My Husband Cheated, So I Married His Enemy

To everyone else, I'm the wife of Stefano Pace, the man who runs this city's underworld. To others, I am living the kind of luxury every woman in town envies. But what no one knows is that in three days, I'm leaving my husband for good.

It started when I took Stefano's car to wash and spotted a black stocking that wasn't mine wedged in the passenger seat cushions. It was balled up and still reeked of sickly sweet perfume. The sight of it was like a knife to the heart.

I knew that perfume. It is Isla Torelli's. She's Stefano's underboss, the only woman besides me who's ever taken the passenger seat.

My hand trembled as I gripped the stocking, but I kept my cool.

I thought back to our wedding seven years ago, when Stefano stood in front of the whole family and vowed, "If I ever betray you, then betray me a hundredfold!"

He probably did not think those words would come true.

"This is Sylvie. I'm done being the good little housewife. Tell the Sassis to brace for my return."

I hung up on the last word, ending the call and seven years of swallowed pride.

I threw the black stocking back where I found it, went home, and scrubbed my hands raw, but the sickly sweet perfume still clung to me.

I caught my reflection in the mirror. My lips were pale, and my eyes were so sunken I hardly recognized myself.

I touched the dark circles under my eyes and noticed the tiny tattoo on my wrist. Seven years ago, Stefano Pace and I got matching tattoos. He got the key, and I got the lock.

"You're the only one I'll ever unlock," he had said to me, so earnestly it sounded like a wish.

I could still feel his kiss on my wrist. Now the lock remained, but the key was gone.

Tears fell from the corners of my eyes, drop by drop, into the sink.

"I guess we didn't make it past the seven-year itch after all," I murmured.

Seven years ago, Dad, Don of the Sassi family, held a gun to my head and told me not to marry Stefano.

I married him anyway, for love, for a soldato who had nothing but ambition back then. I gave up my birthright, my crown, and my family's empire to build his instead.

I played the perfect housewife, funneling him money and dealing with his enemies. Step by step, I put him on this city's underworld throne.

Back then, Stefano said I was the only light in his life. Now he couldn't take his eyes off Isla Torelli.

She'd started as a dancer. Now, she was his underboss. She used her body as a weapon, and he worshiped power in any form.

Stefano made Isla his underboss, his right hand, the charm he relied on when things got rough. Meanwhile, I, his wife, was reduced to a trophy.

Rumors about them had been