The swapped Bride

Isabella POV

I jolted upright, gasping for air. The heavy silk sheets of my bedroom in the Rowland Estate clung to my fever-drenched skin. I pressed a trembling hand to my chest, expecting to feel the crushed ribs and shattered glass from the car crash.

Nothing. Only the steady, frantic beating of my own heart.

I looked around the cavernous, familiar bedroom. The dark French furniture, the balcony overlooking the manicured gardens of our estate. This wasn't Washington D.C. This was Chicago. 1928.

The fever had finally broken, leaving behind a flood of memories so vivid they tasted like blood and ash. A past life. A life where my stepmother, Catherine, had played God in the Rowland family parlor. In that life, she had handed me to Harrison Davies, the golden-boy politician, and thrown her own flesh and blood, Clara, to the wolves—to Damien Franco, the untamed heir of the Chicago Outfit.

I closed my eyes, the phantom flashbulbs of my grand wedding at Trinity Church blinding me. It had been a spectacle of champagne and lies. Clara’s wedding, by contrast, had been a grim affair at the Cook County Courthouse, witnessed only by a judge on the payroll and stone-faced *Soldiers* reeking of cigar smoke and gunsmoke.

I had spent years bleeding my soul dry to build Harrison’s empire, turning him into a senator. I thought I held power in Washington. But Clara had learned the truth: Washington was nothing but a den of whispering rats.

While I played the perfect political wife, Damien Franco had been fighting a bloody *Vendetta* against the Mendoza family in the narrow streets and speakeasies of the West Side. He spent his nights at The Green Mill with his mistresses, letting the city think he was a madman. But when he finally emerged victorious, he didn't just claim the title of *Don*—he crowned Clara his *Mafia Queen*.

And then, Damien had turned his sights on us. With a few untraceable ledgers and a whisper to the FBI, he dismantled Harrison’s entire political career. He proved that the law was just a weapon for the strongest predator. My life had ended in disgrace and twisted metal, a pathetic pawn sacrificed on a board I didn't even know I was playing on.

I looked down at the heavy gold engagement ring on my left hand.