Chapter 1

I handed my husband an empire. Five years later, he repaid me by getting another woman pregnant. Then, he killed our child to save hers.

But he didn’t know who the hell he actually married. I wasn’t just a trophy wife he could discard. I was a DeLuca. A princess of the underworld. And we don't bleed without making someone pay.

It started with a scent.

Not my Chanel No. 5. But something cheap, cloying, like vanilla trying too hard to be seductive.

I picked up Lucca’s suit jacket from the floor. My fingers brushed the cuff of his white shirt, and there it was. A faint smear of lipstick. Crimson. The color of fresh blood.

I don’t wear red lipstick. Lucca always said it was "trashy," fit for streetwalkers, not the wife of a Moretti.

Apparently, he had developed a taste for trash.

My gut twisted, a primal warning siren screaming in my head. A woman always knows.

I dropped the jacket like it was infected and marched to the garage. Lucca claimed he was out on "urgent family business," which meant he usually took a driver. That left his prized Maserati behind.

I yanked open the driver's side door.

And there, sitting innocently on the passenger seat, lay a pair of black lace panties.

A thong. Crotchless.

My vision blurred. Not my size. Definitely not my style.

"Bastard..."

My hand shook as I reached for them. The cheap satin felt slick between my fingers. They were still warm.

Lucca Moretti and I had been married for five years. When I fell for him, my parents—the heads of the New York DeLuca crime family—warned me. They said the Morettis were second-rate. They said Lucca didn't have the spine to be a Don.

But I was a fool in love. I traded my crown in New York for a wedding ring in Chicago.

I used my mind, my connections, and my family’s shadow influence to help him crush his rivals. I built him up from a joke into a contender.

For what? So he could defile our marriage bed with a cheap fling?

I threw the panties back onto the leather seat, slammed the car door so hard the windows rattled, and dialed his number.

"Alessia, make it quick," Lucca’s voice answered, impatient and cold.

"Where are you?" I fought to keep my voice steady, though my knuckles were white around the phone.

"Important deal. The docks. You know how busy I am."

Lies.

"Where exactly?"

Silence. Then, a hesitation. "The Onyx Lounge. I'm meeting investors in the VIP wing."

The Onyx Lounge. His casino. His private kingdom.

"Okay."

I hung up. I wasn't going to cry. I was going to burn his kingdom down.

Forty minutes later, I stormed into the lobby of The Onyx Lounge. The place reeked of desperate money and stale smoke.

"Mrs. Moretti!" The doorman scrambled to intercept me. "Mr. Moretti gave orders not to be—"

I walked right past him, my heels clicking like gunshots on the marble floor. "I don't care about his orders."

I went straight to the private elevator. My heart was hammering against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. Part of me prayed I was crazy. Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe the panties were a plant.

But when the elevator doors slid open on the penthouse floor, I heard it.

Laughter. Her laughter.

I followed the sound to the VIP suite at the end of the hall. The door was slightly ajar.

"When is Lucca finally going to ditch that frigid nun of a wife? He told me I'm the only one who knows how to handle him."

The voice was sickly sweet, dripping with venom.

I kicked the door open.

A blonde woman was lounging on Lucca’s leather sofa, her feet up on the coffee table. She was wearing a dress so tight it looked painted on—crimson, matching the lipstick stain on his cuff.

She saw me and stood up, not an ounce of shame in her eyes. She was younger than me. Prettier, in a plastic, predatory way.

"You must be Alessia." She smirked. "I'm Valerie. I've seen your picture on our nightstand."

Our nightstand.

Nausea rolled through me.

Valerie walked to the bar, pouring herself a glass of Lucca’s private reserve champagne. "He says you’re boring in bed. Says he can’t even get hard looking at you anymore."

The rage that had been simmering in my gut finally boiled over.

"Shut your mouth."

"Oh, the nun has claws?" Valerie raised her glass in a mock toast. "To your marriage, darling. Or what's left of the wreckage."

I didn't think. I just moved.

I snatched the glass from her hand and splashed the champagne directly into her face.

"You bitch!" Valerie shrieked, stumbling back.

But she didn't just stumble. She threw herself backward, crashing into the glass liquor cabinet behind her.

CRASH.

The sound of shattering crystal ripped through the air.

And then, blood. So much blood.

Valerie lay in a pile of broken glass, her arms sliced open. The red wine from the broken bottles mixed with the blood, soaking her dress. She curled into a ball, clutching her stomach.

"My baby!" Valerie screamed, her voice piercing. "She pushed me! Help! She's killing my baby!"

My blood ran cold. Baby?

I froze. "Are you insane? I barely touched you!"

"Help! Lucca!" she wailed, writhing on the floor.

The chaos was deafening. And then, a roar cut through the noise.

"Alessia, are you out of your mind?!"