A Mafia Boss Said He’d Marry Me If I Could Sing—He Didn’t Know I Came to Destroy Him...

The Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel looked like a slaughterhouse disguised in white orchids and gold leaf.

Three hundred of the most dangerous people on the eastern seaboard drank vintage Krug champagne beneath five-tier crystal chandeliers. Federal judges rubbed shoulders with loan sharks; district attorneys laughed at jokes whispered by hitmen; and the daughters of old-money Park Avenue dynasties drifted across the parquet floor like swans swimming over a pit of vipers.

When the double doors opened and the majordomo announced: *"Mr. Domenico Moretti and his fiancée, Miss Beatrice Hughes,"* the entire ballroom fell completely silent.

I felt every pair of eyes lock onto me.

I was wearing Madame Laurent’s masterpiece: an off-the-shoulder gown of midnight-blue silk velvet that hugged my curves with ruthless elegance, cascading into a heavy train that swept the marble. Around my neck hung the Moretti family heirloom Domenico had fastened himself an hour earlier—a collar of raw-cut sapphires and diamonds that felt as cold as ice against my throat.

I did not shrink. I did not drop my gaze. I breathed from my diaphragm, let my shoulders settle back, and walked beside Domenico like a dreadnought cutting through harbor mist.

"They are staring," I whispered through barely parted lips.

"They are terrified," Domenico murmured back, his hand resting possessively on the small of my back. "They expected me to bring a submissive little heiress. Instead, I brought an empress. Smile, Beatrice. You are giving them nightmares."

We descended the grand staircase. Instantly, a circle of men in bespoke black tuxedos closed in.

At the center stood an older man with silver-streaked hair, slicked back, wearing an ostentatious velvet dinner jacket. His nose had been broken and reset, and his eyes were watery and cruel. Don Carmine Marcone—the head of the rival Brooklyn faction.

Beside him stood Camilla Russo, wearing a silver dress that looked like spun glass, her face pale, a dark bruise peeking out from beneath the heavy foundation on her collarbone where Lorenzo had dragged her from the club two nights ago.

"Domenico," Marcone said, his voice like gravel in a cement mixer. "We heard a rumor you took a wife from the kitchen. We thought it was a joke."

His eyes slid down my body, lingering with deliberate, insolent contempt.

"She certainly has... an appetite, doesn't she?" Marcone chuckled, glancing at his lieutenants, who offered sycophantic snickers. "Plenty of woman to keep you warm in the winter, Moretti. But tell me—since when do the Morettis marry the help? Does she know which fork to use, or do you feed her from a trough?"

Camilla smirked, venom gleaming in her pale eyes.

The silence around us turned lethal. Lorenzo’s hand slipped inside his tuxedo jacket. The guests within earshot began to step backward, sensing the imminent spray of blood.

Domenico didn't draw a weapon. He simply reached out and took a champagne flute from a passing server's silver tray. He swirled the golden liquid once, twice, his expression entirely bored.

"Carmine," Domenico said softly. "You are sixty-two years old. Your prostate is failing, your docks in Red Hook are losing four million a quarter to the Feds, and your youngest son spends his weekends snorting your profits off cheap strippers in Queens."

Marcone’s face darkened to the color of a plum. "You arrogant little bastard—"

"My fiancée," Domenico continued, his voice dropping into a register that made the nearest chandelier crystal vibrate, "possesses more beauty, grace, and intellect in her little finger than your entire bloodline has managed to generate since your grandfather crawled off a cargo boat in Boston. If you speak to her, or of her, in that tone again, I will not shoot you. I will buy your bank notes, foreclose on your estate, and make you watch as I turn your private chapel into a commercial slaughterhouse. Are we clear?"

Marcone’s throat bobbed. He glanced around, realizing that three of his own capos had subtly shifted their footing, unwilling to die for his insult.

"We are celebrating tonight, Domenico," Marcone managed to say through clenched teeth. "No disrespect intended."

"Then go celebrate near the exit," Domenico replied, without looking at him again.

Marcone retreated, his entourage trailing behind him like whipped dogs. Camilla cast one last poisonous glare at me before disappearing into the crowd.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "You didn't have to do that."

"I did," Domenico said, turning to face me. He reached out, his thumb lightly brushing the high curve of my cheekbone. "Nobody insults what belongs to me."

*I don't belong to you,* I thought, but I let my lips curve into a practiced, enigmatic smile. "You like making enemies, don't you?"

"I like destroying enemies who don't know they are already dead," he replied.

Across the room, near the orchestra stage, a figure caught my attention. A man with thinning brown hair, a heavy gold watch, and nervous, darting eyes.

My heart skipped a beat.

Marco Bellini.

Ten years ago, Bellini had been my father’s second-in-command at the Longshoremen’s Union. He was the man who had the spare keys to the warehouse. The man who had called in sick on the night of the fire. The man who, six months later, had bought a two-million-dollar brownstone in Brooklyn Heights without taking out a mortgage.

Bellini was the rat who had sold my father out.

And here he was, standing inside Domenico Moretti’s inner circle, laughing with Domenico’s head bookkeeper.

I felt a cold, crystalline rage settle over my bones. The puzzle was assembling itself. Domenico’s father hadn't just used brute force to steal Pier 42; he had used Bellini to gut the union from the inside.

"Excuse me for a moment," I said to Domenico, keeping my voice sweet and honeyed. "The powder room."

Domenico gave a curt nod. "Take two guards from the door."

"I think I can handle a mirror by myself, Domenico," I replied with a wry glance.

He smiled faintly. "Do not wander, Beatrice."

I slipped away into the corridor, bypassing the gilded signs for the restrooms, tracking Marco Bellini as he excused himself from the bookkeeper and made his way toward the private executive lounges on the mezzanine.