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I woke from a five-year coma not to the faces of my family, but to my own death certificate. It was signed by my parents and my fiancé, Dante Moretti, the most ruthless Don in our world. He had sworn on his father's grave to wait for me. Instead, he replaced me with Sienna-the very woman who put me in that hospital bed. My own son, Luca, looked at me with cold, unfamiliar eyes. "You're not my mother," he sneered, hiding behind the woman who wore my face. My parents rushed to shield her, not me. "You must understand the bigger picture," my father said. "We did what was necessary for the Famiglia." But the final betrayal came after Sienna pushed me off a bridge and needed a blood transfusion. My own parents signed the consent form to use my blood, and my fiancé gave the order. "Save her," he snarled. The nurse told me they were ordered to "discard the blood bag after use." As if I were trash. I walked out of that hospital, a ghost in my own life. I took the new identity my old professor offered and vanished. This time, I wouldn't be Elara Bianchi, the tragic fiancée. I would build an empire of my own.
Contents
Chapter 1
I woke from a five-year coma not to the faces of my family, but to my own death certificate.
It was signed by my parents and my fiancé, Dante Moretti, the most ruthless Don in our world. He had sworn on his father's grave to wait for me. Instead, he replaced me with Sienna-the very woman who put me in that hospital bed.
My own son, Luca, looked at me with cold, unfamiliar eyes.
"You're not my mother," he sneered, hiding behind the woman who wore my face.
My parents rushed to shield her, not me. "You must understand the bigger picture," my father said. "We did what was necessary for the Famiglia."
But the final betrayal came after Sienna pushed me off a bridge and needed a blood transfusion. My own parents signed the consent form to use my blood, and my fiancé gave the order. "Save her," he snarled.
The nurse told me they were ordered to "discard the blood bag after use." As if I were trash.
I walked out of that hospital, a ghost in my own life. I took the new identity my old professor offered and vanished. This time, I wouldn't be Elara Bianchi, the tragic fiancée. I would build an empire of my own.
Chapter 1
Elara POV:
The first thing I saw after waking from a five-year coma wasn't my name, but my death certificate, signed by my fiancé and my own parents.
The government clerk in the Swiss office slid the paper across the counter, her expression a study in bureaucratic indifference. "Elara Bianchi was declared legally deceased on October 12th, five years ago."
My hands trembled. The name felt foreign on my tongue, the ghost of a person I no longer was. "That's impossible. I'm right here."
She tapped a line on the form. "The applicants for the death certificate were Marco and Isabella Bianchi."
My parents.
A chill, profound and invasive, washed over me. I had to grip the counter to keep from collapsing.
"And the signatory witness," she continued, her voice a flat monotone, "was Dante Moretti."
Dante. The Don of the Moretti Famiglia. The most powerful man in our world, a ruthless king carved from marble and violence, his empire built on the bones of his enemies. My fiancé. The man who swore on his father's grave that he would wait for me.
The memory didn't just return; it slammed into me with the force of the crash itself. The screech of tires. The sickening crunch of metal against bone. I had thrown myself in front of that car, taking the hit that was meant for him. For my Don.
"Is there anything else?" the clerk asked, her gaze already drifting past me.
"His... his wife," I managed to whisper, the words tasting like ash. "Who is Dante Moretti's wife?"
She clicked a few keys. "Sienna Vance."
Sienna. The name was a phantom, but the face that flashed through my memory was a terrifyingly familiar specter-my own. It was the face of the woman driving the car that put me in this bed for five years. She wasn't just some rival's asset. She was my replacement.
The betrayal wasn't a sharp pain. It was a slow, creeping cold that settled deep in my chest, freezing everything it touched.
Somehow, I made it back to the sterile, off-the-books clinic that had become my prison. Dante's call finally came. His voice was the same low, possessive purr that used to make my heart race. "Ellie, my love. You're awake."
He told me to stay put. He said it was for my safety, that things were complicated. He never mentioned Sienna. He never mentioned my death certificate. He just spun a web of smooth, calculated words, the same way he always had.
I remembered the whispers I'd overheard from the nurses during my recovery-whispers of the devoted Don, a man grieving his lost love, a man who kept his comatose fiancée alive against all odds. It was all a lie. A beautifully constructed performance for the world.
That night, unable to bear the sterile white walls a moment longer, I slipped out. I found my way back to the city, to the towering walls of the Moretti estate. And there, in the shadows of the garden where he had first proposed, I saw him. He had a woman pinned to the ancient stone, kissing her, his hands lost in her dark hair.
It was Sienna. It was my face.
Later, he found me. He fed me a story so insane it could only be true in our world of blood and curses. He claimed a rival had placed a curse on him, a poison that only Sienna, for some mystical reason, could act as an antidote for. He showed me a thin, white scar on his wrist, a mark of his supposed suffering. He said his marriage to her was a sham, a form of Vendetta to keep his enemy close until he could destroy her handlers.
Shattered and desperate, I chose to believe him. Because believing in a curse, no matter how insane, was less painful than accepting the simple, brutal truth: he had replaced me. I let him install me in the Moretti estate, not as his queen, but as a "governess" to our son, Luca. It was there, in his office, that I found the original document. The death certificate, signed in my father's familiar script and Dante's bold, arrogant hand.
My world, already cracked, didn't just shatter. It atomized.
I went to my childhood home, the Bianchi mansion. The place was lit up, music spilling from the windows. I walked in to find my family-my mother, my father-gathered around a cake. They were singing "Happy Birthday."
To Sienna.
She stood there, glowing, a perfect replica of me. And clinging to her leg was my son, Luca. My baby. He looked at me with cold, unfamiliar eyes.
"Who's that?" he asked Sienna, his voice loud in the sudden silence.
Sienna's smile was a masterpiece of feigned innocence. "That's... a guest, my love."
"She looks like a ghost," Luca said, hiding his face in Sienna's dress. Then he looked back at me, his small face twisted in a sneer. "You're not my mother."
My own parents rushed forward, not to comfort me, but to shield Sienna. "Elara, what are you doing here?" my mother hissed. "You're making a scene."
My father's face was hard. "We had to preserve the alliance, Elara. You must understand the bigger picture. We did what was necessary for the Famiglia."
They had chosen power over their own flesh and blood. My return wasn't a miracle. It was an inconvenience.
In a single night, I had lost my love, my son, my parents, and my name. I was a ghost in my own life.
As I walked away from the hollow echo of their laughter, my phone buzzed. It was a number I hadn't seen in years. Julian de Marco. My old architecture professor from university.
"Elara," his voice was calm, steady, but with an undercurrent of urgency. "I heard you were back. I have a position for you, on the international team for the new Port City project. If you want it."
A lifeline. A way out.
I made my decision in the cold, dark street. The life of the Famiglia was over. From now on, I would build a life that was mine and mine alone.
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