All Chapters of Reborn To Win Their Bloody Bet: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

Two of New York’s most powerful Cosa Nostra dons, Vincent Luciano and Nick Valentino, made a brutal wager over me.The terms were simple: whoever won my heart first would win the right to marry Seraphina Moretti, the sole heir to the Moretti crime syndicate.The ruthless Vincent swept me into his Fifth Avenue penthouse, lavishing me with luxuries all of New York would kill for. Cold, reserved Nick played the lovesick fool, kneeling beneath the moonlight over the Hudson to swear he’d give me a safe life, free from this world’s bloodshed and chaos.I said yes. But the second we stepped into Vincent’s oak-paneled study, Nick’s warmth turned frigid. “Vincent, we had a deal. I’ve won the Moretti marriage.”In my past life, I was discarded by both men, betrayed by my family, and left to die of a forced heroin overdose. Now I’ve been reborn.And this time, I still said yes to Nick’s proposal...But everything would be totally different....Nick knelt on one knee before me, a custom-made

Chapter 2

Vincent’s eyebrow lifted. My quiet compliance only seemed to stoke the malice in him. He stepped toward me, staring down with ice-cold contempt.“Every meal, every dress, every night under my roof was mine. You’ll pay it back. Or I’ll send you to the family’s detention facility.”I saw it clearly: the rage of a man who’d lost the bet, desperately trying to take his frustration out on the easiest target he could find.The game piece that hadn’t broken the way he’d expected.I’d been stupid enough to think a poor Brooklyn immigrant’s daughter could win the hearts of New York’s most powerful Cosa Nostra dons.Now I knew every soft word, every gentle touch, had been nothing but an act.My throat tightened, but I held his gaze, my voice steady.“Don Luciano. You once promised me anything I wanted, no matter what it was. Does that promise still stand?”Six months earlier, rival hitmen had ambushed us at an Italian restaurant in Little Italy.I’d thrown myself in front of him, taken a bulle

Chapter 3

I slowly lowered my hand, and for the first time since I’d woken up reborn, tears spilled down my cheeks.In my past life, the second my family found out I’d been cast aside by New York’s two most powerful Cosa Nostra dons, Vincent and Nick, they locked me out.Terrified of ruining their cushy life by crossing the two men, they shoved me on a Greyhound bound for a dead-end upstate town, left me there to die, and turned a blind eye when the hitmen came for me.I still remembered my father and grandmother clasping my hands before I’d left for Vincent’s penthouse, promising, “Leah, if they ever hurt you, come home.” Now I was home, and they wouldn’t even open the door. I stayed there to sear this betrayal into my soul, and swear to never trust anyone again.Maybe they heard me crying in the snow. The door finally swung open. My father stood there, face cold with rage. “Do you know what trouble you’ve brought us? The dons have turned on us because of you! Why can’t you just die, instea

Chapter 4

I twisted around, meeting Nick’s warning glare, and calmly pulled my wrist free. My voice was flat. “Relax, Don. I won’t breathe a word of anything I shouldn’t. Everything that happened before? It dies with me. We’ll act like we never met.”Then he snarled out a warning before climbing into the Rolls-Royce ahead of me and settling in the seat beside Seraphina. “Behave yourself. We have your family in our hands. If Seraphina so much as gets a scratch, you and your entire family die.”The ice in his gaze sent a chill straight through my bones.The ride to the Moretti’s estate in Chicago passed in silence. I followed them up the tree-lined drive.After I walked Seraphina to her suite, Nick turned to leave, pausing only to glance back at me with an unreadable, conflicted look before he vanished down the hall. I bowed my head, turning toward the kitchen, when a pair of arms wrapped gently around my waist from behind. Seraphina was taller even than me, her chest warm against my back, a

