Wrong Marriage. Right Groom

LORETTA

I never meant to steal a mafia king’s daughter. I only meant to save her.

I may be blind, but I felt it the second a small, autistic five-year-old child stepped into my doorway—terrified, alone, barefoot.

So I fed her. Cleaned her wounds. Held her through the nights she couldn’t survive alone.

And somewhere between her small hands clinging to mine and her sleepy “Mama,” she stopped being a responsibility—she became my daughter.

Until I brought her to work. My boss went still the moment he saw her.

“Loretta,” he said coldly, “explain why my missing daughter is in your arms.”

My heart dropped. “This isn’t—”

A DNA test hit the desk. “It is.”

And just like that… I lost her. Unless I agreed to his terms. Marriage.

It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t a choice either. It was a contract. So I said yes.

I didn’t know I was marrying a man who had already buried his heart with his dead wife… or that the billionaire tech CEO I said “I do” to was, in truth, the most feared mafia king in Europe— a man who watched his parents hang at the hands of my father.

On our wedding night, he dragged me to her grave, forced me to my knees, and made me honour the dead wife who still owned his heart. After that, I was never his wife.

Only his reminder — and his target for revenge. No matter how much of myself I poured into that house—into his daughter, into him—he never warmed to me.

Whatever was left of his heart died with her—and he made sure I felt it every day. And then… I found out I was pregnant.

For a brief, foolish second, I thought it might change something. Until I heard him say—

“You think I’d let that woman carry my baby?”

That was the day I stopped hoping. And the night I disappeared without a trace.

RAFAEL A woman I loved for eight years died after a long illness… and I never survived it. I buried her, and something inside me went with her into the ground. After that, I swore off women. Marriage.

Love. All of it.

The only thing that mattered was my daughter. And then—she disappeared. I tore the world apart looking for her. I searched until there was nothing left to search.

And still… I couldn’t find her. Until one day… an intern walked into my company.

With my daughter holding her hand. Calling her Mommy. I couldn’t take her away without destroying my daughter in the process.

So, despite being incapable of another marriage, I offered the intern a contract: marry me, and she could stay in my daughter’s life. She agreed. But I gave her nothing in return. No love. No warmth.

Not the affection she deserved. Not the tenderness she reached for. Not even the basic decency of helping her feel safe in a world she couldn’t see. Until the day everything shattered.

My study door burst open. “Boss… we’ve searched the entire house for madam. She’s gone,” my assistant said, his voice shaking. “But we found this in her wardrobe…”

He hesitated… then handed me a paper. “A pregnancy test result.”

The paper slipped from my fingers as something inside my chest collapsed.

“She… left me?” My voice broke—unrecognizable even to me—as I sank into the floor.

She was gone. Sightless… and alone.

And she was carrying my child.

“I can’t live without her,” I choked, dragging a hand through my hair, my breath turning ragged. “I can’t fucking exist without her. Find her.”

My head snapped up, something wild and desperate taking over.

“Search every city. Every airport. Every border.” My voice turned lethal, shaking with something dangerously close to panic.

“Bring my wife back to me alive!”