He Traded A Diamond For Cheap Glass

I was the "Ice Queen," the perfect Mafia wife who managed the De Luca empire's millions while my husband, Alessandro, played the part of the feared Underboss.

I thought my silence and competence earned me respect.

That was until I woke up in the estate's medical bay with a shattered leg.

My saddle had snapped mid-jump. It wasn't wear and tear; it was sabotage.

Lying in the dark, feigning sleep, I heard Alessandro whispering outside my door with his enforcer.

"The buckle was filed down," the enforcer said urgently. "Aria tampered with it. She could have broken her neck."

I waited for Alessandro’s rage. I waited for him to execute the mistress who tried to kill his wife.

Instead, his voice was cold and dismissive.

"Bury it," Alessandro ordered. "It’s just a broken leg. Aria was upset about the credit cards. She just wanted to teach Katarina a lesson."

A lesson.

My husband wasn't just cheating on me; he was protecting the woman who tried to cripple me.

Three days later, at the Family Charity Gala, he humiliated me publicly. He outbid me for my grandmother's heirloom necklace and clasped it around Aria's neck while I watched from my wheelchair.

He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a piece of furniture to be rearranged.

He didn't know I had bugged the entire villa while I was recovering.

He didn't know I had the recordings of what Aria was really doing when he wasn't looking.

I gripped the USB drive in my pocket and signaled the tech team to lock the doors.

The statue was broken, but he was about to learn that shattered ice is sharp enough to slit a throat.

Chapter 1

Katarina De Luca POV

The encrypted financial ledgers digging into my palm were proof that my husband was the most feared Underboss in New York. But when I heard the woman’s laughter from behind his study door, that fear dissolved into a cold, hard realization.

The sound offered me exactly two choices: die a silent, dutiful wife, or burn this entire mansion to the ground and survive as a widow.

The laughter wasn't soft. It was the loud, performative shriek of a woman who knew she was trespassing and wanted the world to know it.

I stood frozen in the hallway.

My hands, usually steady enough to sign death warrants on bank transfers, betrayed me with a subtle tremor.

The ledger dug harder into my hip.

Alessandro De Luca. The Heir. The man who could silence a room of hardened criminals with a single glance.

He was my husband.

He was the man I had molded myself into a statue for.

I was the Ice Queen. The perfect Mafia wife. I spoke only when spoken to. I dressed in neutrals. I managed the legitimate front of the De Luca empire with the precision of a surgeon.

I did it all to earn a scrap of his respect.

"You're so warm," Alessandro’s voice drifted through