Now, he looked at me like I was a stain on his floor.

"Kneel, Sera," he had said. His voice was low, that terrifying baritone that usually made my toes curl in pleasure. Now, it just made my blood run cold. "You need to learn respect."

Elena Russo stood behind him, partially hidden by the grand oak door. She held a handkerchief to her dry eyes, looking fragile, looking like the saint she claimed to be. She told him I had pushed her son, Leo. She told him I was jealous of the woman who supposedly saved his life in a car wreck that I knew never happened.

But Dante was blind. He saw a debt. I saw a snake.

I shivered violently. My teeth chattered so hard my jaw ached. The guards by the gate, men I had known since I was a child, looked away. They couldn't watch. The shame burned hotter than the cold.

"Please, Dante," I whispered, though the wind tore the words from my lips before they could reach him.

He didn't move. He lit a cigarette, the orange ember glowing in the gloom. He was teaching me a lesson. That was the Mafia way. Discipline the unruly wife. Break the spirit to ensure loyalty.

Then, it happened.

A sharp, jagged cramp seized my lower abdomen. It was sudden, terrifying, and absolute.

I gasped, doubling over until my forehead touched the mud.

"Dante!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "Something is wrong!"

He flicked the ash, his expression unmoved.

"Get up when you are ready to apologize to Elena," he said.

He turned his back. He walked inside. The heavy door clicked shut, sealing out the storm-and sealing out his wife.

I stayed there for hours. The cramping got worse, tearing me apart from the inside. I felt something warm and wet slide down my inner thighs, mixing with the rain. It wasn't water.

I knew then. I knew as the darkness crept into the edges of my vision. The vow we made before God was dead. The man who promised to protect me had just become my executioner.

I crawled. I didn't crawl to the door. I crawled to the guard booth where the landline sat. The guard, Mario, looked at me with horror. He saw the blood on my legs. He reached for me, but I slapped his hand away.

I picked up the phone. My fingers were blue. I dialed a number I hadn't used in years.

Lorenzo Moretti. The Old Don. Dante's father. The man who hated me because I brought no political alliance to the table.

He answered on the second ring.

"I accept," I rasped, my voice sounding like broken glass.

"You accept what, child?" Lorenzo asked.

"The exit," I said, looking back at the mansion that was now a tomb. "Get the papers ready. I want out."

The doctor studied his clipboard with fascinating intensity, finding interest in the wall, the linoleum floor-anywhere but my face.

The room reeked of antiseptic and failure.

"We did everything we could, Mrs. Moretti," he said, his voice dropping to a practiced, professional murmur. "The hypothermia was severe. The stress on your body... the miscarriage was incomplete. We had to operate to stop the hemorrhaging."

I kept my gaze fixed on the ceiling tiles. I counted the perforations. Anything to avoid the pity in his eyes.

"And?" I asked. The word scraped my throat, hollow and dry.

He hesitated. "There was significant scarring. It is highly unlikely you will be able to carry a child to term in the future. I am so sorry."

I didn't cry. I think I'd left my capacity for grief in the freezing mud outside the estate. Instead, a strange, cold lightness settled in my chest. The tether that bound me to Dante-the hope of a family, the biological imperative to love him-had finally snapped.

I signed the discharge papers myself.

Dante hadn't come. Mario, his head bowed, told me the Don was busy. Leo had a nightmare.

When I returned to the estate, the house was aggressively quiet. I walked past the living room and froze. There, framed by the archway, was a perfect domestic tableau.

Dante sat on the rug, piecing together a wooden train track. Elena was laughing, pouring tea from a silver service. Leo was clapping his hands, his face bright with joy.

They looked like a family. I looked like a ghost haunting my own life.

I walked past them without a word.

Dante looked up, his eyes narrowing as they swept over my pale, disheveled form.

"You're back," he said. His tone was dismissive, as if I had just returned from a grocery run, not the emergency room where his child had died. "You learned your lesson?"

I didn't stop walking. I didn't even look at him. I went straight to the master bedroom.

I threw open the closet doors. I pulled out every dress he had ever bought me. The red silk from Milan. The velvet from Paris. I ripped them from their hangers and threw them onto the floor.

I went to the jewelry box on the vanity. The diamond necklace from our first anniversary. The emeralds from my twenty-first birthday.

I dumped them into the metal trash can. The cacophony of gold hitting steel was satisfyingly final.

"What are you doing?"

Dante stood in the doorway. He looked annoyed, not concerned.

"Cleaning," I said.

He stepped into the room, his dark presence instantly filling the space. He smelled of tobacco and Elena's cheap vanilla perfume.

"Stop being dramatic, Sera. You embarrassed us. Elena is a guest. She saved my life. You will treat her with respect."

I ignored him and walked over to the wall where our wedding portrait hung. It was five feet tall, a monument to a lie. We looked so happy in oil and canvas. He was looking at me like I was the sun and he was a man starving for warmth.

I picked up the heavy brass letter opener from the desk.

"Sera," Dante warned, his voice dropping an octave.

