The Wife He Claims

Two gunshots echo through the alley I walk every night.

I should run, but I don’t.

Instead, I press my Goodwill jacket against a stranger’s knife wound and tell him to shut up and hold still. I don’t ask his name. I don’t want to know.

I have bigger problems—like a mother dying in a hospital bed and an insurance company that decided her life isn’t worth saving.

But the man in the alley is not a stranger.

He is Matteo De Santis—mafia heir, ruthless strategist, and a man no one in Boston dares to cross.

Three days later, he finds me.

And he makes me an offer I can’t refuse.

A contract marriage— in exchange for my mother’s life-saving transplant.

One year.

Be his wife.

Obey the rules.

Don’t fall for the man who owns the contract.

I break every rule.

Because Matteo doesn’t just want a wife—he wants control.

And the way he looks at me…

It’s not as if I’m pretending.

It feels as though I already belong to him.

Now his world is closing in on him.

Enemies circling.

Betrayal rising from within his own blood.

And Matteo has to choose.

His throne—

Or the wife he was never meant to want.

In a family built on power and betrayal, love isn’t a fairytale.

It is a death sentence.

And I believe I just signed mine.