Hottie Series #1: Ricko Gardenan

The taunting messages from my husband’s mistress started two months ago.

Photos of them tangled in bed, explicit details of his obsession with her body… the brutal truth of their affair was laid bare.

I didn’t confront him. I quietly arranged for a new identity and gave myself a deadline: seven days.

In an abandoned warehouse on the west side of Chicago, a single, flickering bulb cast a weak yellow glow.

I pushed a thick stack of cash across the table to the man in the flat cap.

"I need a new identity," my voice echoed in the cavernous space. "The name is Ava."

The man picked up the bills, fanning them with a practiced thumb. The rustle of the money was loud in the silence. "Passport, driver's license, the whole nine yards?"

"The whole nine yards." I nodded, my fingers clenching the leather purse on my lap. "And a bank account with a credit history."

"That'll be double." He looked up, a gold tooth glinting in the dim light.

I didn't hesitate. I pushed out another stack.

The man stuffed the cash into his jacket, then leaned forward, his voice low. "One week. But I gotta warn you, lady—once you use this new ID, the past has to be dead and buried. The Moretti family has eyes and ears everywhere in this country. You leave one single trace, they'll find you."

I stood, my heels clicking sharply on the concrete floor. "I understand."

My resolve was steel.

Twenty minutes later, I was lying on a table in a private tattoo parlor.

The sharp zap of the laser removal machine was a counterpoint to the dull ache in my chest as the eagle crest of the Moretti family slowly vanished from my collarbone. The pain was excruciating, like a hot poker searing my skin over and over.

But I clenched my jaw and didn't make a sound.

I just felt the five years of memories, my love for Dante, being burned away, just like the ink.

It was eleven P.M. when I returned to our mansion in Lincoln Park. The eight-million-dollar Victorian villa, Dante’s wedding gift to me, now felt like nothing more than a gilded cage.

I turned on the TV. A rerun of the Chicago Tribune's "Man of the Year" interview was playing.

My husband, Dante Moretti, was on screen. His black hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place. His deep brown eyes, filled with an innate aura of authority, stared into the camera.

The reporter asked him what loyalty meant to him. Dante slowly undid the top button of his shirt, revealing the family crest on his chest—a hawk with its wings spread, talons gripping a rose and a dagger.

"Loyalty is this," he said, his voice a low, magnetic rumble as he pointed to the ink over his heart. "And this."

The camera zoomed in, and I saw it clearly: the delicate violin tattooed just below the crest—the one he’d gotten for me five years ago.

"My wife, Alessia, is a gifted musician," Dante said, a smile playing on his lips as he raised the hand wearing his platinum wedding band. "She gave up her dream of becoming a world-class violinist for me. That sacrifice is etched over my heart. It can never be erased."

I reached up and touched the gauze on my collarbone, the skin still aching.

Never be erased?

The memory of the photo slammed into me.

Two months ago. A text from an unknown number.

My phone vibrated, and a picture popped up.

My world shattered.

In the photo, a blonde bartender named Jenna was sprawled naked in Dante’s arms.

Her body was a canvas of fresh hickeys and the raw marks of their passion. They had clearly just finished.

Her long, slender finger was pointed proudly at Dante’s chest—where, next to my violin, a new, crude design had been scrawled in marker.

Her name, "Jenna," in sloppy cursive.

It was just a marker, something that could be washed away, but the fact that Dante had let her do it was a betrayal sharper than any blade.

A dozen more photos followed. Them in our vacation home. At our favorite restaurant. Even on my birthday—while I thought he was handling "family business," he was pinning another woman against the wall of his study.

"Dante says only being inside me makes him feel like a man anymore. You can’t even get him hard anymore, can you, sweet Alessia? Maybe it’s time to step aside."

The sound of a key turning in the lock pulled me back to the present.

Dante was home.

His footsteps echoed on the marble floor, growing closer. I smelled it on him—a cheap perfume. Not the Tom Ford I’d bought him, but something sickeningly sweet and floral. The scent of another woman, mixed with cigarettes and vodka.

His white shirt was slightly rumpled, his tie loose. There was an unmistakable bite mark on his neck.

"Alessia? Still up?" He walked toward me, ready to embrace me like he always did.

A wave of revulsion washed over me. I held up a hand, stopping him.

Dante looked confused. Then his gaze fell to my collarbone, to the white gauze covering the spot where the Moretti crest used to be.

"Alessia," his voice dropped, turning low and dangerous. "What happened to your tattoo?"