Chapter: Chapter 103Five Years LaterIvy“Again!” I shouted as I paced around the group training in hand-to-hand combat. I couldn’t even help the smile that crossed my face as I took in the groups, made of both men and women, as they threw punches, and kicks, and fought to take their partners down.“They look good,” my dad said, stopping me from continuing my pacing. “I think you’re possibly the best Capo we’ve ever had.”I shook my head. There was no way that was possible. He had been amazing and everyone knew that. I work hard to be half as great as he was. “I had a great teacher,” I tell him, bumping his shoulder with mine. “Aren't you supposed to be leaving for Italy?”“Heading to the airport,” he nodded, “wanted to say goodbye and remind you to…”“Call you if I need anything,” I finished for him. He always said the same thing. Even five years after I became Capo, I was still his little girl. “The only thing I need is for you and Mom to enjoy your trip and tell Aunt Lidia that I said hi and send her
Last Updated: 2023-12-18
Chapter: Chapter 102IvyI watched Max walk out of my office door and then looked at Cristo. Did he really believe that Max was going to go kill people like my Uncle Dom? That his loyalty would ever waver? I had truly thought Orland was a complete moron giving out his whole plan and what not to Max and Nico, but his cousin here, was proving to be equally or maybe even more stupid.“You won’t get away with this,” I said then rolled my eyes and my cliche words. Max better hurry up and get me out of here away from this guy, his stupidity might be rubbing off on me.Cristo chuckles with a shake of his head as he stocks toward me. “You think I haven’t thought this all the way through?” No, I don’t, but I don’t say that I just stare at him. “Wow! You don’t think that I know that deep down that husband of yours won’t do whatever he has to in order to save you? Or is it that you don’t believe he loves you?” I continue to stare at him as he rubs a finger over his chin. I know it’s important to just keep him distra
Last Updated: 2023-12-04
Chapter: Chapter 101Max“That’s it for me today,” I told Giuseppe, the guy I was helping today. I had spent the last two months helping the men that Dominico said needed more training.“It’s only eleven,” Giuseppe looked at his watch.I nod as I pack up my rifle, “My wife finally has time for a small vacation. We are heading out in a few hours. I’ll be gone until Monday. Dominico will be around if you need anything, but I told him everyone should just get an extra day off this week.” I picked up my gun case and headed for the door.“Have fun,” he hollered after me. I raised my hand and waved but didn’t slow down. I’m on my way to take my wife on a fucking honeymoon. I thought the day would never come.As soon as I pulled up to our house though, I know something is wrong. Ivy said she would be outside with our bags so we could go straight to the plane and be gone. Our bags are where they’re supposed to be. Ivy isn’t.Getting out of the car and walking to the door, I take in what I see. The front door is o
Last Updated: 2023-11-30
Chapter: Chapter 100IvyI woke up with Max’s heavy arm over me. I wasn’t uncomfortable though. If anything, it was the most comfortable I had ever been. I moved a little, slowly, trying not to wake him up, but get closer to him at the same time. I knew that I should get up. I had work to do, but I didn’t want the moment to end.Married. We were married and I was busy. He had been hurt and I had focused on him. But since he had felt better, I had been focused on only work. I was a horrible wife. I smiled and thought about all the things I’d let him do to me the night before. Okay, maybe I wasn’t that horrible.“You’re thinking pretty hard over there,” Max’s voice made me jump a little. He chuckled and I swatted at his arm that lay across me. He moved, sitting up against the headboard. He brought me with him and my head went to his bare chest. All of him was bare. All of me was bare. “What’s wrong?” He kissed the top of my head.I shook me head and peered up at him through my lashes. “Nothing.”“Don’t lie
Last Updated: 2023-11-17
