I was the brightest, most untouchable red rose in New York’s mafia world.
I was beautiful enough to make men lose their nerve with a single glance. People said the men obsessed with me could line up from Manhattan all the way to Brooklyn, but I rarely bothered to look twice.
Then my best friend made a bet with me.
“Bella, if you can win over my godfather, Dominic Morello, you can pick any car you want from my underground garage.”
Dominic Morello was the head of the Morello family, one of the most powerful names in New York’s underworld. Cold, restrained, born to command. To the daughters of old money families and mafia clans alike, he was the kind of man no one dared reach for. Rumor had it no woman could get within arm’s length of him.
I smiled.
I had never failed to get something I wanted.
But plans rarely survive contact with reality.
On the very first day of the bet, I found Dominic drugged and barely holding on. I had already meant to get close to him. By sheer accident, I became the antidote he needed.
After that night, the ice around Dominic Morello seemed to crack.
For three years, he came back to me again and again. Against the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the family headquarters, in the bathroom of his private Gulfstream, in the dressing room of a private cigar club. We tangled together in places no one would have imagined.
And piece by piece, through all that intimacy, I lost my heart.
I thought this man, worshiped by everyone else like a god, had become mine too.
Until tonight.
After we had been together in the back seat of his car, I noticed one of his sapphire cufflinks had fallen off. I picked it up and went to return it.
At the end of the corridor, the door to a cigar room stood half-open. I was about to push it wider when laughter drifted out from inside.
“Dominic, did you just get out of her bed? Isabella is usually such a proud little wildcat. She looks down on everyone. But with you, she turns sweet enough to melt. When are you going to marry her?”
I stopped in my tracks.
Then I heard the cold voice I knew down to my bones.
“She’s just a bed partner. How could I marry her?”
The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 19 Dominic immediately had Sophia brought to his room. When he threw the evidence in front of her, Sophia first tried to argue, then cry. But under the weight of irrefutable proof and Dominic’s knife-cold gaze, her defenses finally collapsed. She sank to the floor, sobbing, and confessed everything. “Dominic, […]
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 18 After the party, the pressure around Dominic was frighteningly low. Sophia sensed something was wrong and became even more careful. She hovered around him, gentle and attentive, trying to soothe his irritability. That night, she carried a glass of warm milk into his room and found him standing by
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 17 Isabella did not seem surprised to hear him. She did not even turn around. She only swirled the champagne in her glass and said in a calm, distant voice, “Mr. Morello. Long time no see. What happens between Adrian and me doesn’t seem to require your approval.” Mr. Morello.
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 16 Back in his luxury hotel suite, Dominic dropped heavily onto the sofa. Outside the window, the city glittered with light, but none of it reached his dark, storm-heavy eyes. He did not sleep that night. The scene at the airport replayed in his mind again and again. Isabella looking
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 15 Sophia saw the billboard too. She instinctively tightened her grip on Dominic’s arm. Surprise and sourness slipped into her voice. “Dominic… that’s Bella, isn’t it? I heard she’s been developing her career overseas these past few years. I knew she became an actress, but I didn’t expect… this. I
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 14 Dominic did not look again at the man on the floor or the stunned guests around them. “Watch your mouth.” Then he took Sophia, who was just as shocked as everyone else, and strode out through the suffocating silence. It was the first time in his life that he
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 13 At night, Dominic slept by habit on the inner side of the bed. Half-awake, he reached toward the space beside him and touched a soft, compliant body. Sophia curled obediently against him, carrying the elegant scent of carefully chosen perfume. Wrong. The body heat was wrong. It did not
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 12 Dominic drew a slow breath and answered. Sophia’s soft voice came through, perfectly fragile, perfectly dependent. “Dominic, my head still hurts a little. The wound is aching too. I’m scared being alone at St. Mary’s. Can you come stay with me?” In the past, that voice would have made
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 11 Vivian’s tearful question hit Dominic like a stone dropped into a frozen lake, cracking the surface of his carefully controlled calm. His fingers tightened around the phone until his knuckles whitened. “Bella is gone. Isabella is gone,” Vivian cried. “She took the earliest flight out of the country. She
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The Godfather’s Forsaken Rose Chapter 10 The next few days were hell. There, I, the once-proud Miss Moretti, learned how low people could sink when someone powerful wanted me broken. The women in my cell had clearly been instructed to make my life miserable. They bullied me, kicked me, punched me, and stepped again and
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