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The Don's Unwanted Prize
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-05-26
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“King of the North,” he hissed, checking the device. He already expected me to betray him. He’d hated me ever since my twin, Enzo, outed me in middle school. I could still feel the sting of his spit on my face from that day. “Come on, pretty son,” he smiled. “Let’s get you married.” I put on my Ray-Bans. I wasn’t Luca anymore. I was a mask. I walked down the stairs with a fake swagger, hiding the pain in my chest with every dancey step. To unite the fractured syndicates of Chicago, a marriage is arranged. The groom? Silas Vane, the ruthless, cold-blooded “King of the North,” who is 45 and widowed. The other groom? Lucas De Santis, the 22-year-old reckless partying son of the southern boss, viewed as a pawn and a liability by his own father. Silas expects a brat to ignore. Luca expects a monster to fear.
Lihat lebih banyakBab 1
Ch 1: Lucas De Santis
01:18 PM. The numbers on the clock burned my retinas like a countdown to an execution. Today was the day I stopped being a person and started being a peace treaty.
I rolled out of my bed, a massive, silk-sheeted island that suddenly felt like a coffin. My head throbbed, a brutal reminder of the cheap liquor I’d used to try and drown out the sunrise. It hadn’t worked. It never worked.
“Luca! Are you up?” Tatiana’s voice sliced through my skull.
“Stop screaming, Tati,” I groaned, shielding my eyes. My sister pushed into the room, her eyes full of that suffocating pity I hated.
“Father wants you sorted,” she whispered.
“Like he cares,” I snapped, the bitterness sharp in my throat. “He’s just happy to finally sell off the unwanted son.”
I walked into the bathroom, catching my reflection. I looked like a ghost. This war with the North had turned us all into monsters or corpses. My father, Don De Santis, had ‘solved’ it with this marriage. A genius move for him; a life sentence for me.
“Lucas. If you mess this up, you’ll wish you were never born.”
My father’s voice was a cold blade at my neck. He stood in the doorway, his shadow stretching across the room like a predator.
I recoiled, my skin crawling as Tatiana scurried away. He didn’t look at me with love; he looked at me like a product he hoped wouldn’t break before the sale.
Once he left, I retreated to the shower, turning the water hot enough to scald. I wanted to wash the ‘South’ off me, to burn away the horror of the day before it even began.
When I stepped out, a beige suit waited on the bed. Beside it, a note from Tati and my “favorite” hidden in the vanity drawer: Xanax. I didn’t take one. I took two. I washed them down with a swig of wine, waiting for the chemical fog to settle the screaming in my nerves.
Just as the numbness started to bleed in, my father burst back in. No knock. No respect. He grabbed me, turning me around roughly. He wasn’t checking my tie; he was checking for the wire he’d forced me to wear.
“King of the North,” he hissed, checking the device. He already expected me to betray him. He’d hated me ever since my twin, Enzo, outed me in middle school. I could still feel the sting of his spit on my face from that day.
“Come on, pretty son,” he smiled. “Let’s get you married.”
I put on my Ray-Bans. I wasn’t Luca anymore. I was a mask. I walked down the stairs with a fake swagger, hiding the pain in my chest with every dancey step.
The drive to the church was a blur of black SUVs and cold dread. When the doors opened, the air left my lungs. Silas Vane stood at the altar in charcoal black. He was a statue of ice and power. At 6’5”, he towered over my 5’1” frame.
He looked at me like a wolf watching a wounded deer. I looked at him and could swear he smirked.
He smirked. My legs buckled; half from the drugs, half from the sheer, terrifying gravity of the man waiting to own me.
The priest spoke, but I only heard the silence of the crowd.
“If anyone has an objection…”
A cough echoed from the back. In a flash, Silas didn’t turn to look; he drew his gun at the altar and aimed it at the heart of the crowd.
Bab terbaru
The Don's Unwanted Prize Ch 16: Tatiana De Santis
I stood in the centre of the room, my feet sinking into a rug that felt like it was woven from the clouds themselves. It was soft. Too soft. Where I’m from, floors were hard, cracked tiles, or wood that groaned if you put a pound of weight on it. In the South, you wanted the floor to speak to you; you wanted to know if someone was coming. Here, the silence was a weight, a thick, suffocating one that seemed designed to swallow a person whole. I didn’t move for a long time. I just breathed, feeling the clean, filtered air of the North burn in my lungs. It didn’t smell like the docks. It didn’t smell like the metallic tang of blood or the sour, fermented scent of my father’s brandy. It smelled of nothing. Or perhaps, it smelled of money. I looked at my hands. They were trembling, a vibration that I couldn’t suppress, no matter how hard I clenched my fists. I wasn’t afraid of Elizabeth Gable, though the woman looked like she had been carved out of ice, and I wasn’t afraid of Silas Vane.
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-05-26The Don's Unwanted Prize Ch 15: Elizabeth Gable
The Vane Estate was a temple built to the god of Silence, and I was its high priestess. I stood at the base of the grand staircase, my hand resting lightly on the cold mahogany rail. Outside, the midday sun was a pale, sickly thing, struggling to pierce the thick Chicago fog that clung to the North Side like a shade.Upstairs, the master suite was a monument of high-end medical equipment and the artificial hiss of an oxygen concentrator. Silas was there, anchored to the bedside of a boy who had spent most of his life as a ghost and was now threatening to become a permanent one. I checked my watch, a vintage Cartier that kept time with unforgiving precision. Silas had told me she was coming. He had spoken of the ‘other’ De Santis with the same detached pragmatism he used to discuss shipping manifests or municipal bribes. But I knew better. In this world, there were no simple additions. There were only complications. “The transport is at the gate, Ms. Gable,” Miller’s voice crackled
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-05-12The Don's Unwanted Prize Ch 14: Silas Vane
The first dawn of the war was grey, and cold. I stood by the window of the suite, watching the light crawl across the choppy surface of Lake Michigan. Behind me, the steady, rhythmic hiss-click of the oxygen concentrator was the only heartbeat this house needed.I turned my head slightly. Luca was a pale indentation in the charcoal sheets, his chest rising and falling in a dance dictated by the machine. He looked small.“The doctor says his vitals are holding,” Aunt Gable’s voice came from the doorway. She was dressed in a maroon silk, her eyes tracking the IV line running into Luca’s bruised arm. “But the Board is calling, Silas. They saw him fall. They want to know if the alliance is a sinking ship.&rdquo
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-05-12The Don's Unwanted Prize Ch 13: Silas Vane
As I caught him, the ballroom didn’t just go silent; it turned into a hunting ground. The boy felt like a handful of dry leaves in my arms; weightless, brittle, and ready to scatter into the wind. I could hear the sharp intake of breath from the Board members, the rustle of silk as the vultures leaned in, and the click-click-click of shutters from the back of the room. They weren’t looking for a tragedy; they were looking for a crack in the Vane empire. “The Prince has had a bit too much excitement for one night,” I said, my voice projecting a calm, terrifying authority that sliced through the murmurs. I didn’t look at them.“Oliver, see to the guests. The party continues. My husband has simply forgotten that the North Side air is thinner than the filth he’s used to.”I didn’t wait for a response. I turned and strode to the private elevator, my grip on him so tight I could feel the irregular, stuttering pulse beneath his ribs. It was chaotic. Don’t you dare, I thought, my jaw locki
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2026-05-12
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