Chapter: Chapter 99MaxFor the second time today, Ivy has made me hard with her leadership. I never would have guessed that something like a woman… My woman… being in charge would make me so fucking horny. I hadn’t felt that way since I was a teenager. Ivy was the one to help me out then too.The problem right now though is that she is on a mission. She has been on the phone calling everyone she can think of to set up meetings and get things in order for when these women are ready to start training. She thinks the idea is a great one. Honestly, I do too. I love that she is able to defend herself even though I plan on her never having to actually do that.“Sorry, Max,” she said as she hung up her phone. She had taken over her father’s office and I couldn’t even say that I hated the way she looked behind the desk. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to lay down? I lost my head earlier letting you lift me and…”I hold my hand up and lean as far forward as I can in the chair I’ve been sitting in since we cam
Last Updated: 2023-11-06
Chapter: Chapter 98IvyMax slammed my back into our bedroom door. My legs wrapped around his waist and my arms around his neck made it so that he couldn’t see a damn thing. That and our tongues battling each other for dominance.“Door,” he pulled away from me just long enough to groan the word. I reached behind me searching for the handle. “Hurry up. Your dad will probably try to kill me if he catches us like this.”“Don’t want that,” I said before biting his lip. He chuckled as he readjusted me in his arms. I finally found the handle as his hands found my ass and squeezed tight making me squeal.“Shh, Wife.” Max growled as he walked into the room and kicked the door shut. I raised an eyebrow when it slammed making much more noise than I had. “Yeah. Yeah,” he threw me on the bed.I bounced, laughed and smiling wide up at him. I looked over all of him. His perfect chiseled jaw, his perfect tanned skin, his perfect blue eyes. Okay, he was perfect. He was also going to give me the best looking kids ever. H
Last Updated: 2023-10-26
The Chosen Bride
When Isabella Romano's flawless younger sister calls off her engagement just days before the wedding, the Romano family is thrown into chaos. But there's a twist: the groom, the powerful and enigmatic Aristide Moretti, isn’t heartbroken—in fact, he's relieved.
To save their families’ reputation and the alliance between them, Isabella steps in as the new bride. Shy, bookish, and always in the shadow of her sister’s beauty, Isabella has secretly loved Aristide for years. She never imagined she'd be the one walking down the aisle to him.
What she doesn’t know is that Aristide has always preferred Isabella. He sees her kindness, her strength, and her quiet fire—and he’s more than ready to claim her as his own.
But can Isabella believe she’s truly wanted? Or will insecurities, secrets, and her sister changing her mind, threaten their chance at happiness?
A heartwarming, slow-burn romance about love in unexpected places, second choices that turn out to be first picks, and the courage it takes to believe you’re worthy of being loved.
Read
Chapter: Chapter 88BellaThe estate was too quiet.That kind of quiet that doesn’t soothe—it presses. Every tick of the clock, every shift of the floorboards sounded amplified under my skin. I’d been awake since dawn, though the sky outside was still gray, the Hudson shrouded in mist that looked like smoke rising from unseen fires.Aristide, Marco, and Enzo were in the lower wing—the old strategy room that Matteo used before the renovations. I could hear them faintly through the floorboards, the muted rhythm of male voices, sharp commands, the scrape of metal. Preparation. Precision. War.I stood by the window overlooking the courtyard, one hand resting absently on the curve of my stomach. The baby had been restless all morning, a quiet, rhythmic movement that seemed to mirror my heartbeat. I wondered if she could feel my nerves. I whispered to her without thinking.“Your father’s coming back,” I said softly. “He always does.”Mabel’s reflection appeared behind me in the glass, a steaming cup of tea in
Last Updated: 2025-10-10
Chapter: Chapter 87AristideBy the time we reached the estate, the night had gone black and heavy. The convoy’s engines echoed against the stone walls like distant thunder. My shoulder burned with every movement, the bullet that grazed me leaving a hot ache beneath the bandage Marco had slapped on in the truck.The guards were waiting at the gate—silent, alert. Word must’ve already spread that the strike had gone off. When I stepped out, their eyes darted to the blood seeping through my sleeve, then quickly away. They knew better than to comment.Bella was waiting at the top of the steps, the glow from the house behind her. She didn’t move until I was halfway up. Then she came down fast, her eyes scanning me, taking in the wound before anything else.“I’m fine,” I said before she could ask.Her gaze flicked up to mine—sharp, unamused. “That’s my line.”I almost smiled. Almost.Inside, the air was thick with tension and the smell of gun oil. Enzo had already gone to the war room to start unpacking what w
