Rejected by the Mafia Don, Claimed by His Rival

For eight years, I was raised to be his queen. My entire world was built on the promise that I would marry Dante Moretti, the future Don of the city's most powerful family.

But on the eve of our betrothal, I overheard his plan. He was going to cast me aside for another woman, Isabella, and a street orphan he would pass off as his heir.

He publicly humiliated me at his party, introducing her as his true queen. When a crystal chandelier fell from the ceiling, he used his own body to shield her, leaving me to be crushed beneath it.

Later, after falsely accusing me of attacking her, he shoved my head under the freezing water of a pool, hissing that my love for him was "disgusting."

But the truth that finally destroyed me was worse. For ten years, Dante had been obsessed with a scent he thought was mine. It was all a lie—a custom perfume Isabella had been wearing all along. I was never the one he wanted; I was just a case of mistaken identity.

After he broke my bones and shattered my spirit, I finally made a choice. I accepted my brother's offer to escape to the rival Falcone territory. As our jet prepared for takeoff, I blocked Dante's frantic calls without looking back. This time, I was leaving for good.

Chapter 1

Alessia POV:

I was raised to be his queen. For eight years, that fact was the foundation of my world. But on the eve of our betrothal, standing outside his office, the truth arrived as a physical blow.

I'd come to give him my gift, a sculpture I'd spent months carving for his eighteenth birthday. But a strange scent stopped me at the door. Cheap perfume and the faint, cloying smell of baby powder. A scent that had no place here, in the heart of the Moretti empire.

Then came the voices. His, and his Capo, Jax.

"She'll bow out gracefully," Dante was saying, his voice a low rumble. "When I present my real family, she'll have no choice. It's cleaner this way."

"And the child?" Jax asked.

"Isabella found a street orphan that looks enough like her. We'll pass it off as ours. A ready-made heir. It solidifies her position."

His words were a betrayal, but it was his next thought that truly destroyed me. It wasn't a sound. It was a feeling, a vicious snarl that uncoiled in the back of my skull, cold and sharp. It wasn't my own. It was his.

Isabella is mine! I will not have some soft, pathetic virgin as my Queen!

My fingers went numb. The velvet-lined box I was holding slipped, hitting the marble floor with a sickening crack. Inside, the sculpture of two figures entwined was shattered-a perfect mirror of the promise I'd cherished for a lifetime.

It had all started when I was ten. Rival enforcers had invaded our home, and a young Dante Moretti, already a force of nature,