I Survived His Enemies But Not His Love For Another Woman Chapter 01
I was eighteen when they snatched me off the street, tied me to a chair, and took turns raping me while the camera rolled.
All because of the man who swore he’d die for me.
Dominic Corsetti strapped C4 to his own chest and walked straight into the enemy compound to bring me back.
He lost a leg in the blast. Sat on the edge of my hospital bed with a titanium prosthetic bolted to what was left, and wiped my tears with his thumb like it was nothing.
“Silly girl. It’s just a leg. What are you crying for?”
“I told you I’d protect you for the rest of my life. I meant it.”
After that, he went to war for me. Burned down every family that had a hand in what happened. Put out contracts.
Made examples. Soon enough, nobody in New York dared breathe my name wrong.
I thought we’d have forever.
Then his little canary showed up at my door with an engagement invitation.
Mia Loren. Blonde. Delicate. The kind of woman men keep in penthouse apartments and never bring to sit-downs.
She stood in my foyer like she owned it, holding out that card with its gold-embossed lettering, smiling like she’d already won.
“You really thought he’d marry you? A woman who got passed around like a party favor?”
“Dominic says you’re ruined. Inside and out. I’m the only one fit to carry the Corsetti name.”
“The engagement party is next Wednesday. You should come. Have a drink.”
I look at that invitation. The thick card stock. The elegant script.
Then I backhand it across her mouth.
Again.
And again.
Ninety-nine times. Until her lips split and bleed, until the card is soft and damp and crimson.
Then I have my people call Dominic.
“Here’s the deal. You win, you take your little canary home.”
“You lose, I take her life.”
Dominic bursts through my front door like a man possessed.
The second he sees Mia crumpled on the floor with blood trickling from her mouth, something terrifying rolls across his face. Pure, murderous rage.
“Sera, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
I don’t move. I just look up at him.
“You’re storming into my house, screaming in my face, over a woman who couldn’t set foot in a Commission meeting without your arm to hold. So tell me, Dominic. Who’s the crazy one?”
His jaw clenches. He says nothing.
Mia drags herself to his feet. She tilts her swollen face up at him, her voice cracking into pieces.
“Dom, our engagement is next Friday.”
“If your parents see me like this, what am I supposed to tell them?”
She sobs like she’s dying.
I watch the struggle in his eyes.
Then, in one swift motion, he presses the blade of his knife against my throat. His voice is calm. Brutal.
“Sera. Everyone knows what they did to you. The Don made his decision. No woman with that kind of stain marries into the Corsetti family. That’s final.”
He stares at me. Pain and resolution churning behind those dark eyes.
“My heart will always be yours. But she gets my name. The family needs an heir. A clean bloodline.”
“Just stop. Let me figure something out for both of us. Please.”
Something inside me tears clean in half.
He wants me to stop?
Whose enemies came for me in the first place? Whose war got me kidnapped, drugged, and gang-raped on camera?
His. Dominic Corsetti’s.
And now that blood-soaked past, the one I carry because of him, is the reason I’m not good enough for his family. His golden excuse to put a ring on someone else.
My throat burns. I swallow everything down, all the pain screaming to get out, and I laugh. Low and quiet and ugly.
“Walk me through this, Dominic. You want me to just roll over. Crush every ounce of pride I have left. Be your dirty little side piece nobody talks about. And what, show up at your wedding with a smile? Raise a glass to the happy couple? Coo over your babies?”
I hold his gaze. Let the smile drop dead off my face.
“No. You don’t get it both ways. I’ll burn it all down before I let that happen. You’ll end up with nothing. Not me. Not her.”
“As long as I’m breathing, no woman in this city will dare say yes to you.”
The room goes dead silent. Every nerve pulled wire-tight.
The knife at my throat doesn’t waver. But his hand is shaking.
I see the softness in his eyes. For one heartbeat, I think he’s going to cave.
He doesn’t.
He rips the blade away from me and slashes it across the tongue of Marco, the bodyguard he personally trained and put at my side.
Warm blood spatters across my cheek.
I stand frozen. Watching him toss the knife, bend down, and scoop Mia into his arms like she weighs nothing.
One hand cradles her neck. The other, the one covered in scars from the explosion that took his leg, the one that once shielded me from the blast, gently covers her eyes.
It hits me like a truck.
Because I’ve lived this moment before.
When I was eighteen, he carried me out of the wreckage drenched in blood. He covered my eyes with that same scarred hand and whispered in my ear.
“Don’t look, Sera. It’s ugly out here.”
Now he’s covering another woman’s eyes.
And I’m the ugly thing he doesn’t want her to see.
“Sera.” His back is to me. His voice could freeze stone. “Don’t push me to do something worse.”
He walks out.
I stand there a long time. The taste of loss is so thick in my mouth I can barely breathe through it.
I watch Marco bleeding on the floor and call for someone to get him to a doctor.
Then my voice comes out flat. Dead calm. The kind of calm that makes people flinch.
“Burn everything Dominic ever gave me. Every last thing.”
I pause.
“And I want every crew, every soldier, every connect we have to hear this. The person who brings me Mia Loren’s head gets the full protection of the Valentino family. Money. Territory. Whatever they want. I don’t care how it gets done. I just want that bitch in the ground.”