All Chapters of A Substitute Bride For The Mafia Boss: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

~Valentina~--------------------------------There’s a moment between lightning and thunder. A pause. A breath. A warning.I lived in that moment now.Everything Alessandro said, did, didn’t say especially what he didn’t say dripped with the weight of that pause. He watched me like a man watching a fuse burn, not knowing if he should snuff it or run.But the thing he didn’t understand?I was both.The flame.And the explosion.I didn’t sleep that night. I walked the halls barefoot, shadows trailing behind me like servants. The estate had changed. The silence had teeth. The rooms felt colder, sharper, like the walls themselves knew we were unraveling.And then I found it.A voicemail.Not on Alessandro’s phone. Not on mine.On the burner device we used when Rome turned to ash.The one only he and I knew existed.It was hidden in the drawer of his desk, under a file labeled future properties. I wasn’t snooping. Not really. I was... searching.And the voicemail? It played like poison.A

AlessandroThey say the most dangerous man in the room is the one who speaks the least.Good.Because lately, I’ve been silent as a coffin.While Valentina wages her war in whispers and Lorenzo builds his lies with polished hands, I’ve been setting the board. Quietly. Brutally.This isn’t just about protecting my empire anymore.This is about reclaiming the pieces of myself I buried to love her.And dragging Lorenzo into the hell he tried to build for us."Is she secure?"Rico nodded. "The nurse gave up everything. Every lie she was told, every bribe she took. She confirmed it, boss. Lorenzo made her falsify both test results. The real paternity report... confirms it’s yours. Without a shadow of a doubt."I exhaled slowly."She told anyone else?""No. She was too scared. He threatened to carve her tongue out and ship it to her sister.""Good. We keep her scared. But protected. And hidden. Until I say otherwise."To: Giovanni, Salvatore, Don Torelli, Don Merezzo Subject: Private Assemb

AlessandroThe council chamber still stinks of Lorenzo’s voice.Even hours later, I can feel the venom he left behind clinging to the walls like smoke after gunfire. Valentina sleeps in the next room, curled around the bump of our child like a soldier guarding a kingdom.She has no idea what I’m about to do. Not because I don’t trust her because I want her to survive.Survival means secrets now.I lock the chamber behind me and descend into the vaults. Hidden files. Burn phones. Blueprints etched in blood, not ink. Lorenzo was arrogant enough to call his final operation “Project Cerberus.”But he doesn’t realize I know about the backup plan.I reach for the safe. My fingerprint unlocks the first level. A retinal scan for the second. And inside, coiled like a snake waiting to strike, is the flash drive Lorenzo never wanted me to see.Encrypted. Ancient. Marked with our father’s sigil.I plug it into the offline terminal.Footage. Documents. A logbook of council bribes. Not just this de

ValentinaThe aftermath of fire is never silence.It's ash. Creaking timber. And the echo of things that almost ended you.For the first time in months, the estate was quiet. No screaming men. No hidden spies. No blood drying under the fingernails of power-hungry cowards.Just morning.And the weight of everything I had survived.Lorenzo was gone.Not dead. Not quite defeated. But buried in the kind of cell that eats time like rats eat through corpses.It should have felt like peace.But peace is not something you inherit in this world.You build it. With blade and grief and truth.And sometimes, with motherhood.I walked through the garden barefoot. The same one that had once been the battlefield of my panic. Now, the vines were growing back. The roses, carefully tended by Rosa, had begun to bloom again.So had I.The pregnancy had taken on a rhythm. Less nausea. More hunger. Less dread. More wonder.I could feel him more now. Our son.He kicked when Alessandro touched my skin. When

Alessandro watched from the balcony as the first convoy rolled into sight: blacked out SUVs carrying men whose faces he’d never seen but whose loyalty was unquestionable. Under his command, they’d done things that would turn day into nightmares and tonight, they moved on his word.He had summoned them not to terrify the city, but to protect his future. Each one carried coded instructions, sealed under wax bearing his crest. This wasn't an act of war — it was an act of survival.He descended the marble staircase into the courtyard, the moonlight turning his footsteps into a promise. Valentina met him there, cheekbones radiant in the soft glow of the lanterns. Her gown whispered silk against stone.“They’re ready,” he said, voice low and certain. He held out the activation signal: a folded note she recognized from the council meeting.She scanned it and nodded, fear and resolve flickering in her eyes. “Let’s bury him tonight.”He laid a hand on her waist, drawing her to his side. “We bu