From Scratch: A Memoir Of Love, Sicily, And Finding Home

She was the daughter of a monster. He was the man who put a bullet in her father’s skull. Now, they're both trapped in a game of obsession, betrayal, and blood. When Mirabella Belluci escapes her brutal Mafia past in Chicago, she doesn't expect to be hunted by the man who freed her. Giovanni Moretti. He is cold, calculating, and a sworn enemy of her family and is meant to watch her from the shadows. Instead, he watches too closely... and wants too much. But in a world where love is weakness and loyalty is lethal, desire comes at a cost. And the closer they draw to each other, the deeper they sink into a war that could destroy them both. "Obsession is just another kind of loyalty.”

Luciano Everyone thought my wife was dead, but I never stopped searching for her. When I finally found her, the timid young woman I forced to marry me was all gone. In her place was a fiercely independent woman who hated my guts. I might have deserved it. But did it stop me from dragging her, her secret child and her best friend back to New York City with me? Absolutely not. My wife belonged with me and it was time I proved it to her. Grace Life on the run had some benefits. Your mobster husband could no longer use you. Nor could your rotten family who wanted you dead. Instead, I was living my best life ever in a tiny Sicilian village with my son and best friend. Until we were found. My husband dragged us all back, but this time I was determined to fight him. I wouldn’t fall for his charms and hot kisses again because I had so much more to lose this time around. If only my heart would get on board with my plans.

On the day I signed the divorce papers, I was ordered to leave with nothing. When I walked out of the Crane estate, I had twenty-six dollars in my wallet and nowhere safe to go. My phone was nearly dead when a message from an old classmate appeared on the screen, linking to a discreet placement notice. 【Seeking a live-in maternal figure for three children. Room, board, salary, and protection provided.】 I stopped at the word protection. A roof, a meal, and a place the Cranes could not reach me were already more than I had that night. The address led me to the iron gates of an old mansion on Chicago’s Gold Coast. Only after the butler opened the door did I learn who had placed the notice. Dante Bellandi. The Don of Chicago’s oldest Italian crime family. I had only wanted a place to stay. Somehow, I became the legal mother of the three Bellandi children and the contract wife of Dante Bellandi himself. Later, my ex-husband, Sebastian Crane, stood before me with the same careless arrogance and asked, “Do you realize you were wrong now?” Before I could answer, the triplets stepped in front of me. Little Livia clung to my leg, her eyes red. “My mom wasn’t wrong!” Her two brothers stood on either side of her, staring Sebastian down. Dante placed one hand at my waist, his voice calm enough to make the air turn cold. “Mr. Crane, my wife owes no explanation to a man who lost the right to speak to her.”

With a sharp gunshot, my husband of twenty years, Marcus De Luca, rushed in front of me and took the bullet for me. As he lay dying, he spoke gently. “Nerina, live well.” I held him in my arms. My tears kept falling as I pressed hard against the wound in his chest. But he only touched my hair. His eyes fell on Vivian’s body. “She’s dead. I have no reason to live either.” It felt like a bullet had gone through my head. All the blood in my body froze. “She suffered in Sicily for twenty years.” “She finally came back, and now she died in front of me.” “Please stay alive. Bury me with her.” “If there is another life, don’t let her go to Sicily in your place again.” “Please make us whole.” His hand fell. My world collapsed. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in front of Marcus’s father. The old Don looked at me. “Your wedding with Marcus is set for three days from now.” I lifted my head and spoke calmly. “Marcus’s bride should not be me. It should be Vivian.” “As for Sicily, I’ll go.”

Everyone in Palermo knew Alessandro De Luca had a reputation. He was the Boss of the De Luca family, one of the oldest bloodlines in Sicily — a name tied to the port, the courts, and half the construction contracts in Palermo. Wealth, power, discipline—those things were expected. Romance was not. He didn’t chase women, and he never went back to the same one twice. Until me. When we broke up after a brutal argument, he did something no De Luca had done in generations—he stood outside the gates of the Moretti estate, my family home, for an entire day and night. I watched from behind the curtains and never opened the door. The next day, he came inside the estate kitchen himself. Alessandro De Luca, who grew up surrounded by servants, tried to cook my favorite seafood pasta with his own hands. He burned the sauce. I threw it away without tasting it. On the third day, he found the necklace my grandmother had left me—something my uncle had sold years ago—and bought it back, paying far more than it was worth, just to return it to me. At a formal family dinner, in front of elders and allies, he made it clear: No more women. Only me. It took him a year to win me back. That summer, fireworks lit up the Palermo coastline as he announced our engagement. I believed he had chosen me. Until the night of a private gathering at an old harbor estate. A young woman was being pulled forward in the middle of the courtyard, her dress torn at the shoulder, tears running down her face. Alessandro went still. Then he stood up. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t explain. He just walked toward her. And something inside me went cold. I rested my hand over my abdomen. There was something I hadn’t told him yet. He broke his word that night. So I broke mine.

On the third anniversary of our engagement, my fiancé—Dominic Corleone, heir to one of the most powerful Mafia dynasties in New York—told me he was not ready to form a new family so that our wedding would have to postpone. I told myself to wait for some time, the bond between the Corleones and the Valentinos—our families’ sacred alliance—would hold us together. But what followed were his endless betrayals and tortures. I walked into a bridal boutique and saw him laughing with Liliane, the childhood friend who always lingered too close. I watched him destroy the wedding gown I had spent months designing—then crush my hand beneath his heel until it bled. And when I thought I had hit rock bottom, he proved I was wrong—by getting behind the wheel and running me down. He thought I’d beg and cling to him, terrified of losing the Corleone name and privilege that came with it. But instead, I made one phone call and insisted firmly on canceling the engagement. However, that call didn’t just end a marriage arrangement. It unearthed a secret that had been buried for over a decade…and turned a marriage born of duty into a story of dark devotion.