My adoptive family, the Castillos, treated their biological children like royalty, but used me as a disposable pawn.
To secure a mafia alliance, they forced me to take my beautiful sister’s place and marry Don Damien Moretti, a man rumored to be a ruthless, bloodthirsty monster.
They thought they were sending me to my execution. At our engagement banquet, my mother and sister deliberately gifted me a cheap, counterfeit gown to humiliate me in front of New York’s elite.
When I publicly exposed their lie, my father demanded I apologize. My mother even raised her hand to slap me in front of everyone.
“You are a vicious curse! You ruin everything!”
They eagerly waited for the Don to execute me on the spot for embarrassing them.
I had spent years secretly saving their company from bankruptcy and supplying the underground experimental drugs that kept my brother’s mafia career alive.
Yet, they threw me to the wolves without a second thought, disgusted by my very existence.
But they didn’t know that just an hour before the banquet, I had saved a bleeding, masked stranger in a dark alley-who turned out to be Damien Moretti himself.
The Ugly Substitute Bride of the Mafia King Chapter 1 Watch your mouth
Seraphina POV
The damp air of the Little Italy alley smelled of stale garbage, yeast from the nearby bakery, and the faint, metallic tang of gunpowder. I shoved my phone into my coat pocket, the echo of my mother’s voice still ringing in my ears. You will marry Don Moretti, Sera. It is your duty to the Castillo family.
I turned to flee the suffocating shadows, only to crash into a solid wall of muscle.
A large, gloved hand clamped over my mouth, slamming me back against the cold, rough bricks. My eyes widened in terror. The man towering over me was drenched in blood, his face completely hidden behind a gleaming silver wolf mask.
“Don’t move,” he commanded.
His voice was a raw, gravelly rasp, laced with an authority so absolute it froze the blood in my veins. It was a Don’s Command, the kind of order that bypassed logic and demanded blind obedience.
Heavy footsteps echoed at the mouth of the alley. His pursuers.
I had nowhere to run. If they found him, they’d kill the witness. Me.
Survival instinct overrode my panic. I grabbed the lapels of his ruined suit, yanking him down to my level. “Play along if you want to live,” I breathed against his ear.
I dragged him behind a row of damp white bedsheets hanging from a clothesline, pressing my body flush against his. I wrapped my arms around his neck, tilting my head to fake a desperate, illicit kiss in the shadows.
Damien POV
For ten years, my world had been a dead, monotonous grayscale. A curse born of trauma and blood.
But the second this strange woman pulled me into the dark, the universe violently shattered into color.
I stared down at her, my breath catching in my burning lungs. Her eyes were a piercing, vibrant amber. Her lips, parted in feigned passion, were a bruised, intoxicating red. Even the ugly, jagged scar marring her left cheek-a clear prosthetic fake-stood out in stark, undeniable hues.
She was a riot of color in my dead world.
I wrapped my uninjured arm around her narrow waist, pulling her flush against my chest. She smelled of cold rain and clean soap, a scent that instantly silenced the roaring beast in my skull. The enemy Soldiers cursed in Italian on the other side of the sheets, assuming we were just two lovers rutting in the dirt, and quickly moved on.
When the footsteps faded, she shoved me away, her amber eyes flashing with guarded fear. “We’re clear. Pay me what you promised so I can leave.”
I didn’t want her to leave. I needed to cage her. To keep this color forever.
Before I could demand her name, the screech of tires tore through the alley. Three armored black sedans blocked the exit. My men poured out, weapons drawn.
My Capo, Enzo, holstered his gun as he approached, his eyes flicking to the woman. His lip curled in undisguised disgust at her scarred face. “Boss,” Enzo said, his voice dripping with cold intent. “Do we need to clean this up?”
She stiffened. She knew exactly what clean this up meant.
Cornered by a dozen armed Soldiers, she didn’t cower. Instead, she lifted her chin, her amber eyes blazing with a desperate, reckless fire.
