Into The Rival's Arms: The Decoy's Escape

I stood behind the velvet curtain, clutching a positive pregnancy test, waiting for the perfect moment to tell Dante our family was growing.

Instead, I heard him laugh.

"She is not the bride," Dante told his Consigliere, swirling his fifty-year-old scotch. "She is the bulletproof vest I wear until it is safe for Sofia to enter the city. When the bullets stop flying, we throw the vest in the trash."

My world shattered.

When Sofia arrived that night, she didn't just take my place; she boiled my beloved cat for dinner. Dante didn't defend me. He told me to clean up the mess or face punishment.

To prove his devotion to her, he had his men drag me to "The Pit"—an underground fight club.

I was thrown into a cage with a starving Doberman.

I looked up at the VIP box, begging the man I loved to save me. Instead, Dante pressed the intercom button, his voice booming over the speakers.

"One million dollars on the dog," he said. "She won't last three minutes."

He covered Sofia's eyes to protect her innocence while the beast tore the flesh from my arm.

That night, Elena Vance died in the dirt.

One year later, the grieving Dante Moretti attended a gala for a mysterious new artist in New York.

He dropped his champagne glass when he saw me on stage, alive, wearing a dress that revealed my ruined, scarred arm.

"I didn't leave you, Dante," I said into the microphone, my voice cold as ice.

"You killed me. And now, I'm here to collect my winnings."

Chapter 1

I stood behind the heavy velvet curtain, clutching the positive pregnancy test in my sweaty palm.

I was waiting for the perfect moment to step out and tell Dante that his legacy was finally secure.

That was when I heard him tell his Consigliere that I was nothing more than livestock waiting for the slaughter.

"She is not the bride, Lorenzo," Dante said. His voice was smooth, rich and biting like the fifty-year-old scotch swirling in his glass. "She is the bulletproof vest I wear until it is safe for Sofia to enter the city. When the bullets stop flying, we take off the vest and throw it in the trash."

My breath hitched in my throat, strangling a sob before it could escape.

The air in the private VIP booth of the Moretti club suddenly choked me with the scent of expensive cigars and betrayal.

For eight years, I thought I was the Cinderella story of New York. Dante Moretti, the Underboss of the most ruthless crime family on the East Coast, had plucked me from a rat-infested orphanage and draped me in diamonds.

He told me I was his light. He told me I was the only thing that kept the darkness of his world at bay.

I had been a fool.

I was not his light. I was his decoy.

Every public appearance, every paparazzi photo, every charity gala where he