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The Ghost in Crimson

Author: Desmond Caramel Writes
last update Last Updated: 2025-05-17 21:41:42

Serafina

The dead don’t rest when vengeance is left unfinished.

I wasn’t supposed to feel.

Not after what they did to me. Not after being betrayed, stripped of my identity, of my future, and thrown into the shadows like a disposable secret. But there I stood, draped in crimson silk stolen from the wardrobe of my captor’s wife, watching Valentina Russo dance in the home that was meant to be mine.

She looked like me. But she wasn’t me.

She smiled like I used to. But her eyes had not seen what I had seen. Her lips hadn’t tasted the poison I’d swallowed every day I was held in that hellhole. She thought she was fighting a war.

She didn’t know I was the war.

I moved through the De Luca villa like a whisper, silent as death. It wasn’t hard. Not when most of the guards still thought I was a ghost. Rumors of my survival had begun to spread like wildfire, but Alessandro hadn’t confirmed a thing. Not even to himself. Not even to his cousin.

Lorenzo.

That name alone made my teeth clench and my h
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  • A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss   The Devil in Me

    AlessandroShe tasted like sin. Like betrayal. Like the last damn sip of bourbon before the building goes up in flames.Valentina.Her name wasn’t a whisper. It was a warning. Every time I said it, I felt like I was invoking something older than war. Something dangerous enough to kill me and maybe worse, make me beg for it.I slammed the door behind me, gun belt hitting the floor. She didn’t flinch. She never did. She just stood there, naked, back to the mirror, scars exposed like war medals. I saw every one. Knew most of them. Inflicted a few.She didn’t hide them.And fuck, I loved her for it."I won’t ask again," I said, voice already hoarse from the storm inside me."Good," she answered. "Because I don’t take orders."I moved. Fast. Violent. She was glass I wanted to shatter and worship all at once.Our mouths collided mine a threat, hers a dare. I pinned her to the mirror, hands on her wrists, hips pressed to hers. But she was never really pinned. She allowed it. For now.Fire co

  • A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss   Fire Cannot be Tamed

    ValentinaThe throne room still smelled of him. Of sin. Of war.My legs ached with the memory of Alessandro’s hands, and my lips were still bruised from the way he kissed like he was staking a claim. But I wasn’t property. I wasn’t something to be conquered.I was born to conquer.I leaned back in the black velvet chair, the one his father used to sit in when declaring blood debts. My robe slipped from one shoulder, and I let it. Power wasn’t about modesty. It was about control.The door creaked.He entered.Alessandro. Still shirtless. Still furious. His chest was marred by scratches I’d left, and his gaze locked on me like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to worship me or destroy me."You disobeyed me," he said, voice low, dangerous.I smirked. "I disobeyed everyone. Get in line."He moved fast. One hand on the arm of my throne, the other on my jaw. "You’re mine, Valentina.""Say that again," I whispered. "Slower."His jaw ticked. "Mine."I bit his thumb, not hard enough to bleed. Just e

  • A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss   The Knight's Fall

    ~Lorenzo~I knew the moment I saw him walk past the bloodied roses that I’d lost her. Not forever. But enough gut me.Alessandro had that look in his eyes. That death before surrender gleam. And Valentina? She had fire. But this time… she gave it to him.I stood in the shadows, just where she left me, lips still marked by the taste of her, hands still trembling from the feel of her spine arching beneath them. But it meant nothing now.She went to the throne room.To him.To them.Flashback – Three Weeks Ago – De Luca Safehouse, Amalfi CoastShe came in wet from the rain, jacket clinging to her like a second skin. I hadn’t expected her. I hadn’t dared hope."I can’t breathe there," she had said, collapsing into the leather couch.I offered her wine. She drank bourbon.Then she asked me to teach her how to fight. Again. But this time, she wasn’t asking to aim. She wanted to kill."Teach me how to break a man’s neck," she whispered that night, her fingers ghosting over my chest. "In sil

  • A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss   His Crown, My Fire

    Valentina!!The kiss still burned on my lips sharp, raw, full of fury.Alessandro didn’t kiss like a man.He kissed like a reckoning.But I didn’t break.Not for him. Not tonight. Not ever again.I stood there after he left, wind whipping through my hair like a battlefield banner.I could still taste the blood. His. Mine. Ours.And then I heard it.Footsteps. Softer than his. Controlled. Calculated.“Should I be worried?” a voice said behind me.I didn’t turn. “Only if you’re here to finish what he started.”Lorenzo.He stepped beside me, hands in his pockets, eyes unreadable.Tall. Dangerous. Beautiful in that quiet, serpent way.“I saw the kiss,” he said.Of course he did.Alessandro always made sure the world saw when he marked his territory.“And?” I asked.“I wanted to kill him,” Lorenzo replied simply. “But then I remembered... you didn’t stop him.”I turned to him now, my voice like glass on stone.“Don’t confuse strategy with surrender, Lorenzo.”He took a step closer. “So you

  • A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss   The King who tried to break the Storm

    AlessandroDe Luca Estate – His Private Study – MidnightThe silence wasn’t comforting tonight.It was mocking.I sat in my leather chair, the same one where I’d signed death orders, counted bloodstained money, and held the power of a thousand families at my fingertips.But none of it made me feel like a king anymore.She had descended those stairs like war in heels.And every eye that once bowed to me—Now knelt to her.Valentina.My bride.My curse.My undoing.I gripped the glass of bourbon so hard it cracked.Blood mixed with liquor. Fitting.She’d become a storm I couldn’t contain, not with chains, not with fear, not even with love.Not anymore.Flashback – The Wedding Ball – Two Nights Ago“You’ll kneel when you wear it again,” I told her, tossing the ring in her palm.She had laughed.Not a soft, sweet laugh the one I’d fallen for when I first saw her in Sicily.No, this laugh was cold. Metallic. Like gunfire.“You want a wife on her knees?” she said, standing taller than I’d e

  • A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss   The Bride Who Refuse to Kneel

    ~Valentina~I stared at the ring in my palm.Cold.Heavy.Not because of the metal, but because of everything it had come to symbolize. Love and ownership. Power and punishment. A gilded cage disguised as a vow.Alessandro thought this was still about control.He thought if he dangled the ring in front of me, the ghost of the bride I used to be would come crawling back.But that girl died the night he chose power over partnership."When you put this on again," he had said, "you'll kneel."Kneel?I stood."You want a wife on her knees," I whispered, rising to my feet with the ring clutched in my fist, "then maybe you should’ve married obedience."His jaw tensed, but his eyes flickered something deeper than rage. Hurt? Regret? I didn’t care. Not anymore.I walked to him slowly, steps deliberate, even with the shackle clinking against my wrist."Do you remember the first time you called me 'queen'?"He didn’t answer.So I answered for him."It was the night after I took the bullet meant

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