I Married My Ex-Fiancé's Ruthless Older Brother

I was a Vitiello, sold to the Morettis to secure an alliance. For five years, I quietly loved Dante, counting down the minutes until our wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

But it ended with a single text three minutes before the ceremony.

"Stay at the apartment. Sofia is awake. Don't make a scene."

His ex-girlfriend, the love of his life, had woken from a coma with no memory. Just like that, I was erased.

For thirty days, I waited in the shadows while Dante played hero to a woman who didn't remember him. He told me he was protecting her fragile mind.

But then I found the truth.

I stood outside the doctor's office and heard Dante refuse a treatment that would restore Sofia's memory.

"If she remembers, she might leave again," Dante told the doctor. "Elena will wait. She's a good soldier. Let me have my fantasy."

He wasn't protecting her. He was keeping her broken to feed his ego, banking on my submission. He thought I was furniture he could put in storage.

He was wrong.

I didn't go back to the apartment. Instead, I dialed a number every made man in New York feared.

"Matteo," I said to Dante's lethal older brother, the King of the underworld.

"I am done waiting. I want to be a Moretti bride. But not Dante's."

Chapter 1

My wedding dress hung on the back of the door, a cascade of white lace that looked less like a garment and more like a ghostly silhouette of a future that died three minutes ago.

It ended with a single text message.

Stay at the apartment. Sofia is awake. Don't make a scene.

I stared at the phone screen until the numbers blurred into meaningless shapes.

I was supposed to be walking down the aisle of St. Patrick's Cathedral in two hours. I was supposed to marry Dante Moretti, a Capo in the New York Outfit and the man I had quietly loved for five years.

Instead, I was being told to hide like a dirty secret because his dead ex-girlfriend had decided to breathe again.

Sofia Russo. The fragile ghost. The love of his life.

She had been in a coma for a month after a hit gone wrong, a bullet meant for Dante that had instead grazed her temple.

Today, on the day I was to become a Moretti bride, she woke up with no memory.

And just like that, I was erased.

I didn't cry. Tears were a luxury in our world, and I couldn't afford them.

I was a Vitiello. We were bred for silence. We were currency in silk dresses, traded to solidify alliances and seal blood pacts.

My father had sold me to the Morettis to secure shipping routes in Jersey.

Dante had accepted me because it was his duty, but he had kept me at arm's length, his heart a fortress built around Sofia's memory.

Now that she was back, I was just an obstacle.

So, I