The Day When the True Mafia Queen Was out of Prison

I gave up ten years of my life and went to prison to protect my sister, Jasmine. In return, she took my baby, claiming my one-night stand with the ruthless mafia king, Dominic Valentino, as her own.

Now, she sits on a stolen throne, playing the perfect mafia wife. And I become my son's night nanny.

Dominic is lethal, cold, and suspicious of everyone. He married Jasmine out of duty, yet he refuses to touch her. But the moment I step into his house, his eyes lock onto me. He doesn't know I'm the woman who saved his life in a bloody alley a year ago. He doesn't know the baby crying in the nursery is mine.

All he knows is that the air burns whenever we are in the same room.

My sister thinks I'm just a broken ex-con she can easily crush. She forgot one thing.

I didn't just survive prison. I learned how to run an empire in the dark. And I am taking my son, my man, and my throne back.

Aria's POV

The day I walked out of prison, my sister was already living my life, wearing my name, holding my son, and married to the most dangerous man in the city, the one whose child I'd carried alone for nine months.

Dominic Valentino. Head of the Valentino crime family. The man every cop in this state knew better than to touch.

And Jasmine had just made herself his wife.

Daniel was waiting outside the gate. Not Jasmine. Daniel, her boyfriend, the man I'd punched hard enough to break his nose, the reason I'd ended up inside in the first place.

He looked at me, then looked away.

"She send you?" I said.

"She doesn't know I'm here."

He talked on the drive over without me asking. The words came out like he'd been holding them too long. I stared at the road and let them land one at a time.

Jasmine had taken the ring. The heavy silver band I'd worn on a cord around my neck for nine months, left in my hand by a stranger the night everything fell apart.

I'd given it to her with the baby and a handwritten note. Take him to his father. Show him the ring. He'll know.

She'd found Dominic Valentino within a week. Took one look at the gates and the men with guns. And told him the baby was hers.

"They got married three weeks ago," Daniel said. "Private ceremony."

I counted the cracks in his windshield. If I stopped I was going to break something.

"Does she take care of the baby?"

He didn't answer fast enough.

"Daniel."

"She has nannies. The kid's fine."

My son was four months old, being raised by strangers in a mobster's house, and he was fine.

He pulled up near the bus station and reached into the back seat. "There are things about Jasmine you don't know." He held out an envelope. "I'm not asking you to