Last Updated: 2025-10-09
Chapter: Chapter 86AristideThe coast was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that came before something ugly.I stood on the cliff’s edge as the sun broke over the horizon, spilling gold across the waves and lighting the villa below. The structure had once belonged to an old smuggler my father used for covert shipments—one of Matteo Moretti’s many forgotten outposts. It was the perfect place for Cipher to hide what he’d stolen from us.The sea air stung the shallow cut on my cheek, a reminder of how close we’d come last time. My ribs still burned when I breathed too deep, but I didn’t care. We were here to finish this.Enzo came up beside me, scanning the lower cliffs through his scope. “Three guards outside. One pacing the upper balcony. But that’s it. Too light.”“Too light,” Marco muttered, adjusting his rifle strap. “It feels wrong.”It did. Everything about this mission felt wrong—too clean, too easy. But the signal that Elena and Bella traced last night came straight here, bouncing off an encryp
Last Updated: 2025-10-08
Chapter: Chapter 85AristideThe sea hadn’t quieted yet.Even after the blast, the strike, the silence that followed—it was still out there, restless, breathing against the shore as if it refused to let go. I felt the echo of it in my bones on the drive back, the phantom pulse of adrenaline that refused to fade.By the time the convoy reached the estate, the sun was threatening to rise. The guards at the gate stiffened when they saw the lead vehicle—recognizing the signal lights, understanding what that meant. Success. But success came with ghosts. It always did.I stepped out first, the gravel crunching beneath my boots. Bella was already there, framed by the porch light, hair still mussed from sleep but eyes wide awake. She didn’t wait for me to come to her. She met me halfway.“Any injuries?” she asked quietly.“None that won’t heal.” I didn’t tell her about the near miss—how one of Bianchi’s remnants had tried to detonate a failsafe charge before we’d neutralized the relay. I didn’t have the heart. N
Last Updated: 2025-10-08
Chapter: Chapter 84AristideThe salt hit first—cold and bitter on my tongue as we dropped into the shadow of the depot. Floodlights painted the rusting containers a sterile white, turned the yard into sharp shapes and hideous silhouettes. The air tasted like a city that had given up on itself: diesel, old blood, wet wood. It was all too familiar and suddenly not at all.I was on the northern flank, Marco sliding in beside me like a second shadow. Luca and Dante were folded into the darkness at the edges, breathing slow and low. Our comms were a thin thread—enough to keep us honest, not enough to drown us in noise.“Pattern,” Marco mouthed. One, two—he counted without sound. “Three on the wall. Two at the truck. Rotate. Two-minute sweep.”I watched the patrol like a man who’d memorized a clock. Their steps were routine. Too routine. That’s the thing with men who think they’re invisible: they perform their invisibility until something breaks the rhythm. I signaled with two fingers. Luca slid forward, a gh
Last Updated: 2025-10-08
Chapter: Chapter 83AristideThe war room hummed with tension, the kind that settled in your bones and refused to let go. Pins on maps, radios crackling, the smell of coffee that had gone cold hours ago—it was the familiar heart of conflict, but this time it felt sharper, heavier.Cipher’s name had been dragged into the light. And once a shadow is named, it becomes real.I stood at the head of the table, knuckles pressed against the wood, eyes scanning every mark and note laid out before us. Enzo leaned heavily on his cane at my left, but his mind was sharp as ever. Elena hovered near the radios, fingers dancing over the dials as she shifted through frequencies, hunting ghosts in the static. Marco kept silent, arms folded across his chest, his jaw locked tight.Bella sat beside me. She didn’t speak, not at first, but I felt her presence like a steady flame—quiet, grounding, unyielding.“Carlo confirmed what we already suspected,” Enzo said, breaking the silence. “Cipher’s network isn’t centralized. It’s
Last Updated: 2025-10-01
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