My Cold Heart: Rejecting The Mafia Boss

My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket.

He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent.

But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress.

Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes.

"If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you."

To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife.

When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala.

He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent.

He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters.

He thought he had broken me.

He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage.

But he made a fatal error.

He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign.

They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me.

And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck.

I didn't jump to die.

I jumped to be reborn.

And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.

Chapter 1

Elena Vitiello POV

The second the jury foreman stood up, I knew my marriage was a corpse that hadn't yet begun to rot.

My husband, Dante Russo, the New York Outfit's most feared Consigliere, didn't look at the woman he was defending-the woman who had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini.

He looked at me.

His dark eyes held a silent, terrifying promise: if I made a single sound when they let her walk free, he would bury me in a psychiatric ward so deep even God wouldn't find me.

"We find the defendant, Sofia Moretti, not guilty."

The words didn't hurt. Pain requires capacity, and I had gone numb three days ago when Dante told me he was taking the case.

I watched Sofia Moretti dab at dry eyes with a silk handkerchief. She was the daughter of a Capo, a princess in a kingdom built on bones.

Slowly, she turned her head. Her gaze locked onto mine across the aisle.

She didn't smile. She didn't have to. The smirk was alive in her eyes.

She had killed a civilian nurse-my mother-because a splash of red wine had ruined her white Valentino dress. And my husband had just convinced twelve people it was self-defense.

Dante stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. He was beautiful in the way a switchblade is beautiful.

Sharp. Cold. Devastating.

He shook hands with Sofia, his grip firm. He was doing his job. He was protecting the Family alliance. He was sacrificing his wife's heart on the altar of Omertà.

I stood up. My legs