Claimed by My Ex's Mafia Father
Eliora Aster built her career giving other people perfect beginnings. Her own ended on the floor of her rehearsal dinner, when she caught her fiancé with her best friend in front of everyone who mattered.
She thought that was the worst night of her life.
Then someone tried to take her before she made it to her car.
The man who saved her wasn't her fiancé. It was his father, Severin Virelli, the most feared Mafia boss in Europe. He offers her his protection and nothing else: no explanation, no apology for his son, no promise of when it will end. Only a warning that the danger chasing her has nothing to do with a broken engagement.
Moving into his estate should feel like a cage. Instead, for the first time since her parents died, Eliora feels safe, and that unsettles her more than the men hunting her ever could. Because the closer she gets to Severin, the more she realizes his silence isn't distance. It's guilt. A debt owed to a man he couldn't save, twenty-two years ago.
As the truth about her family comes into focus, Eliora has to decide who she can trust: the man the world fears, or the promise that first brought them together.
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Chapter: The Message"Absolutely not," Severin said again. "You're not going near him.""Then bring him to me," Eliora said. "Somewhere controlled. With your men everywhere. But I need to hear what he knows.""You don't owe a stranger with a hidden weapon anything.""He said he'll go to every Commission family by morning if I don't." Eliora held his gaze, steady despite the fear still coursing through her. "That means whatever this is, it's coming out either way. I'd rather hear it first, on my terms, than read about it secondhand tomorrow."Severin's jaw tightened, but she watched something in him shift, not agreement exactly, but recognition that she had a point he couldn't fully argue against."The library," he said finally. "Windows sealed. Marco's men at every exit. He comes in alone, unarmed, searched twice.""Understood," Marco said, already relaying instructions through his radio.Ten minutes later, Eliora stood in the library beside Severin, watching the door with her heart hammering against her
Last Updated: 2026-08-08
Chapter: Lockdown"Move. Now."Severin was already crossing the room, one hand closing around Eliora's arm, pulling her away from the window before she'd fully processed what Lucien had said."Someone's coming here? Right now?""We don't wait to find out." Severin's voice had shifted into something harder, faster, every trace of the calm philosopher from moments ago replaced by a man moving through practiced motion. "Lucien, seal the study. Get Marco on the radio.""Already on it." Lucien was speaking into his earpiece before Severin finished the sentence, his composure snapping back into place like armor.Eliora's heart pounded as Severin guided her toward the study's side door, away from the windows, into the narrow interior hallway she hadn't known existed."Where are we going?""Somewhere without a clear line of sight from outside." He didn't slow down. "The coordinates were for this room. That means whoever sent them knows the layout well enough to be specific. I'm not giving them a target to aim
Last Updated: 2026-08-07
Chapter: Someone Inside"We have a problem."Marco's voice cut through the quiet of the breakfast room before Eliora had even lifted her cup. Severin looked up, his fork stilling mid-motion."What kind.""The kind that doesn't wait." Marco set a tablet down on the table between them. "Overnight chatter across three different channels. Someone's confirmed Miss Aster's exact location. Not the estate in general. This house. This wing."Eliora's stomach dropped. "How is that possible? I haven't left this house in two days.""That's what worries me," Marco said. "Whoever's talking isn't guessing from outside. They know things only someone inside would know."Severin's jaw tightened. "Details.""The chatter mentions a west wing bedroom. Overlooking the water." Marco's eyes flicked to Eliora, then back. "That's not public information. That's not even information most of the household staff would have reason to know."The room went very quiet.Eliora set down her cup, hands unsteady. "You're saying someone here is t
Last Updated: 2026-08-07
Chapter: Agnes"You should eat something."Agnes set a tray down on the small table near the window, then didn't leave, hovering instead in a way Eliora had come to recognize meant she had something on her mind."I'm not really hungry," Eliora said."You didn't touch breakfast either." Agnes poured tea without asking, the same chamomile with honey she'd guessed correctly the first day. "Grief has a way of taking the appetite first. I remember that much."Eliora looked up. "Grief. Is that what this is?""Isn't it?" Agnes sat down across from her, uninvited but not unwelcome. "You lost your whole understanding of your own life in the space of two days. That's a kind of grief too, even if no one died this time."Something in the observation landed harder than Eliora expected. She wrapped both hands around the warm cup and said nothing for a moment."Severin's taking me somewhere tomorrow," she said finally. "To tell me everything. About my parents. About all of it."Agnes's expression flickered, brief,
Last Updated: 2026-08-06
Chapter: Camille"I need to call Camille."Eliora was already reaching for her phone before Severin could respond. Two missed calls from the last hour. A voicemail she hadn't listened to yet."Wait," Severin said. "If Santoro already knows about the pendant, I want eyes on anyone close to you before you make contact.""She's my business partner, Severin. Not a threat.""I didn't say she was a threat. I said I want her protected before you tell her anything that makes her one."Eliora's hand paused over the screen. The logic landed harder than she wanted it to."Fine," she said. "But I'm calling her. Now."Severin nodded to Lucien, who stepped out of the room already dialing someone on his own phone. Eliora waited a beat, then hit call.Camille picked up on the first ring. "Eliora, thank God. Where have you been? I've called you six times.""I'm safe. I'm sorry, it's been—" Eliora glanced at Severin. "Complicated.""Complicated doesn't cover it. There are rumors everywhere. Someone's saying Caius's fat
Last Updated: 2026-08-06
Chapter: What They're Saying"It's already spreading."Lucien set his phone down on Severin's desk the next morning, his expression carefully blank in the way Eliora had learned meant he was choosing his words with care."How bad," Severin said."Bad enough. Three different versions by sunrise. One says you threatened Caius with violence. One says Eliora chose you over him in front of witnesses. One says—" Lucien hesitated, glancing at Eliora."Say it," she said."One says you've claimed her. That the Iron Sovereign took his son's fiancée for himself."Eliora felt her face go hot. "That's not what happened.""It doesn't matter what happened," Lucien said. "It matters what people believe happened. And right now, most of the Commission believes the third version.""Then correct it," she said, turning to Severin. "Tell them the truth. That you're protecting me because of a promise to my father, nothing more."Severin was quiet for a moment, his eyes on the window, on the sea beyond it."I'm not going to correct it,"
Last Updated: 2026-08-06
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