Sold Back To My Mafia Husband Chapter 01
Sold Back to the Devil
Ten years after I vanished, my husband bought me like trash.
I didn’t know it was him yet. I only knew the Vallis had finally decided I was worth more sold than dead.
The Madam dragged me down a back hall of The Velvet Underground, her red nails pinching my chin.
“Listen carefully,” she said. “You serve the man in the VIP room tonight, and if you survive, you walk out free.”
Free.
The word hit harder than any fist.
For ten years, I had lived under the Valli family.
Basements. Locked rooms. Men with knives. Men with cameras. Men who laughed when I begged them to kill me.
I had lost pieces of myself one by one until there was almost nothing left.
One kidney. Half my hearing. Most of my face.
But I had kept one thing.
Dante.
Don Moretti.
My husband.
The man I stayed behind to save. The man who promised he would come back for me.
I used to repeat his name when they hurt me.
I used to bite my tongue and tell myself.
He’s looking. He’s coming. Dante would burn the world down for me.
Then the Madam opened a heavy red door and shoved me inside.
The VIP room stank of cigars, liquor, and money.
Men sat around a long black table. Guns showed under their jackets.
Women in glittering dresses leaned against them.
A man in a black suit and a gold lion mask sat at the center.
My breath stopped.
Even with half his face hidden, I knew him.
I knew his shoulders, the ring on his right hand, and the scar across his wrist from the night I saved him.
Dante.
My hands go cold.
I take one step forward before my knees almost give out.
He does not stand and reach for me. He barely looks up.
The Madam bows her head. “Don Moretti, fresh company for the evening.”
A few men laugh.
Dante lifts his glass. His eyes move over me for half a second.
With disgust.
He takes a stack of cash from the table and throws it at my feet.
“Sit in the corner,” he says. “Stay quiet.”
My throat closes.
I stare at the money scattered over my shoes.
A man beside him grins. “Don Moretti, you’re too generous. She looks like she came out of a grave.”
More laughter.
Dante does not laugh.
That gives me hope for one stupid second.
Then he says, “I don’t touch goods the Valli family already ruined.”
The words hurt worse than a slap.
I sway where I stand.
Ruined.
Goods.
That is what I am to him now.
Not Elena Moretti.
Not his wife.
Not the woman who stayed behind with a gun to her head so he could escape.
Just damaged merchandise.
The Madam digs her nails into my arm. “Move.”
I stumble toward the corner. Every step feels wrong.
I want to scream his name. I want to rip off that mask and make him see me.
But my voice is broken, my face is ruined, and my body is too thin. My hair has been cut short and uneven.
Would he know me? Would he care?
I sit on the edge of a low couch, hands locked in my lap.
The men go back to talking.
Money routes. Dock workers. A shipment coming through Brooklyn. A judge who needs pressure.
Dante listened, and every man at the table waited for his answer.
I keep staring at his wrist.
The scar is still there.
That scar came from me. Ten years ago, Lorenzo Valli had swung a blade at Dante’s throat. I blocked it with a metal chair.
Dante still got cut. I stayed behind so he could run.
He held my face that night and said, “El, no matter what happens, you are my wife. My only love. I will find you.”
I believed him.
God help me, I believed him.
A server places a glass in front of me. I do not touch it.
Dante’s eyes flick toward me again. “Drink if you want. Cry if you want. Just don’t make noise.”
The men laugh harder.
I lower my head.
I am the joke.
Then Dante reaches for his glass, and his sleeve shifts.
The scar flashes under the gold light.
I move before I can stop myself.
I cross the room and grab his arm.
The guns come out at once.
Every man in the room points a weapon at my head.
Dante goes still.
His eyes lock on mine through the mask.
For one second, I see something.
Something sharp and scared.
My lips tremble.
“Dante,” I whisper. “Is it you?”
His fingers tighten around the glass.
Before he can answer, the VIP door slams open so hard it hits the wall.
A woman’s voice cuts through the room.
“Who the hell is touching my husband?”
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