“Watch your mouth!” she snapped, her voice trembling but fierce. “I am Damien Moretti’s fiancée. Do you really think you can touch me?”
A beat of stunned silence fell over the alley. Then, my men erupted into cruel, mocking laughter, ready to tear this delusional, scarred woman apart for insulting their Don’s name.
I didn’t laugh.
I stared at the woman trembling beneath my gaze. The Castillo girl. The sacrificial lamb they were forcing me to marry. My arranged bride was the only creature on earth who could make me see the light.
The Ugly Substitute Bride of the Mafia King Chapter 2 In my place
Seraphina POV
The cruel, mocking laughter of the Soldiers bounced off the damp brick walls of the alley. I braced myself, waiting for the inevitable bullet that would punish my desperate lie.
But the masked man pressed against me stiffened. The air around him suddenly plummeted in temperature, growing thick with a suffocating, lethal intent.
The laughter died instantly.
“Kneel,” he rasped.
He didn’t shout, but the raw, gravelly word carried the absolute weight of a Don’s Command. Enzo, the Capo who had just insulted me, turned deathly pale. Without a second of hesitation, he and the dozen armed men dropped to one knee, bowing their heads in absolute, terrified submission.
The masked man turned his silver wolf visage toward me, his dark eyes burning into mine. “She is under my protection,” he declared to his men, his voice a low, vibrating threat. “Touch her, and you will answer to me.”
I blinked, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. Why was this bleeding, dangerous stranger playing along with my fabricated story?
“We’re even,” I managed to say, keeping my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “Pay me so I can leave. I hope we never cross paths again.”
He stared at me for a long second before gesturing with his uninjured hand. A Soldier scrambled up, handing me a thick envelope of cash. I snatched it. But before turning away, my trained eyes flicked to his left wrist. During our forced embrace, I had noticed the faint, unnatural discoloration creeping beneath the metal of his expensive watch.
I stepped closer, lowering my voice so only he could hear. “You should have your physician look at the skin under your watch. Some things are more fatal than a bullet.”
I didn’t wait for his reaction. I turned and walked out of the alley, disappearing into the New York night.
An hour later, the damp chill of Little Italy was replaced by the suffocating opulence of a luxury suite at The Plaza Hotel.
The moment I stepped onto the thick Persian rug, my mother, Elena, rushed forward. She grabbed my hands, her perfectly manicured fingers digging into my skin. “Sera, darling,” she cooed, squeezing out a fake tear. “We are so sorry for how cold we’ve been.”
Bianca, my beautiful, unscarred sister, sighed from the velvet sofa. “We heard Don Moretti is a ruthless, terrifying man, sister. Giving the engagement back to you… it’s such an injustice. You’re so brave to take my place.”
I stared at their perfectly painted faces. They were terrified of the rumors surrounding the Moretti family, thrilled to offer me up as the sacrificial lamb so the Castillo family could secure their alliance.
I coldly pulled my hands from my mother’s grasp. “Save the performance.”
The air in the room instantly soured. I was exhausted, my skin still crawling from the adrenaline of the alley. I was tired of being a pawn, waiting for the executioner’s axe to fall. If I was going to enter the Moretti family to find the truth about my adoptive parents’ deaths, I needed to stop cowering in the shadows.
Ignoring my mother’s offended gasp, I marched to the suite’s heavy double doors and yanked them open. A Moretti Associate in a sharp suit stood guard in the hallway.
“Inform Mr. Moretti that his fiancée wishes to see him,” I said, my voice dripping with ice. “Now.”
Elena and Bianca practically stopped breathing. The Associate blinked in sheer shock at my audacity, but the unwavering resolve in my tone made him nod and pull out his phone.
I left the door open and stood in the center of the room, waiting.
Ten minutes later, heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor. The doorway darkened.
My breath hitched. The man who stepped into the light of the crystal chandelier was tall, broad-shouldered, and clad in a perfectly tailored black suit. It was the dangerous stranger from the alley.
