His Father's Wife

My marriage to Dante Moretti, the heir to the Moretti family, was arranged when we were kids.

But after my father died, he publicly refused to marry me. Three times.

Each time, he used his dead mother as an excuse, and I couldn't argue.

The third time, I walked in on him with some starlet on the anniversary of his mother’s death, and I overheard him sneer:

“A boring woman like Isabella? Who the hell would want her?”

“So desperate to marry me. It’s pathetic.”

I looked down at my white wedding dress, turned on my heel, and knocked on his father's door.

Later, on the day I moved into the Moretti estate, I ran into Dante.

He thought I was there to force his hand and ran his mouth.

But he had no idea I was already his new stepmother.

My fiancé, Dante, refused to marry me three times, all in the name of “honoring his mother.” The third time, I put on my wedding dress and married his father instead. If he’s so devoted, I’m sure he’ll show his new stepmother the proper respect.

“That bitch Isabella! When will she get the fuck out of my life!”

Dante's curse cut through the night. The lake reflected the moonlight as I hid behind the cabin, watching the man—my so-called fiancé—pinning a blonde bombshell to the deck of his yacht.

Three times.

He had rejected me three times.

At our engagement party, in front of all Five Families, he’d said, “My mother just passed. It would be disrespectful to her memory to talk about marriage right now.”

At the charity gala, he refused to dance with me. “Bella, can’t you understand the grief of a man who’s lost his mother? You’re being selfish.”

And just last week, at a family gathering, he didn't even look at me. “Maybe Isabella should find someone else.”

Every time, he’d used the noble excuse of “respecting his late mother” to humiliate me. And now, this “devoted son” was dishonoring the memory of his dead mother in the filthiest way imaginable.

“Once that little bookworm finally gives up, I’ll be free,” Dante’s insults continued. “My father can’t force me to marry some piece of trash nobody wants.”

Scarlett’s laughter was sharp and piercing. “Are you sure she’ll stop chasing you, darling?”

“What’s she gonna do? Isabella Rossi is just a caged canary who’s good with numbers. She’s nothing without the dusty old ledgers her dead old man left behind.”

Dusty old ledgers?

My fingers tightened into a fist. Those ledgers documented every dollar that moved through the New York underworld for thirty years, including the debt the Moretti family owed my father—a debt they could never repay.

But tonight, I didn't want his money.

I was going to burn his world to the ground.

Twenty minutes later, I was in the custom Vera Wang wedding gown I’d had made for tomorrow’s ceremony. The silk clung to my body, every pearl shimmering in the moonlight.

I