You Want a Mistress I’m Already a Queen

Two years into my marriage with Don Dante, my ex came back. Julian, the man who shattered my heart five years ago.

He announced he was getting engaged. And he wanted me as his mistress.

"I know I hurt you," he said. "My family looks down on mob ties. It was never going to work. But now? I'm marrying Tiffany. I'm taking over the family empire. I can finally afford to keep you."

I just sneered at him.

"Did it ever occur to you that I might be married?"

He scoffed.

"What decent family would have you? The daughter of a mob underboss? Don't be ridiculous."

His arrogance made me sick.

When I refused, he slapped a black card on the table. Told me to buy whatever I wanted.

He said he'd pick me up next week. That we could spend every weekend tangled up in his bed.

I spat on the floor at his feet. "Get him out," I told my guard. "And take his trash with him."

He didn't get it. Not then. But he would. The moment he found out who I married.

I didn't just marry anyone. I married the king of the Chicago underworld.

A man he could never touch.

And when he finally figured it out, he lost his goddamn mind.

Two years into my marriage with Don Dante, my ex reappeared. Julian heir to an East Coast dynasty, he was finally coming into his fortune.

Now he thought he could finally afford me.

What he didn't know? I belonged to someone he could never afford to cross.

That voice. Julian's. It cut through the quiet of the garden.

"Sera, I know you're in there."

I was pruning roses. The sound of his voice almost made me snip my own finger.

How did he get in?

Through the glass, I saw him standing before the black rose bushes. Perfect suit. Not a hair out of place. Exactly like the night he broke me.

We dated in secret.

I didn't know he was an Astor, heir to an East Coast fortune.

He didn't know my father was the Moretti underboss. He swore he loved me.

Over and over. Until his family found out who I was. Old money doesn't mix with the mob.

A week later, pictures of him kissing some princess splashed across the society pages.

When I confronted him, he told me she was worthy of his name. I wasn't.

I was dead inside.

Then Dante came for me. The Don who’d always watched over me. He pursued me. Relentlessly.

And he won.

Now, seeing the man who betrayed me...

All I felt was disgust.

"We need to talk." He turned. His blue eyes filled with a sickening confidence.

I pushed open the greenhouse door. "Talk about what? How did you get in?"

"I bribed a guard." He shrugged. Like it was nothing. "That's not important. What's important is, I need to tell you—"

"Get out."

"Just listen." Julian took a step closer.