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Author: Sharon
last update publish date: 2026-06-11 14:51:56

Elara

Sleep didn't come.

Alexander breathed steadily beside me, one arm loose at his side, his face in sleep carrying none of the controlled authority it held during the day. He could rest the way soldiers and survivors do — completely, without argument, whenever the opportunity existed. I lay beside him and envied it and stared at the ceiling and turned two words over and over in my mind until they were worn smooth.

*However necessary.*

I knew what they meant. I wasn't pretending otherwise
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  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   50

    Alexander I woke up in a hospital bed. The room looked painfully familiar, down to the dull white walls, the steady beeping of the machines, and the clean antiseptic scent that always made me feel more exposed than healed. For a moment, I did not move. I only stared at the ceiling and let the fact of my own survival settle in. I had survived again. I turned my head slowly, and the sight beside me hit harder than the pain in my body. Elara was sitting in the chair beside my bed. Her fingers were wrapped around mine, and her eyes were red, swollen, and tired. She looked as though she had not slept properly in days. Her face changed the moment she saw my eyes open. “You’re awake,” she said. “Apparently.” Her mouth trembled, but her expression stayed firm. “Do not ever do that again.” “Do what?” “Get shot,” she said. “Do not get shot saving me, and do not make me sit here wondering whether you are going to die.” “I did not die.” “You almost did.” I tightened my fingers aro

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   49

    Elara We spent the night together, but not in my apartment. Alexander said it was too easy a place to find us, too exposed, too familiar for men who already knew where to look. He took me to one of his hotels at the edge of the city, a place that looked beautiful from the outside and felt heavily guarded the moment I stepped inside. I did not argue. I was too tired to fight, and too raw to pretend I was fine. The room was quiet. The curtains were drawn. The lights were low. Alexander stood near the window for a long time before he finally came to sit beside me on the bed. I watched him carefully. Even after everything he had told me, I still found myself looking for the next lie, the next hidden detail, the next thing that would hurt me later. He noticed. “You still do not trust me,” he said. I rested my back against the headboard and folded my arms loosely over my chest. “I do not trust anyone.” “That is fair,” he replied. “I have not given you a reason to.” I stud

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   48

    Elara The apartment was dark when I got home, but the quiet did not feel comforting. It felt heavy, crowded, and full of everything I had spent the last few hours trying not to think about. I sat on the living room floor with my back against the couch and my phone in my hands, staring at Vivian’s message until the words stopped looking real. *The test was doctored. The baby is Alexander’s.* I had read it so many times that I had started to hate the sentence. I hated the hope it created. I hated the fear that came with it. I hated that my life had turned into a place where truth and lies could wear the same face. Vivian had lied to me before. She had held things back, changed details, and made choices without asking me. Now she wanted me to believe her again. She said she was leading the Moretti family. She said she had the real report. She said the baby was Alexander’s. But Alexander had lied too. He had known about the paternity test and kept it from me. He had watched me gri

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   47

    Alexander I stood in the parking lot and watched her drive away. The car disappeared past the gate, and the sound of the engine faded into the night. I kept my eyes on the road long after she was gone, as if staring hard enough could pull her back. She left. She knew. She hated me. I should have told her the truth from the beginning. I should have taken the risk and given her the facts before she could hear them from someone else. Instead, I had protected myself, and in doing that, I had pushed her straight into pain. You lied to her again. You promised her honesty, and you gave her another lie. Marcus stepped up beside me, but I did not turn to him. “Boss,” he said carefully. “We should get you inside.” “Let her go.” He hesitated. “Alexander—” “I said let her go.” Silence followed, heavy and impatient. Then Marcus said, “You’re bleeding.” I looked down at my shoulder. The bandage had darkened through the fabric of my shirt, and the wound Vincent had given me was see

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   46

    Elara The diner was exactly the kind of place Marcus would choose for something like this. Neutral ground, he had called it on the drive over. Public enough that any kind of violence would be immediately noticed. Controlled enough that his men could watch every entrance and exit without attracting attention. I sat in a booth near the back with my hands wrapped around a cup of coffee I hadn't touched, and I waited for my best friend to walk through the door. Alexander was across the street in an SUV with Marcus beside him and two full cars of armed men positioned at either end of the block. He had pushed hard against this arrangement, arguing that he should be in the booth beside me, close enough to act if anything went wrong. I had refused, and he had eventually accepted it, though not without a long and heavy silence that told me exactly how he felt about my decision. If Vivian was going to tell me the truth, she needed to see me sitting here alone. She needed to understand tha

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   45

    ElaraThe words hung in the air, and for a moment I genuinely could not process what Marcus had just told me."Vivian," I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper. "You're telling me Vivian is leading Vincent's men now."I waited for him to laugh, to tell me he'd misread a message, to say there had been some mistake. Instead, his expression stayed grim, and his jaw remained tight, and I understood that this was not a joke at all."That's not possible," I said, shaking my head. "Vivian would never do something like that. Not to me, and not to Alexander.""She's been missing since the garden, and for the past three days we assumed she had either been captured or killed. Instead, it turns out she's been quietly meeting with Vincent's surviving lieutenants and consolidating what's left of his organization under her own name." Marcus delivered this in the same flat, controlled tone he used for everything difficult. "She has been making deals, Elara. Real ones, with real consequences.""De

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   12

    Alexander Morning arrived before I was ready for it. I had not slept. After Elara's door closed and her footsteps went quiet on the other side of it, I went back to my study and sat in the leather chair until the fire burned down to coals and the sky outside started turning grey. I sat with my bo

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   11

    Elara Sleep didn't come. I lay in the center of a bed that was wider than my old living room, on sheets that were cool and expensive and completely unfamiliar, and I stared at the ceiling. The room was beautiful in a way that felt slightly unreal — soft blue walls, cream curtains that reached the

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   10

    Alexander The estate felt different the moment she walked into it. I noticed it before she had taken three steps past the front door. The foyer was the same — marble floors, high ceilings, the chandelier my father had imported from Venice thirty years ago. The same dark wood paneling. The same oi

  • Contracted to My Fiance’s Mafia Don   9

    Elara Three days. That was all the time standing between me and becoming Elara Thorne. Vivian had come over at seven in the morning with two coffees and the energy of someone who had decided to be furious on my behalf so I didn't have to be. She pulled my suitcases down from the closet shelf and

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