Jilted By The Don: The Heiress Awakens

I bled beside Dominic for ten years, helping him rise from a scarred street soldier to the most feared Mafia Don in the city.

But on the day I planned to tell him about the eight-week-old heartbeat inside me, he canceled our wedding to marry an eighteen-year-old girl.

He told me he craved her innocence, untouched by the filth of our business.

His new bride faked an injury to frame me. Without hesitation, Dominic stripped me of my ring and threw me into a freezing underground cell.

Days later, they dragged me out and forced me to chug raw moonshine to prove my submission to his new Queen.

The liquid fire tore through my starved stomach. I collapsed and miscarried our baby in a pool of blood right in front of them.

Even then, his new wife laughed, pointing at my dying body.

"She is using hidden blood packs to manipulate you! She was never pregnant!"

Ten years of absolute loyalty and two previous miscarriages on the run, all rewarded with this deadly poison.

He walked away, leaving me to die on the cold floor of his club, thinking I was just a stray orphan with nowhere to go.

But he didn't know my true bloodline.

Six months later, as the Underboss of the rival Marino Family, I rolled up the tinted window of my armored SUV, leaving the crippled, ruined Don begging in the mud.

Chapter 1

Sophia POV

As I settled the silk of a custom bridal gown in the narrow confines of an armored SUV, the Don of the Falcone Family-a man whose jaw was still slick with another woman's lipstick-informed me that our wedding was canceled. He had, that morning, taken a blood oath with a girl of eighteen.

I stared at Dominic, the man beside whom I had bled for a decade.

I had watched him rise from a street soldier with scarred knuckles to the Boss of the most feared syndicate in the city. He was a man who commanded an army of killers, whose name was a currency of fear among his rivals.

He reached over and fastened my seatbelt, a motion made mechanical by years of dodging bullets in the slums.

His large, calloused hands brushed my collarbone, and a heat I knew too well bloomed on my skin. Then he leaned back into the leather and regarded me with eyes that offered no entry.

"I have taken a legal vow and a blood oath with Lila," he said, his voice a smooth, polished stone, devoid of any fissure of guilt. "I cannot, therefore, attend our formal union next week, Sophia."

The purr of the engine was the only sound in the car, a low thrum against the rhythmic scrape of the wipers on the glass outside.

I sat frozen, my mind a stalled engine, refusing to turn over the meaning of his words.

"To hold a grand Mafia wedding with you, as another woman's legal husband, would be a discourtesy to my new bride," he continued. "It would cause her undue distress."

I opened my mouth, but no air passed my lips. My hand moved to my coat pocket of its own accord.

Beneath the fabric, my fingers found the stiff, folded edge of an ultrasound scan. I had been waiting for the right silence to tell him of the eight-week-old heartbeat inside me.

"What does this mean?" I finally managed, the word a mere whisper.

Dominic smiled. It was the same charming, dangerous smile that had captivated me when I was eighteen.

"You are still the one I hold dearest," he said, reaching out to let his fingers trail through my hair. "But you must understand the nature of men, Sophia. We crave a certain innocence. Lila is eighteen. Untouched by the filth of our business."

He casually adjusted his expensive cuffs.

"I suggest you find one of my Soldiers to stand in as a groom for the ceremony. It will preserve your dignity before the Capos."

I silently crushed the ultrasound paper in my pocket, the crisp edges digging into my palm.

Ten years of loyalty. Two miscarriages suffered in underground safehouses because we were constantly on the run. All of it rewarded with this poison.

"She has a temper," Dominic chuckled softly, looking out the tinted window. "It took me six months of courting to claim her."

Six months. He had been pursuing another woman for half a year while planning our wedding.

"I claimed her right here," he murmured, his gaze shifting back to the interior of the SUV. "In this car. Last night."

My eyes followed his. On the thick, bulletproof glass of the privacy partition, I saw them.

A set of small, smeared handprints, pressed against the glass from the inside.

A column of acid rose in my throat. My stomach churned, and the sour taste of bile flooded my mouth. Tears spilled over my eyelashes before I could stop them.

Dominic frowned. He leaned closer and cupped my face with both hands, his thumbs attempting to brush away the moisture.

He looked genuinely confused by my reaction.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low, proprietary rumble. "You will always be mine, Sophia. Even in the shadows."

I pulled my face away from his hands and looked at the custom bridal gown resting beside me.

"Throw the dress out the window, Dominic."