Chapter 5

MORANO

The moment she walked into the room, I knew the woman standing before me wasn't the one I had been promised.

Jayla was a firebrand. She was a woman who spoke before she thought, a creature of loud pride and sharp edges. But this woman stood in the doorway with wide, startled eyes, watching the girl between my legs as if she’d stumbled into a nightmare. 

The real Jayla would have made a biting comment or laughed at the display. This girl just froze. She looked at me with a mix of shock and something that felt like unwanted attraction, her breath catching in a way that made the pulse in her neck flutter.

In exchange for my protection and a massive collaboration that would keep his failing business afloat, Fiorello had promised me his finest asset…his daughter, Jayla. It was a cold, calculated trade. 

I provided the empire, and he provided the bloodline. But looking at the girl in front of me, I felt like I had been handed a counterfeit bill. I smiled inwardly, the thrill of a new mystery stirring in my chest. 

In my world, information is the only currency that matters. I spend my nights reading mystery books, uncovering the hidden motives of characters.

But nothing in a book could compare to the puzzle sitting across from me. I decided to test her. I led her down to the damp, cold basement where the werewolf hunters were kept.

“What are you doing here?” I heard her whisper. watching her face as we stood before the man tied to the pole. I saw it in the way her fingers trembled and the way she nearly collapsed when she saw the blood. 

The real Jayla had been the one to hunt these men down. She had looked into the eyes of their leader and ended him without blinking. Why would she suddenly develop a heart for the survivors?

I watched this girl bend down, her hand reaching out toward the prisoner with a look of pure, agonizing sympathy. She wasn't fierce. She was soft. She wasn't the killer I’d been told to expect; she was a girl playing a part she didn't know the lines to.

Maybe they didn’t give her heads up for this.

She didn't speak unless I spoke first. She was quiet, almost submissive…exactly the kind of woman I preferred, yet entirely wrong for the name she carried. Rumors had reached my ears months ago that Fiorello had twins, a secret he kept buried beneath his greed. 

I had brushed it off as gossip back then, but seeing her now, I felt the truth settling in my bones. Fiorello was double-crossing me. He had sent me a substitute, a spare daughter to satisfy a contract. 

My blood simmered with a dark promise of punishment. If I found proof of his betrayal, I would burn his legacy to the ground. 

Yet, as we stood at the altar, I couldn't pull my eyes away from her. In that white dress, she looked like a delicate porcelain doll about to shatter. She was my chosen mate now, the woman who was supposed to provide the heir my pack demanded. 

My father’s dying wish had been for me to secure our bloodline, and I had agreed to this arranged marriage only to keep the peace and grow my empire.

I didn't plan on falling for her. Love was a weakness I couldn't afford in the mafia, especially not with a woman who was a walking lie. 

But as I leaned in to brush my lips against her ear, feeling her body shiver against mine, the mystery of her became an addiction.

"Guess who's my new breeder," I hissed.

I saw the light die in her eyes, replaced by a hollow coldness that made my own heart hammer. She was a bride wrapped in a web of secrets, and I was the spider who was going to untangle every single one of them. 

I would peel back her layers until the real woman was exposed, even if it meant breaking her in the process. 

The "Sin-Eater” needed an heir, but the man inside me just wanted to know the name of the girl who was currently wearing my wife’s face.

I stood in my bedroom, my skin itching with a restless, dark energy. I’m usually picky. I don’t just fuck any woman who throws herself at my feet. I usually view sex as a chore, a quick way to bleed off the pressure of being an Alpha. 

But this girl? This fake? She had my blood screaming.

I didn't want to just fuck her. I wanted to wreck her. I wanted to bury myself so deep inside her, breaking that fragile mask of hers until she couldn't remember her own name, let alone the lies she was telling me.

I wanted to leave her broken and gasping, her legs too weak to carry the weight of her lies by morning. She wasn't a wife; she was a vessel. A beautiful, lying vessel that I planned to use whenever the urge struck.

The door clicked open. Jake walked in, his eyes darting to the bulge in my trousers. My Beta knew me too well.

“Hmm, looks like someone is starving,” he teased, a smug grin plastered on his face. “I haven’t seen you this riled up for a piece of tail in years.”

I didn't turn around. I kept my gaze fixed on the wall, my jaw tight. “I’m performing a duty. My father wanted an heir, and I’m going to produce one.”

Jake snorted. “Duty? Spare me. You’re practically vibrating, Morano. It’s been too long since you had a real, filthy fuck instead of just letting some club rat blow you.”

“Fuck off,” I growled, even though it was true.

Jake was the only man alive who could talk to me like that. We had survived the trenches of the Wolf's Den Pack together, and I’d made him my Beta because he was the only one I trusted. But right now, his mouth was moving too much.

“She’s a goddess,” Jake said, his tone suddenly dropping into something serious. “But there’s something off about her. That’s why I’m here.”

He stretched out his hand, offering a thin manila file. I took it, my pulse quickening. I opened the folder, and the world seemed to tilt on its axis. 

It was an old photograph, grainy but clear enough to make my blood turn to ice. A woman stood in the center, smiling softly…Fiorello’s late wife. And on either side of her were two identical little girls.

Twins.

The rumor wasn't just small talk. It was a fact. Fiorello hadn't just sent me a bride; he had sent me a shadow. “Get out,” I whispered, my eyes locked on the two faces in the photo.

Jake didn't argue. He knew that look. He slipped out, closing the door with a soft click. I slammed the folder onto the desk. I should have been planning Fiorello’s execution. 

I should have been dragging that girl out by her hair to demand the truth. Instead, the sight of those two faces made the hunger in my loins turn savage. She was a lie. A beautiful, shivering lie. 

I was going to make her pay for every second of the deception. The anger was there, but beneath it, the hunger had only grown sharper. She was a fake. A counterfeit. 

And that made me want to devour her even more. I wanted to see if her screams sounded the same as the woman she was pretending to be.