My Fake Mafia Boss Husband Was Supposed To Ignore Me — Until A Sniper’s Bullet Revealed His True Obsession
Part 1
The neon sign of Lou Mitchell’s Diner flickered outside, casting a sickly fluorescent glow over my exhausted face in the window reflection.
It was two in the morning, and the relentless biting wind off Lake Michigan rattled the greasy glass.
I dragged my rag across the laminate counter for the fourth time, my worn-out sneakers squeaking against the peeling linoleum floor.
I was twenty-four, carrying extra curves that I purposely hid beneath oversized flannel shirts, and currently drowning under a mountain of consequences that didn’t belong to me.
My older brother Tyler had vanished three agonizing months ago.
He left behind a gambling debt of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the absolute worst kind of people in Chicago.
Since then, I worked three exhausting jobs just to keep the lights on in my shoebox apartment.
I preferred to be entirely invisible to the dangerous men who lurked in the city’s shadows.
Society had long ago taught me that girls of my size, without a silver spoon in their mouths, were either cruel punchlines or entirely ignored.
But invisibility couldn’t protect me when the front door violently chimed and two massive men in expensive, tailored suits stepped out of the freezing rain.
They shoved me into the back of a tinted luxury SUV before I could even untie my stained apron.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trembling so hard my teeth clattered together in the dark cabin.
Tyler’s debt had finally caught up to me, and I was absolutely certain this was the final night of my life.
When they marched me into the towering glass monolith of the city’s tallest skyscraper, my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
The penthouse office was a cavernous space filled with mahogany and leather, reeking of expensive cologne and danger.
“Sit.”
The single, authoritative word sent a violent shiver straight down my spine.
I slowly looked up from the plush carpet, and my breath instantly hitched in my throat.
The man sitting behind the massive desk was intimidatingly handsome, radiating a dark, suffocating power.
Greg Moretti was the undisputed head of the city’s most ruthless syndicate, a man chiseled from marble with piercing dark eyes that made hardened criminals swallow dryly.
“I don’t have the money,” I blurted out, my chin stubbornly high despite my violently shaking hands.
“I don’t want your money,” Greg interrupted smoothly, leaning forward and lacing his large, calloused fingers together.
He stared at me with an icy calculation that made the room feel ten degrees colder.
“Your brother owes my associates a debt that would take you a lifetime to pay off on a diner waitress’s salary.”
He slid a thick, leather-bound contract across the desk toward me.
“I am willing to wipe the slate completely clean and deposit two million dollars into an offshore account in your name at the end of twelve months.”
I blinked in utter confusion, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the leather armrests of my chair.
“In exchange for what?”
“Marriage,” Greg stated flatly, his dark eyes raking over my oversized flannel shirt without a single ounce of warmth.
He needed a devoted wife for optics to secure his seat on the national high council, someone entirely disconnected from his violent world who wouldn’t ask questions or expect romance.
The words stung, hitting the deepest bruise of my lifelong insecurities, but the thought of never looking over my shoulder again was an impossible temptation.
I swallowed the sharp pain in my chest, grabbed the gold pen, and signed on the dotted line.
Within forty-eight hours, I was whisked away from my cramped apartment and relocated to his staggering multi-million dollar penthouse overlooking the dark lake.
To prepare for the annual charity gala, Greg hired the city’s most elite styling team to dress me.
Megan, a haughty and rail-thin stylist, clucked her tongue while pinching the fabric of an expensive emerald silk dress they were trying to force onto my body.
“We have to hide these problem areas, her hips are simply unmanageable,” Megan sighed loudly, speaking to her assistants as if I weren’t standing right there.
Hot tears pricked my eyes as I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling completely humiliated and entirely out of place.
“There are no problem areas.”
The deep, freezing voice cut through the room like a physical blade, immediately freezing everyone in place.
Greg stood in the doorway, fully dressed in a black tuxedo that made him look like a lethal, dark god.
His eyes were fixed entirely on me, taking in the soft flush of humiliation on my cheeks.
“Get out of my house before I have my men throw you off the balcony,” he warned the stylist without raising his deep voice.
When the team scrambled out in a panicked rush, the silence stretched heavy and thick between us.
“She was right,” I whispered, wiping a stray tear from my cheek.
He moved toward me with the silent grace of an apex predator, gently lifting my chin with his large fingers so I was forced to look into his burning eyes.
“My world is full of plastic women with plastic smiles, but you are real, Brenda,” he murmured, his gaze dropping heavily to my lips.
For the first time since we met, a jolt of genuine electricity zapped through my veins.
When we walked into the grand ballroom of the Hilton later that night, the elite of Chicago’s underworld stared openly at the mafia boss and his completely unexpected bride.
I shrank back from the judging eyes, but Greg wrapped a heavy, possessive arm around my waist, anchoring my curves firmly against his solid side.
Victor Rossi, his bitter rival, approached us with a slick, snake-like smile that made my stomach churn.
“I must admit, your sudden marriage caught us all off guard, and such an abundant bride,” Victor sneered, his cruel eyes raking over my size.
Before I could even process the painful insult, Greg stepped smoothly between us.
“Speak about my wife like that again, and I won’t wait for a council meeting to separate your head from your shoulders,” Greg threatened softly, his voice so lethal it terrified me.
He pulled me onto the marble dance floor, holding me flush against his hard chest as the orchestra played a slow, sweeping waltz.
“You didn’t have to threaten him for me,” I whispered, my hands resting nervously on his broad shoulders.
“No one disrespects my wife,” he replied, pulling me closer until I could feel his frantic heartbeat against mine.
The air in the back of the armored SUV on the way home was thick with unsaid words and an undeniable, growing attraction.
We stepped out of the private elevator into the dark penthouse, and I kicked off my high heels with a heavy sigh of relief.
“Well, I think we survived day one of the illusion,” I joked, walking toward the massive windows overlooking the dark waters.
A sharp, deafening crack suddenly split the quiet air.
The reinforced glass shattered inward, raining down around me like deadly, glittering diamonds.
Greg lunged across the room without hesitating, tackling me to the hardwood floor just as a second sniper bullet tore through the exact space where I had been standing.
He covered me entirely with his massive body, shielding me from the horrific violence invading our sanctuary.
“Stay down!” he roared, pulling his firearm from his shoulder holster as his heavily armed security team burst through the oak doors.
In that split second of sheer terror, staring up into his desperate, terrified eyes, I realized my fake husband was actually willing to die for me.
He picked me up into his arms and ordered an immediate evacuation to a hidden fortress estate in the frozen Wisconsin woods.
The next morning at the heavily guarded safe house, an unassuming maid nervously bumped into me in the kitchen, secretly slipping a cheap plastic burner phone into my sweater pocket.
I locked myself in the powder room, my hands violently shaking as I opened the unread text message.
It was a photograph of my brother Tyler, tied to a rusted metal chair and beaten raw.
The phone buzzed in my sweaty palm, and Victor’s greasy voice hissed through the speaker.
He demanded I steal Greg’s encrypted offshore ledgers from the study safe by midnight and deliver them alone, or he would mail my brother back to me in small boxes.
I stared down at the blocked caller ID on the cheap plastic phone, the entire weight of the Chicago underworld suddenly crushing my lungs as I realized the impossible, fatal choice I had to make by midnight.
