He Saved His Mistress, Not His Wife

I was trapped under a massive oak bookcase, my leg shattered, dust filling my lungs.

My husband, Dante, the Underboss of the Chicago Outfit, finally found me. But just as he lifted the heavy beam to free me, his earpiece crackled.

It was news about Sofia, his childhood friend and the woman he truly loved.

"She scratched her arm on the car door, Boss. She's hyperventilating. She won't board the jet without you."

Dante froze. He looked at me, bleeding on the floor, secretly ten weeks pregnant with his child. Then he looked at the door.

"It's just a broken leg, Elena," he said coldly, slowly lowering the crushing weight back onto me.

"You are a doctor. You know it's not fatal. Sofia needs me."

He ran to comfort a woman with a papercut, leaving his wife and unborn child to be buried alive in the rubble.

I miscarried alone in the dark, tracing the number of a divorce lawyer on the floorboards in my own blood.

Three days later, while he was peeling grapes for Sofia in a VIP hospital suite, I packed my medical degree and a single gym bag.

I didn't go to a hotel. I boarded a military cargo plane to a war zone in South Sudan.

By the time the Ice Prince realized his castle was empty, I was already thousands of miles away, and I wasn't coming back.

Chapter 1

I stood in silence and watched my husband, the Underboss of the Chicago Outfit, sign the document that effectively condemned my brother to rot in a cartel basement.

Without missing a beat, he turned to me and asked if I was wearing the red lipstick he liked.

Five years.

That is how long I have been Elena Cavallaro.

Before that, I was Dr. Elena Vitiello, a trauma surgeon with steady hands and a heart that beat for saving lives.

Now, I am an ornament.

A peace offering traded by a failing family to the Cavallaros to settle a gambling debt that wasn't mine.

Dante Cavallaro stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of his high-rise office.

He is a man carved from marble and nightmares.

They call him the Ice Prince.

He wears bespoke three-piece suits that cost more than my medical school tuition, and he kills with the same detachment he uses to check his stock portfolio.

"Dante," I said.

My voice was steady, though my hands were trembling behind the silk of my evening gown.

"Luca is in the neutral zone. The intel says the cartel has him. You have soldiers stationed three miles away."

Dante didn't turn around.

He was fastidiously adjusting his cufflinks.

"The Summit is tonight, Elena. We have a truce with the cartel. If I send men into the zone, the truce breaks. War restarts."

"He is my brother," I whispered, the plea catching in my throat.

"He is a low-level associate who went where he wasn't supposed to go," Dante said, his voice void of emotion.

He finally turned