He had married me because I had "Valentina's eyes." I was a substitute.
Our unborn child wasn't a product of love. It was a project. A girl he planned to name Elena, after Valentina, calling her a "perfect, tiny piece of the woman I can never truly possess."
I wasn't his wife. I was a stand-in. The love I felt for him didn't just die. It was murdered.
The next morning, I slid a folder across the kitchen island. "Donation forms," I said. He didn't even look before scrawling his signature on what were actually our finalized divorce papers.
His arrogance was my weapon. As he slept beside me that night, smelling of lies and my cousin, I made an appointment at a private clinic. He wanted a legacy?
I would give him nothing.
Chapter 1
Isabella POV:
My perfect marriage ended the moment my father died.
At least, that's when the first crack appeared in the beautiful, gilded cage Don Dante Moretti had built around me. Before that, my life was a fairy tale written in blood and diamonds. I was twenty-four, the wife of the most powerful man in the New York Cosa Nostra, and I believed I was the center of his universe.
Dante was magnetic. He commanded rooms with a glance, his presence a mix of raw power and predatory grace that made men fear him and women desire him. To the world, he was the Don of the Moretti family, a ruthless leader whose empire was built on the bones of his enemies. His name was a weapon. But to me, he was the man who brought me white peonies every week, who traced the line of my jaw with a calloused thumb and whispered that I was his queen.
Our beginning was a whirlwind, a blur of stolen moments in art galleries and passionate nights in his penthouse overlooking the city that was his kingdom. He had pursued me with a relentless intensity that left me breathless. He made me feel seen, cherished, owned. I mistook his possession for love. I wrapped myself in his control and called it safety.
I loved him with a purity that bordered on foolishness. I gave him my body, my heart, and my unwavering trust.
And I was pregnant with his child, our first. The heir to the Moretti throne. I thought we had everything.
Looking back, the signs were there, small and unsettling, like hairline fractures in a masterpiece. The way his eyes would sometimes glaze over when he looked at me, as if he were seeing someone else. The fleeting moments of coldness that would flicker in his gaze before being replaced by that familiar, burning adoration. I dismissed them all. I chose to be blind.
Then my mother's call came, her voice shattering over the phone, thick with a grief so raw it stole the air from my lungs. "Bella... it's your father. His heart... it just gave out."
Panic seized me, cold and suffocating. My father. My gentle, kind father who taught me how to develop my first photograph. Gone. My first instinct was to call Dante. I needed him.
I called his cell. It went straight to voicemail.
I called again. And again. Ten, fifteen, twenty times. Each unanswered ring was a drop of ice water on my skin. His assistant, Luca, was polite but firm. "Mr. Moretti is in an important summit in London. His phone is off. It is the family's rule-Omertà, silence and discretion above all."
For two days, a black hole of silence. For two days, I planned my father's funeral alone, the weight of my grief pressing down on me, on the small life growing inside me.
On the third day, a message buzzed on my phone. It wasn't from Dante. It was from my friend, Chloe. There was no text, just a single image.
It was a candid shot, taken from across a London street. Dante stood outside a high-end restaurant, his head bent low, his lips almost touching the ear of the woman beside him. His hand, the one that wore the heavy gold Moretti family ring, was tangled in her dark, silky hair.
The woman was laughing, her head tilted back in a gesture of pure, unguarded intimacy.
It was my cousin. Valentina Moretti. The family's Consigliere.
The world didn't just crack. It disintegrated. The air turned to glass in my lungs, and every breath was a shard of pain. My perfect life, my perfect husband... it was all a lie.
He finally came home that night, smelling of expensive cologne and transatlantic travel. He wrapped his arms around me, his voice a low murmur against my hair. "My love, I'm so sorry. The summit was a nightmare. My phone died. I came as soon as I heard."
I looked up at his face, the handsome features etched with what I now saw was performative concern. For the first time, I didn't see my husband. I saw a stranger.
The next morning, while he showered, I took a folder from my art portfolio and placed it on the marble kitchen island.
He came out, knotting a silk tie, looking every bit the Don of New York. "What's this?" he asked, glancing at the papers.
"Just the donation forms for the museum's new wing," I said, my voice steady, a stranger's voice. "They need your signature."
He didn't even look at them. He trusted me. He believed in my devotion, my blindness. He picked up a pen, scrawled his powerful signature on the bottom line, and pushed the folder back to me. His arrogance was my only weapon.
"Good girl," he said, and then his hand came to rest on my belly, a warm, heavy weight that made my skin crawl. "We have to take care of our little one. Our legacy."
My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I wandered the cavernous penthouse, a ghost in my own home. I heard him in his study, his voice low and intimate. I crept closer, the thick oak door slightly ajar.
"...I know, Lena," he was saying, his voice softer than I'd ever heard it. "She needed me, but this was more important. Consolidating our hold on the London ports... that's for us."
Lena. The name was a punch to the gut. Valentina's middle name was Elena.
I remembered then, a memory I had buried. Our first meeting. It wasn't a chance encounter at a gallery. Thugs had tried to snatch my camera bag, and out of nowhere, Dante had appeared, a brutal, beautiful savior, dispatching them with cold efficiency. He had orchestrated it. He admitted it later, calling it a grand romantic gesture to get my attention. It wasn't romantic. It was a strategy.
My feet carried me to a part of the study I rarely entered-a small, private annex behind a bookshelf. His safe room. It was unlocked. Inside, the wall wasn't lined with ledgers or weapons. It was a shrine. Dozens of photos of Valentina. Valentina as a girl, as a teenager, as the stunning, powerful woman she was today.
And on his desk, a leather-bound journal. My hands shook as I opened it.
His neat, sharp handwriting filled the page. The entry was dated four years ago, right after we met.
*Her name is Isabella, but she has Valentina's eyes. The same dark fire. When she looks at me, I can pretend it's her. Valentina chose the family over me, she chose power. Fine. I will have it all. I will have the power, and I will have a wife who looks at me with my Lena's eyes.*
I flipped forward, my vision blurring with tears.
*She's pregnant. It must be a girl. We will name her Elena. A perfect, tiny piece of the woman I can never truly possess. She will have her mother's face but Valentina's name. She will be mine.*
The world swam. I stumbled back, my hand flying to my mouth to stifle a sob. I wasn't his wife. I was a substitute. My baby... our baby wasn't a product of love. It was a tool. A proxy for his sick, twisted obsession.
The shock gave way to something else. A cold, hard clarity. The love I felt for him didn't just die. It was murdered.
He wanted a legacy? He wanted a child to be a monument to his obsession?
I pulled out my phone, my fingers moving with a purpose that felt foreign and yet utterly right. I found the number for a private clinic. As he slept beside me, smelling of lies and my cousin, I finalized the appointment. I would give him nothing.
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