The Jilted Mafia Bride And Her Rise

As I raised my crystal flute to toast our mafia wedding, my fiancé made an unexpected announcement.

Christian publicly declared to a room of hardened killers that he was abandoning our joint promotion and our vows for a low-level smuggler named Lilith.

"I am not going to Paris. As a Soldier, I cannot sit back and watch her fail."

He claimed she was a helpless orphan who desperately needed his protection.

He tore up my official transfer papers and accused me of sabotaging her business out of jealousy.

He even gave her my bespoke silk wedding dress and my antique betrothal pearl comb to parade around at a syndicate gala.

While I stood completely alone at our Union Ceremony, he was staging intimate photos in her bed to post on the Family's network.

I became the ultimate punchline of the underworld, a discarded Queen replaced by a weeping pawn.

I couldn't understand how four years of blood oaths and my unwavering loyalty could be ground to dust for a manipulative parasite's cheap theatrics.

So, I stopped waiting.

I packed my weapons, boarded the private jet to Paris alone, and walked straight into the arms of the lethal Underboss who had been waiting for me all along.

Chapter 1

Vivienne POV

As I held my crystal flute aloft, preparing the toast for my own mafia wedding, the man I was to marry announced to a room of men who killed for a living that he was casting aside the Paris district's ten-million-profit shipping routes and our four years of blood oaths, like so much scrap paper, for a low-level smuggler.

The declaration left me precisely one minute to choose: to be immolated alongside his ruined name, or to claim the European seat of power alone.

A dull echo of laughter and the brittle chime of vintage crystal filled the grand hall of the Family Estate.

Dozens of Made Men and Capos of some rank had assembled for what was meant to be a celebration of our ascension.

The Consigliere had just officially ceded the lucrative Paris territory into the joint custody of Christian and myself.

We were to be installed to oversee the Family's most profitable legitimate fronts, and a current of envy, thick as cigar smoke, moved through the room.

Low murmurs had been passing between the tables about our blood oath of union, scheduled for a time a mere forty-eight hours from now.

An old superstition held that couples who sealed their vows under the stone arches of the grand Parisian cathedral were destined for an unbreakable loyalty and a power that could not be touched.

A smile formed on my lips as I turned to Christian, my intention to pull him forward, to raise a glass to the Family.

But it was then that Christian spoke, his voice a flat, dead thing in the warm room.

"I am not going to Paris."

My hand, holding the champagne, stopped in mid-air; the crystal flute's etched rim dug into my palm, and my knuckles showed white with the strain.

Christian did not look at me; his gaze was fixed upon the Consigliere.

"Lilith's smuggling route is facing complications," Christian explained, and there was no trace of shame in his tone.

"As a Soldier, I cannot sit back and watch her fail."

He turned his gaze to me only then.

"You will stay behind in New York to support me."

He reached out and patted my head, a condescending gesture one might use on a disobedient dog.

"Drink less of the imported whiskey," he instructed.

"You do not handle the burn."

With that pronouncement, he turned his back on me and walked with long strides toward the heavy oak doors.

"I need to go to the warehouse to help Lilith," he threw over his shoulder with an air of carelessness.

He walked out without a single backward glance.

The entire room fell into a thick, suffocating silence that lasted a full minute.

These were hardened criminals-men who did not flinch at murder.

But right now, they were staring at me with a mixture of pity and shock that made my stomach clench.

Someone cleared their throat, the sound cracking the silence like a gunshot.

An Associate made a desperate attempt to smooth over the insult, which was a catastrophic breach of our code.

"Christian is very dedicated to helping a struggling Family member," the man said nervously.

"It shows his strong bond with the crew."

I arranged my mouth into a tight, hollow smile.

My ribcage felt as if it were collapsing inward, but I kept my posture immaculate, straight.

In this world of ours, a world of brutes, showing the smallest fraction of weakness was a death sentence.

I knew what the men in this room-men who could cut off a traitor's finger without a change in expression-respected.

They respected unapologetic power.

They respected men like Gabriel Falcone.

Gabriel was the Reaper-the Underboss who had, by his own hand, erased an entire Russian cartel in a single night of blood.

He was a man who, without drawing a weapon, could drain all sound from a room; a man for whom even the most seasoned killers would instinctively create a three-foot perimeter of empty space.

He was a man whose lethal capabilities a boy such as Christian could never fathom.

More to the point, Gabriel never broke a promise.

Christian had just allowed his own vow to be ground to dust in front of the entire syndicate.

I swallowed down the humiliation, which felt like bile in my throat, and turned back to the Consigliere.

"I officially accept the posting to Paris," I said clearly, my voice carrying across the silent hall.

The old man raised a grey eyebrow, his eyes testing the iron of my resolve. The Consigliere studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. A public defiance like Christian's would normally be met with immediate consequences-but the old man was a strategist. He would let the boy hang himself with his own rope.

I held my smile fixed, a mask of ice.

If Christian chose to cast his life away on a fool's errand, what right had he to chain me to his shadow?

The Consigliere stared at me with dark, calculating eyes.

"Are you certain about this, Vivienne?"

I placed my untouched champagne glass with deliberation onto a silver tray that a servant held nearby.

"I am going to Paris," I told him, lifting my chin.

"And I am going alone."

As I walked out of the grand hall, every pair of eyes followed me. In the suffocating silence, I could feel the unspoken question hanging in the cigar-smoke air: What happens to a Queen when her King publicly crowns another woman?

They were about to find out.