Chapter 1

On the wedding day, my sister, Isabella De Luca, drugged me. She was going to steal my dress and marry my fiancé, the mafia heir Marco Moretti.

Everyone was smiling at the happy couple on the altar.

Everyone but me. I shot up from my seat in the back row. My voice tore through the sacred silence.

"Stop! I object! This wedding is a sham!"

Every head turned to face me.

The bride, Isabella, went white. The groom, Marco, froze.

The priest looked at me, confused. "Miss, who are you?"

"I'm Elara De Luca." I walked to the altar, staring straight at Marco. "I'm the woman he proposed to three months ago."

A ripple of shock went through the pews.

Isabella clutched Marco’s arm. "What are you talking about? I'm Marco's fiancée."

I sneered. "Really? Then where'd you get that ring on your finger?"

Isabella’s eyes shot to the ring on her finger.

Marco had picked it out for me. A three-carat diamond on a platinum band.

"Marco gave it to me!" Isabella shrieked.

The memory of his betrayal hit me like a punch. My past life...

I was the family's bastard daughter.

My mother was my father's first love.

He married another for duty, but he couldn't keep his hands off my mother.

He promised he'd marry her after his wife died, making her his mistress.

And then there was me.

All I ever wanted was a real family, for my father to see me as his own.

But he never would. A bastard was a stain on the family's honor.

I didn't know who Marco was when we met. The heir to the Moretti family.

We were just a normal couple in love.

He proposed. He promised me the home I never had.

But in the end, he threw me away for power. For my sister, Isabella.

In my past life, I cried after the wedding. I begged Marco to come back. I kneeled and pleaded with my father to help me.

They both told me the same thing. The Moretti family only marries real mafia princesses. And that was Isabella.

I confronted Isabella. “You fought tooth and nail against your own arranged marriage for Lucas. So why steal my fiancé?”

She slapped me across the face.

“I broke up with that asshole,” she sneered. “And you? You don’t deserve a marriage this good.”

Heartbroken, I left. I was about to get drunk when I found out I was pregnant.

I went to Marco. I asked him what we were going to do.

He held me, kissing me like he wanted to melt into me.

"I'm sorry, Elara. My mother, Sofia, she insisted. She made me marry Isabella. But you're the one I love. We're keeping this baby. Just give me an heir, and I swear I'll divorce Isabella."

I believed him.

For our future, I stayed away from real hospitals. Too many prying eyes. Too many questions.

The day came. I was on a surgical table in a private clinic.

The nurse pulled down her mask. It was Isabella, wearing a triumphant smirk.

She injected something into my IV.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be dead soon. The doctors will say you died from postpartum hemorrhage. As for the baby, it’s your honor that I’m letting him become the future Moretti heir.”

Cold liquid entered my veins, and I felt my life slipping away.

Marco pushed the door open.

He looked at me dying on the table, with no trace of sadness in his eyes.

He held Isabella, a mocking look on his face.

“If Isabella hadn’t become infertile after her miscarriage with Lucas’s baby, I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to have you give birth to this child.”

Only then did I know I was always just a stand-in.

All along, Marco had only ever wanted to be with Isabella.

“Elara! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Marco’s voice snapped me back to the present.

I looked at him. The pain and despair of my past life were gone, replaced by a bone-deep chill.

I thought of the text message I received right after I woke up.

[I can marry you, but you must turn Marco’s wedding into a complete mess.]

A cold smile touched my lips as I spoke.

“Three months ago, in the rose garden, you knelt before me and said I was the only one. You said your heart only had room for me.”

Marco’s face twisted. "Elara, don't make a scene."

"A scene?" I laughed, a bitter, broken sound. I turned to the stunned guests. "Oh, this is more than a scene. This is a story about a liar, a thief, and a man who is about to marry the wrong sister."