He reached up and slowly pulled the silver wolf mask from his face.
My blood turned to ice. Beneath the mask was a face carved from marble-strikingly handsome, yet brutally cold. His dark, intense eyes, the same ones that had stared at me in the shadows, locked onto mine with a terrifying, possessive hunger.
The bleeding stranger I had saved was Damien Moretti.
The Ugly Substitute Bride of the Mafia King Chapter 3 He’s going to kill me.
Seraphina POV
The air in the suite evaporated. I stared at the chiseled, ruthless face of Damien Moretti, my lungs burning as I forgot how to breathe. The bleeding stranger from the alley. The man whose life I had just saved-and whose men I had lied to.
He knew. He knew I was a fraud, and now, he was going to kill me.
Damien stepped fully into the room. Behind him stood another man, tall and lethal, his sharp eyes sweeping over me with blatant distaste. This had to be Luca “The Viper” Mendoza, Damien’s Consigliere. Luca’s gaze lingered on the ugly, jagged scar I had painted on my cheek, his confusion evident. Why would the Don accept such a flawed bride?
But Damien didn’t look at my scar with disgust. As he closed the distance between us, his dark eyes locked onto mine. There was a strange, terrifying hunger in his gaze-a greedy, consuming fire that stripped me bare. He stopped mere inches from me. The scent of blood, expensive cologne, and raw danger wrapped around my throat.
I braced for his hands to snap my neck. Instead, he slowly raised his uninjured hand. His warm, calloused fingertips brushed against my cheek, tracing the very edge of my fake scar. The touch was agonizingly gentle, yet heavy with an undeniable, absolute claim. A shiver violently wrecked through my spine.
He didn’t expose my lie. He didn’t mention the alley.
Damien turned his head slightly toward his Consigliere, his voice a low, emotionless verdict that sealed my fate. “Luca, inform the families. The engagement proceeds as planned. Tonight.”
Luca stiffened, his mask of indifference slipping for a fraction of a second. He looked from me to his Don, opening his mouth as if to protest, but the icy, unyielding dominance radiating from Damien silenced him instantly.
Luca bowed his head. “Yes, Boss.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. Tonight? Why was he doing this? It wasn’t mercy. The possessive darkness in his eyes promised a cage far more terrifying than death.
Less than an hour later, I was paraded into the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza Hotel.
The space was a suffocating display of wealth and power. Massive crystal chandeliers cast a golden glow over the sea of New York’s most dangerous elites. The air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume, Cuban cigars, and the underlying, metallic tang of fear.
“Don Moretti,” my mother, Elena, simpered, practically shoving me toward the towering man at my side. Her voice dripped with sickening sweetness. “Our Seraphina has always admired you. We are so blessed by this union.”
I kept my face blank, refusing to look at her. Instead, my gaze caught on my sister.
Bianca stood a few feet away, her champagne glass trembling in her grip. She had expected a monster. She had expected a deformed, cruel beast to drag me into the shadows. But looking at Damien-young, breathtakingly handsome, and radiating the kind of absolute, lethal power that brought men to their knees-Bianca was unraveling.
The smug satisfaction that had painted her beautiful face upstairs was entirely gone. In its place was a twisted, ugly mask of profound regret and venomous jealousy. Her eyes darted from Damien’s broad shoulders to the space beside him-the space she had willingly forfeited. The throne of the Mafia Queen.
When Bianca’s gaze finally snapped to mine, it was lethal. It was a silent, screaming vow of hatred. That should be me.
I looked away, a hollow numbness settling over my chest. My family had thrown me to the wolves, and now they were furious that the wolf was a king. I was nothing but a pawn to them, and a prisoner to the man standing beside me.
I stood stiffly next to Damien under the blinding lights of the chandeliers. Surrounded by women dripping in haute couture and diamonds, the plain, understated day dress I had worn for my supposed execution felt like a glaring target on my back.