LOGINShe was supposed to be dead. Seven years ago, Aria Moretti vanished the night her entire mafia family was slaughtered in a coordinated massacre that shook New York to its core. The world mourned the loss of the Moretti empire. Her enemies celebrated. Everyone assumed the sheltered nineteen year old princess had burned with the rest of them. They were wrong. Aria survived pregnant, alone, and running for her life. She fled to Lagos, gave birth in hiding, and spent seven years becoming someone her father never allowed her to be: dangerous. Now she’s back. Not for closure. Not for peace. For revenge. But the moment she steps foot in Manhattan, she collides with the one man she never expected to see again Dante Russo, the soldier she loved and was forced to betray to survive. He’s no longer the loyal soldier from her father’s organization. He’s a self-made billionaire by day and the city’s most powerful crime lord by night. Ruthless. Untouchable. Still devastatingly attractive. He demands she marry him. Not for love for survival. Dante needs a wife to legitimize his expansion into international markets. Aria needs his protection and access to his network to hunt her family’s killer. Six months. One contract. No feelings. No lies. Except Aria is hiding the biggest lie of all.
View MoreDante didn’t sleep.Instead, he pulled every file the Commission had ever compiled. Personnel records. Genealogies. Financial transactions. Family trees going back generations he needed to understand and see beyond what the council had seen to better understand how to take over.Marco worked beside him, cross-referencing bloodlines with Commission databases.Gianna researched decades of Commission history, trying to understand what connected the three families Antonio needed.“It’s not magic,” Gianna said, laying out her findings. “It’s leverage. The three families Moretti, Russo, Chen they connect to different power bases in the underworld. The Moretti family controlled port operations and money laundering. The Russo family controlled the Eastern European networks. The Chen family…”She pulled up a file.“The Chen family controlled the Asian networks,” Gianna said. “Import/export, smuggling, currency exchange. With all three family connections consolidated, one person would control t
Elena made the call at 9:47 PM.Dante watched her from the study, monitoring the conversation through encrypted audio. Marco was tracking the call’s destination. Gianna was identifying every operative who received movement orders in response.Elena’s voice was steady. Professional. Devoid of the grandmother performance.“It’s compromised,” Elena said into the phone. “Russo knows everything. He knows about me. He knows about the three-day timeline. He knows about the ritual. He’s planning to expose you to federal authorities by morning.”There was silence on the other end.Then Antonio’s voice came through, and it was different than Dante had ever heard it. Not calm. Not controlled.Afraid.“I know he knows about you, Are you certain?” Antonio asked.“I’m certain,” Elena said. “He confronted me directly. He knows I’m your operative. He’s offering me a deal to turn state’s evidence against you.”“Did you accept?” Antonio asked.“I’m calling you instead,” Elena said. “But I don’t have mu
Dante found Elena in the study alone.She was holding a photograph of Aria as a child. The real photograph. The one that would only exist if someone had given it to her."That's a beautiful picture," Dante said.Elena turned, and her expression didn't change."It is," Elena said. "Aria was such a happy child before the massacre, she had a beautiful life we gave her.. and we wanted things different for her.."It was a test. An opening. A small confession hidden in a mundane statement.Dante closed the door."You're very good at deciet," he said.Elena set the photograph down carefully."Thank you," she said."But not good enough," Dante said.She smiled then. A real smile. Not the grandmother smile. The operative smile."No," Elena said. "I suppose not. But then again, you're Dante Russo. Supposedly three steps ahead of everyone. So perhaps I was designed to be found.""Were you?" Dante asked."Perhaps," Elena said. She sat down. "Or perhaps I wanted to be found. It's hard to know anym
Dante studied Elena Moretti across the dining table and couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply, fundamentally wrong.She was Aria's mother. She had the right face, the right mannerisms, the right memories. She knew details about Aria's childhood that only a parent would know.But something didn't fit.The questions circled in Dante's mind like vultures.Why now? After twenty-three years of hiding, why reveal herself at Hope's birthday party? Why that specific moment? How did she know to be there?How had she survived a massacre that left blood everywhere? How had she escaped without anyone seeing her? How had she stayed hidden in a city where Dante's operatives monitored everything?The timeline didn't work. The logistics didn't work. The physics of survival didn't work.And when Dante tried to trace backwards where had Elena been for twenty-three years? What countries? What aliases? What proof of life? the answers became vague. Evasive."I moved around," Elena had said






Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.
reviews