Chapter 1

• Aria’s POV
• A soft moan escaped my lips as I felt my blood heat up, my skin slick with sweat. My throat was dry but yet my lips gave in to him. I, Aria Bellandi—daughter of the most powerful man in Valen City was submitting to a man I knew nothing about.
• He slid his hand around my waist, pulling my body against his with intense strength. “Is this how you like it, Miss Bellandi?” his deep voice sent shivers through my body.
• I didn’t answer, I couldn’t. Not when my mouth was instantly entrapped, aggressively claimed by his lips. He was ruthless, consuming. He didn’t kiss like a man; his kisses were fierce and feral like a hungry beast.
• “Mmmgh…” I let out a soft moan as his mouth latched onto my breast, his teeth grazed gently around my nipple and his hand gripped my thigh like it belonged to him.
• With one hand, he pinned my wrists above my head on the bed, his other hand travelling lower between my legs. My body trembled as I felt him rub against my entrance, and then he entered me.
• “Ouhhh!” I groaned, the feeling was that of a painful pleasure.
• He didn’t go gentle. He claimed me fully. My scream was muffled by his mouth as he began to thrust into me hard—he was dominant, possessive, savage.
• I couldn’t see his face under the dim light, but the way he viciously claimed me in bed all night long was etched in my mind.
• The next morning, I woke up with a headache. I looked around the strange room, feeling confused. My clothes were a mess on the floor, some parts ripped like I had wrestled with an animal.
• Groaning with my hand on my forehead, I tried to remember how I got here, and soon enough the memories came rushing back.
• Last night was supposed to be my engagement party to Dominic Russo, Don of the Raven Cartel. As the daughter of Vincent Bellandi, Don of the Hollow Syndicate and the most powerful Mafia family in the city, my marriage to Dominic was supposed to begin an alliance between the two families—but when he called me out on stage last night, I received the biggest shock of my life.
• “Aria Bellandi is a whore. I cannot marry such a woman!” He had announced to the crowd, embarrassing me publicly.
• I felt shocked and betrayed. I could not believe he would dare to lie against me like that. I had immediately left the party in a rage with my cousin Elena.
• I wanted to get my revenge on Dominic, so Elena had promised to find me a Mercenary right away. I remembered drinking at a club last night while waiting for the hitman… but when he came, I followed him to bed!
• My jaw dropped in shock and my eyes widened as I remembered.
• I had lost my virginity to a man whose name I didn’t even know!
• Why would Elena abandon me here alone with a stranger? How did I get so drunk with just one glass?
• I quickly dressed up in what was left of my clothes. I needed to go and see Dad. My father, Don Vincent Bellandi was not a man to be messed with; my fiancé Dominic had just made a terrible mistake by betraying the Bellandi family.
• What I did not expect was the bunch of reporters waiting for me outside the hotel.
• Cameras and flashbulbs were all in my face in an instant, and I had no idea how they knew I was here.
• “Miss Bellandi, is it true that you cheated on your fiancé?”
• “Tell us, Miss Bellandi… Are the accusations true? Has the engagement really been broken?”
• I cursed silently, wishing I had come out with my bodyguards. I tried to squeeze my way through the reporters, but one of their questions threw me off.
• “Ma’am, are you aware that your father has taken his own life? Do you think it might have something to do with your failed engagement?”
• I froze. My eyes widened as I immediately turned to find the reporter who said that.
• “What did you say?” I muttered, disbelief and denial in my eyes.
• “Are you not aware of this news, Miss Bellandi? Your father, Vincent Bellandi, had taken his own life after the news of your breakup. Do you have any comments on this?”
• My father was dead?
• I felt my legs grow weak; I got dizzy and passed out from shock.
• When I woke up at the hospital, I was hit with even more bad news. My father had been declared bankrupt, and the bank had claimed all of his properties to repay his debts. I had no money or family. Once the daughter of the most powerful man in the city, I was now a nobody.
• I knew the whole thing was too much to be a coincidence. My father’s death was not a suicide. It was an execution. There was only one man capable of destroying the city’s most powerful Mafia family in one night: Lorenzo De Luca.
• He called himself the Don of Dons, and he was a man whose face had never been seen—yet he commanded fear in every city his name was mentioned.
• A few weeks back, my father had received a proposal from Lorenzo, imploring him to submit his Cartel under the leadership of the Don of Dons. But dad had turned down the request, confident in our ability to fight Lorenzo.
• Clearly, he was wrong.
• If I must survive, then I had to leave Valen City. The criminal capital of the world was no place for a defenseless daughter of a dead Cartel Don to be.
• Ten months later, I gave birth to three babies at a local maternity clinic in the rural south—a low-key small town.
• “Congratulations, Aria. You have triplets. Two boys and a girl,” my family’s loyal housekeeper Maria announced to me.
• I lay there on the bed, tears rolling down my cheeks as I carried the beautiful babies. “Matteo, Dante, and Alessia,” I named them.
• I was now a mother—with kids belonging to my one-night stand—and in those ten months, the only thing I had learned about him was his codename…
• The Widowmaker!