Marrying The Rival: My Ex-Husband's Despair

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria.

But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity.

A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love.

My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me.

Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego.

He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press.

He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan.

He had no idea she was a fraud.

He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her.

He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate.

At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her.

I didn't beg. I didn't cry.

I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

Chapter 1

Katarina De Luca POV

I stood outside the heavy oak doors of my husband's study, clutching a stack of financial reports against my chest, when the sound of a woman's laughter froze the blood in my veins.

The realization struck me with the force of a physical blow: if I opened this door, I would either die a wife or live as a widow.

The laughter wasn't soft, and it certainly wasn't polite. It was the sound of a woman who knew she had already won—a sound that threatened to strip away the title of Underboss's wife, a distinction I had worn like armor for three years.

I gripped the leather folder until my knuckles turned white.

Only hours earlier, I had woken up in the sprawling master suite of the De Luca estate. The silk sheets were cold on the other side of the bed. But that was normal.

Alessandro was a man of business, a man of violence, and I was the statue he had placed in his home to represent stability.

I had sat at my vanity, brushing my hair until it shone like spun gold. I applied my makeup with the precision of a soldier painting on war paint.

I was Katarina De Luca. I was the envy of every Capo's wife. They bowed their heads when I walked by, but I could feel their eyes crawling over my skin, searching for cracks.

They were waiting for me to break.

I had looked at the reflection in the mirror. Perfect skin. Perfect hair. Dead eyes.

My mind drifted to the day Alessandro put the ring on my finger. He had looked at me with something that resembled respect. I thought it was enough. I thought if I molded myself into the perfect mafia wife—silent, beautiful, unyielding—he would eventually look at me with warmth.

I was a fool.

To him, I was just another acquisition. A trophy to polish and put on a shelf.

My gaze dropped to the corner of the vanity. There, sitting innocently beside my imported perfumes, was a tube of lipstick. It was a cheap, drugstore brand. The plastic casing was scratched. The shade was a garish, trashy pink that I would never wear.

A chill raced down my spine.

I had pushed the thought away. A servant must have left it. Or a guest.

Now, standing in the hallway, that tube of lipstick felt like a premonition.

The laughter inside the study died down, replaced by a low, guttural groan. It was Alessandro. It was a sound I had never heard him make. Not with me.

With me, he was efficient. Silent. Cold.

I didn't knock.

I pushed the door open barely an inch.

The sight hit me harder than a bullet.

Alessandro was leaning against his mahogany desk, his white dress shirt unbuttoned halfway. And there, pressed between his legs, was Aria.

She wasn't his sister. She wasn't his cousin. She was the "family friend" he had brought into the manor six months ago. The poor, debt-ridden girl with the sad eyes that everyone pitied.

Her head was thrown back, exposing her throat. Her hands were tangled in Alessandro's dark hair.

Alessandro looked at her with a hunger that terrified me. He looked... alive.

Aria turned her head slightly. She saw me.

She didn't pull away. She didn't gasp.

She smiled.

It was a slow, venomous curve of her lips. She deliberately shifted her hand, dragging her nails down Alessandro's chest, leaving a red mark. She wanted me to see. She wanted me to know that the lipstick on his collar was hers.

"You are so real, Aria," Alessandro murmured, his voice rough with passion. "So warm."

He ran a hand down her back. "Not like her. Not like that ice sculpture I have to go home to."

The air left my lungs.

Ice sculpture.

That was what I was to him. While I spent every waking moment trying to be perfect for him, trying to be the woman worthy of the De Luca name, he was here, with this fraud, mocking my very existence.

A wave of nausea rolled over me. I felt bile rise in my throat.

My fingers went numb. The folder of documents slipped slightly, crinkling loudly in the silence of the hallway.

I stepped back before Alessandro could turn his head.

I turned and walked away. My heels clicked against the marble floor, a rhythmic countdown to the explosion of my life.

I passed a group of maids dusting the hallway. They stopped talking as I approached, but the moment I passed, the whispers started. They knew. The Capos' wives knew. Everyone knew.

I was the only one who had been blind.

I made it to my room and locked the door.

I leaned against the wood, breathing hard. I walked to the mirror. The woman staring back at me looked pale, fragile. Broken.

No.

I straightened my spine. I wiped the single tear that had escaped.

There is an old Sicilian proverb my father used to say: The sharpest knife is often hidden under the calmest water.

I walked to my desk and pulled out the file I had started compiling on Aria weeks ago. I had dismissed my suspicions then, thinking I was being paranoid. Now, I looked at the papers with new eyes.

Gambling debts. Massive ones. A history of fraud. Connections to rival families that were too coincidental to be accidents.

She wasn't just a mistress. She was a parasite. And Alessandro had invited her in.

He had promised me the villa in Como for our fifth anniversary. Last week, I heard Aria telling the gardener about the flowers she wanted to plant there.

He was replacing me.

He didn't love me. He never had. I was a utility. A placeholder until he could install his true obsession.

I felt something inside me snap. It was the tether of loyalty I had held onto for so long, finally breaking under the strain.

I reached for my phone. My hands were steady now.

I dialed a number that hadn't been used in years.

"Giuseppe," I said when the old man answered. "I need you to do something for me."

I hung up and walked to my jewelry box. I took out the necklace Alessandro had given me on our wedding day. It bore the De Luca crest. Heavy. Golden. Suffocating.

I unclasped it and dropped it into the deepest drawer of my vanity.

The perfect statue was broken.

The war had just begun.