The Mafia King's Unwanted Wife Shines

My husband ordered me to turn around and face the altar. He unbuckled his heavy leather belt, his eyes cold and devoid of mercy.

"You need to learn respect," Dante spat.

He whipped me in the family chapel until my back was a bloody mess. All because his mistress, Sofia, had framed me for breaking his grandfather's urn.

He didn't ask for the truth. He didn't hesitate. He just wanted to punish the wife he considered a burden.

As the belt tore into my skin, I didn't scream. I just counted the memories dying.

He didn't know I was the one who dove into the frozen lake to save him in high school.

He didn't know I was the one who took a knife for him during the ambush.

He believed Sofia's lies that she was his savior.

I had loved him for ten years. I had bled for him. And in return, he scarred me permanently for a crime I didn't commit.

That night, I didn't tend to my wounds. I packed my bags, signed the divorce papers, and swore on the Code of Omertà to never love him again.

Three years later, Dante found my old diary hidden under the floorboards. He read the truth about who really saved him, and realized he had tortured his guardian angel.

He found me in Paris, fell to his knees in a crowded hotel lobby, and begged for forgiveness with tears in his eyes.

I looked at the man who broke me and smiled.

"Lie down and die, Dante," I said softly. "Because I have a life to live."

Chapter 1

Elena POV

The last thing I heard before the bullet tore through my skull was my husband’s voice on the speaker, cold and indifferent.

"She means nothing to the Vitiello family," he told my kidnappers. "Kill her if you want."

Then the line went dead.

I didn't feel the impact.

I only felt the crushing weight of ten years of unrequited love dissolving into a bloody mist.

Then I gasped, my lungs filling with air that smelled of sandalwood and expensive scotch instead of gunpowder and rot.

My eyes snapped open.

I wasn't in a warehouse tied to a chair.

I was in the master bedroom of the Vitiello estate, staring up at the familiar vaulted ceiling I used to pray to every night.

A heavy arm was draped over my waist.

I froze.

Slowly, heart hammering against my ribs, I turned my head.

Dante Vitiello was sleeping beside me.

His face was relaxed, lacking the scowl he usually wore when he looked at me. He was the Underboss of the New York Cosa Nostra, a man who had killed three rival Capos with his bare hands before he turned twenty-five.

He was also the man who had just sentenced me to death.

Or he would, three years from now.

My gaze drifted to the digital clock on the nightstand. The date glared back at me in red LED.

It