I slashed the canvas. I drove the blade right through his smiling face, tearing the fabric down the middle. The sound of ripping linen was a scream in the silence.

He moved with terrifying speed. He crossed the room and shoved me.

I hit the vanity table hard. My hip slammed into the solid wood, knocking the breath from my lungs.

"You are insane," he hissed.

Elena appeared in the doorway, clutching a plush doll to her chest. "Oh God, Dante! Is she okay?"

She held the doll out to me, her eyes wide and innocent. "Leo wanted you to have this. As a peace offering."

I looked at the doll. Then I looked at Elena. Her eyes were dancing with malice.

I reached for the toy. As my fingers closed around the soft fabric, a sharp pain spiked in my thumb. I jerked my hand back. A bright bead of blood welled up instantly.

A needle. Buried point-up, deep inside the stuffing.

Elena gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh no! I must have left a sewing needle in there when I fixed it! I'm so clumsy!"

She didn't look clumsy. She looked predatory.

Dante grabbed my wrist, looking at the blood, then at Elena's tearful face.

"It was an accident, Sera," he said, his grip tightening to the point of bruising. "Don't you dare accuse her of anything."

I looked at him. I looked at the man who used to kill anyone who even thought about bruising my skin. Now he was the one doing it.

"I'm not accusing anyone," I said softly.

I wrenched my hand free. I didn't wipe the blood away. I let it drip onto the expensive carpet, a crimson stain on the pristine wool.

"I'm just tired, Dante. So tired."

Screams tore me from sleep.

It wasn't a nightmare. The raw, terrifying sounds were real, and they were echoing up from the dining room.

I forced myself out of bed. My body screamed in protest, every inch aching from the miscarriage surgery, from the shove, from the rain. Moving felt like wading through heavy sludge.

Downstairs, panic had consumed the house.

Leo was gasping for air, his face swollen and mottled red, hives blooming violently across his neck. It was unmistakable-an anaphylactic reaction.

Elena was shrieking, pointing a manic finger at the table. "She did it! She tried to kill him!"

Dante was clutching the boy, shouting orders to his men to get the epinephrine. He looked up as I stumbled into the room. His eyes were not human. They were void of all light-the eyes of the Reaper.

"What did you put in his oatmeal?" he roared.

I stood by the door frame, gripping the wood to keep from collapsing. "I haven't been in the kitchen," I stammered. "I've been sleeping."

"Liar!" Elena screamed. She pointed a shaking finger at me. "I saw her! I saw her near the pantry. She knows he's allergic to peanuts! She wants him dead because she can't give you one herself! She's barren!"

The word hit me like a physical blow. Barren.

How did she know? I hadn't told Dante yet. I hadn't told anyone.

Dante didn't ask for proof. He didn't summon the chef. Fear for his son had eclipsed all reason. He handed the gasping boy to a medic and marched toward me.

He grabbed me by the hair.

"Dante, please," I gasped, clawing at his wrist. "Check the cameras."

"I trusted you," he spat, his voice a lethal growl. "I brought you into my home. I gave you everything. And you attack a child?"

He dragged me. He didn't pull me toward his office. He didn't take me to the front door. He took me to the heavy iron door behind the kitchen.

The Cellar.

It was a damp, stone chamber built during Prohibition to hide liquor and, later, bodies. It flooded whenever it rained.

"Dante, no," I begged, my heels skidding uselessly on the floor. "I'm sick. Please."

He threw me down the stairs.

I tumbled into the dark, my body slamming against cold stone before splashing into three inches of stagnant water.

"Think about what you've done," he said.

He slammed the door. The lock engaged with a sound like a gunshot.

Total darkness swallowed me. The water soaked instantly into my pajamas, freezing me to the bone. I could hear things moving in the corners. Scurrying. Chittering.

I scrambled to the highest point, a wooden pallet in the center of the room, and curled into a tight, shivering ball.

Hours passed. Or maybe days. Time didn't exist in the dark.

Then, the slot in the door slid open. A beam of light cut through the gloom, blinding me.

Elena's face appeared in the rectangle. She was smiling.

"You look comfortable, Princess," she whispered.

"Let me out," I said. My voice was a broken croak.

"Not yet," she said. "Dante is very upset. He's at the hospital with Leo. He told me to come check on the prisoner."

She lifted a burlap sack into view.

"I thought you might get lonely," she said.

She upended the sack through the slot.

The contents hit the water with wet, heavy splashes.

Squeaks. The frantic scratching of claws on stone.

Rats.

Panic, primal and overwhelming, seized my throat. I screamed. I screamed until I tasted copper.

Elena laughed. It was a soft, tinkling sound that chilled me more than the water.

"Don't worry, Sera. I'm going to take good care of Dante. He's going to be a great father to my son. You were just a placeholder."

She slammed the slot shut.

I was left alone with the scratching claws and the rising water. I didn't scream anymore. I sat on the pallet, hugging my knees, and I let the fear burn out until there was nothing left but ash.