His Unwanted Fiancée Was His True Savior

I was standing in five thousand dollars of hand-stitched lace when I received the medical report.

My fiancé, Dante de Rossi, the future Don of Chicago, had gotten another woman pregnant.

He didn't apologize. He didn't beg. He looked me in the eye and called it a "strategic necessity."

"Isobel saved my life five years ago," he said coldly. "I owe her this child. You will raise it as your own. It is the price of the Peace Treaty."

He forced me to cancel our engagement photos so he could take them with her.

He took her on the vacation meant for our honeymoon.

At dinner, he ordered me the seafood risotto, completely forgetting my deadly shellfish allergy, while fussing over Isobel’s water temperature.

When I tried to leave, he cornered me.

"You are a mob wife, Nina. Act like one. She is the hero who saved me."

I wanted to laugh.

Because five years ago, in that alley, Isobel wasn't even there.

I was the one in the mask. I was the one who stitched his femoral artery and saved his life, risking my own medical license.

He was destroying our twenty-year relationship to pay a debt to a liar.

I didn't scream. I didn't fight.

I simply picked up a red marker and walked to the calendar.

On the day of our wedding, while Dante stood at the altar waiting for his obedient Queen, I was already boarding a one-way flight to the other side of the world.

I left him nothing but four words scrawled across the date:

"Let's break up, Dante."

Chapter 1

I was standing in five thousand dollars of hand-stitched lace when I found out my fiancé had already promised his legacy to another woman's womb.

The dossier didn't come with a ribbon. It came in a plain manila envelope, slid under my apartment door like a death threat. But inside wasn't a threat; it was a medical report.

Isobel de Luca. Five weeks pregnant.

The father listed was Dante de Rossi.

I didn't scream. I didn't tear the dress off. I just stared at the date of conception. It was six weeks ago-the same week Dante told me he was handling a shipment dispute in Carrington.

He wasn't handling cargo. He was bedding the enemy's daughter.

Dante de Rossi wasn't just a man. He was the Capo dei Capi in waiting, the future King of the Chicago Outfit. He was a man who could silence a room simply by checking his watch. He was violence wrapped in a bespoke three-piece suit, a man I had loved since I was old enough to understand what the bulge of a gun holster under a jacket meant.

I was the Consigliere's daughter. The perfect, silent, dutiful match. I was the peacekeeper.

But looking at that ultrasound photo, I realized I wasn't his partner. I was just furniture-a decorative asset to be moved around the board.

I took the dress off. I folded it neatly. Then I