Chapter 5

The two men, seconds from lunging forward in a blind rage, froze dead in their tracks. Nick clamped a hand around his knife-pierced wrist, blood seeping through his fingers and dripping onto the linoleum. The gentle, lovesick mask he’d worn for five long years shattered to pieces, leaving only a murderous, seething rage burning in his eyes.Vincent’s hand locked white-knuckled around the grip of his Beretta 92 at his hip, his face thunderous as he stared the figure down, every word dripping with lethal venom. “Seraphina. You’ve been playing us for goddamn fools for five fucking years?”They’d blown half the wealth of New York City chasing this face, never once suspecting that the face they’d torn each other apart over masked a lie this devastating.The figure before them reached up, ripped off the long wig, and tossed it carelessly onto the cold kitchen tiles.“There never was a Seraphina Moretti, no daughter of the Moretti Family. Not once. There’s only ever been Ray Moretti. I was

Chapter 6

But Ray’s hand shot out, closing firmly around my wristHis jaw set, his gaze unflinching, every word ringing with raw, unshakable sincerity. “I’m a man. Always have been. Five years ago, the Luciano and Valentino Families were set to swallow the Moretti name whole. So I faked my death, created Seraphina, told the world she was the late Ray Moretti’s younger sister. I’ve spent five years in the shadows, biding my time, building this empire. Now? Those two Families think twice before they so much as make a wrong move against the Moretti family.”I nodded numbly at his explanation, my mind still reeling. Even so, I was still set on leaving. This cutthroat underworld wasn’t a place for a girl like me, a regular nobody who’d already died once for getting caught up in it. But Ray tightened his grip on my wrist, just enough to hold me in place.“Leah… I know I owe you more apologies than I can ever say. I noticed you the second that stupid bet was made. But back then, the Moretti Family

Chapter 7

For five years, Ray had built and commanded the most elite private army in North America’s underworld, the family name spoken with equal parts fear and respect across every coast. Even with all their rage and power, Nick and Vincent couldn’t afford to cross him, not without starting a war.At that, Nick’s face darkened further, but he forced down the volcanic rage boiling inside him. When he spoke to me again, his voice was soft, honeyed, the same tone he’d used to lure me in once before. “Leah, come back to New York with me. Anything you want, the Valentino Family will give it to you. The world is yours.”Vincent shot him a look of stunned disbelief, then stepped forward quickly, his voice holding a note of compromise no one had ever heard from the ruthless don before. “The bet is off. Marry me. Be the only donna of the Luciano Family. Every underground casino in Philadelphia is yours. I’ll give you the safety, the quiet life you’ve always wanted.”The woman they’d obsessed over f

Chapter 8

They never understood what love was. Not really. All they knew was the fight, the game, the con. They saw the whole world as nothing but a wager to be won, and every living person in it as nothing but a chip to be played, then tossed aside when it no longer served their purpose.As that thought settled in my chest, the weight of two lifetimes of grief, rage and bitterness that had been crushing me finally lifted, fading away into nothing. Those two men weren’t worth the hate I’d carried for them across two lives. They weren’t worth a single second more of my time. In this life, I’d only ever wanted one thing: to live in peace, to be free of the fate of being someone else’s pawn.I turned to face Ray, and a memory from five years ago flashed through my mind, sharp and clear. I’d only just immigrated to New York from Italy with my parents, working as a kitchen hand in a dive restaurant on the Brooklyn docks to make ends meet. That night, I’d not only stumbled on the ambush in the

Chapter 9

Ray froze for a moment, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, and whispered so softly I almost didn’t hear it. “Thank God. This time, I wasn’t too late.”In that single sentence, I knew. I wasn’t the only one who’d been reborn. I wasn’t the only one who’d lived this once before.In his past life, he’d been too late. He’d stormed into that fleabag motel with his men, guns blazing, only to find me already gone. My arms were covered in needle marks, my body cold as ice. He’d lost his mind that day. He’d hunted Nick and Vincent to the ends of the earth, burned their casinos to the ground, blown up their warehouses, sunk their shipping fleets. In the end, he’d gone down with them, all three of them sinking to the bottom of the icy Chicago Harbor. His last thought, the only thing on his mind as he’d drowned, was that if he ever got a second chance, he’d find me sooner. He’d save me.The fear that had been eating at him, the terror that he’d lose me to those two men’s lies all over a

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