The Forced Bride

The Forced Bride

Ziora

5.0
Comment(s)
View
13
Chapters

When Valentina Moretti's family betrays the most feared mafia clan in Italy, she becomes the payment for their sins. To save her brother's life, she's forced into a marriage with Alistair Rossi-the ruthless Alpha of the Rossi syndicate, a man both feared in the underworld and cursed under the full moon. Alistair needs an heir to secure his bloodline and solidify his claim as leader of both the human and werewolf factions of his empire. Cold, calculating, and bound by duty, he swears to keep his new bride only long enough to fulfill that purpose. But Valentina's fire-her defiance, her unwillingness to bend-awakens something primal inside him. Something dangerous. As the line between captor and protector blurs, Valentina finds herself entangled in a web of power, secrets, and forbidden desire. The man who took her freedom might be the only one capable of saving her soul. In a world where loyalty is currency and love is weakness, Valentina must decide if she can trust the beast who owns her name-and perhaps her heart-to face the darkness rising within and beyond the Rossi throne. His bride by force. His mate by fate.

Chapter 1 The Debt

The scent of blood and roses always meant danger in the Moretti household.

Valentina Moretti stood at the top of the marble staircase, her bare feet cold against the stone, her pulse echoing in her ears. The chandeliers below threw fractured light across the grand hall-glittering against crystal decanters, gunmetal, and sin. Her father's men stood rigid, their faces pale as the door to the mansion burst open.

And he entered.

Alistair Rossi.

Even the air seemed to bow for him. Tall, dark, and carved in shadows, the man moved with the quiet confidence of a predator. His black suit fit like sin itself, and his eyes-those impossible, molten silver eyes-swept the room, landing on her father first. Then her.

Valentina's breath hitched.

Every whisper she'd ever heard about the Rossi heir was true-and not nearly enough. The rumors said he wasn't fully human. That under the full moon, he became something else-something ancient and uncontrollable. The Rossi clan ruled Italy's underworld with fear, but it was Alistair who ruled them. A man born of violence and bound by the curse of the wolf.

And her family had crossed him.

"Mr. Moretti." His voice was smooth, deep, threaded with a cold amusement that made her father flinch. "You know why I'm here."

Her father's hands trembled slightly as he gestured toward the long table. "Alistair, please-let's discuss this."

A soft growl cut him off. Low. Animal. Valentina's stomach knotted as Alistair's jaw tightened, a hint of something feral flashing in his gaze before it vanished.

"You had my trust," Alistair said quietly. "And you sold weapons to my enemies. You stole from me. You lied."

Her father fell to his knees. "It was a mistake! My son-he..."

"Your son," Alistair interrupted, glancing toward the young man bound and bleeding beside his guards, "is lucky I haven't put a bullet between his eyes."

Valentina took a step forward before she could stop herself. "Please," she whispered, voice trembling. "Spare him."

The room went still.

Alistair turned his head toward her, slow and deliberate, like a wolf scenting a challenge. The silver in his eyes deepened, glinting like moonlight on water.

"And who are you to beg me for mercy?"

"Valentina," she managed. "His daughter."

For a moment, something unreadable flickered across his expression-interest, curiosity, maybe even hunger. Then his lips curved into a smile that wasn't a smile at all.

"Your brother's life for yours," he said softly. "That seems fair."

Her heart stopped. "What?"

"You'll marry me."

Her father's strangled cry filled the room. "No! Alistair, she's innocent."

"She's your blood," he snapped, the calm mask fracturing for a heartbeat. "And your blood owes me." He stepped closer to Valentina, the air thickening with his scent-cedar, smoke, and something wild beneath. "You'll come with me tonight. You'll wear my name. My mark. My child."

Valentina's pulse roared. "You can't just."

"I can," he murmured, leaning close enough that his breath brushed her ear, hot and inescapable. "And I will."

She met his gaze, refusing to look away. "And if I refuse?"

A slow, dangerous smile. "Then I'll let your brother die screaming."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Her father wept. Her brother stared at her through swollen eyes, shaking his head weakly. Valentina's throat burned, tears stinging-but she didn't cry. She wouldn't.

She straightened, chin lifting, and met the monster's gaze head-on. "Fine," she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her chest. "I'll marry you."

Something dark and satisfied glimmered in his eyes. "Good girl."

He turned, barking orders to his men. The Moretti estate erupted into motion-guards, cars, shadows moving like ghosts. Valentina stood frozen, numb, as her world shattered around her.

When Alistair took her hand, his grip was firm but not cruel. The heat of his skin seared hers, burning through the cold.

"You'll regret this," she whispered.

His mouth twitched, almost a smirk. "I already do."

As he led her out into the night, thunder rumbled in the distance, and somewhere beyond the walls, a wolf howled under the rising moon.

Her fate was sealed.

Continue Reading

Other books by Ziora

More

You'll also like

The $300 Husband Is A Zillionaire

The $300 Husband Is A Zillionaire

Nap Regazzini
5.0

I woke up in a blindingly white hotel penthouse with a throbbing headache and the taste of betrayal in my mouth. The last thing I remembered was my stepsister, Cathie, handing me a flute of champagne at the charity gala with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Now, a tall, dangerously handsome man walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips. On the nightstand sat a stack of hundred-dollar bills. My stepmother had finally done it—she drugged me and staged a scandal with a hired escort to destroy my reputation and my future. "Aisha! Is it true you spent the night with a gigolo?" The shouts of a dozen reporters echoed through the heavy oak door as camera flashes exploded through the peephole. My phone lit up with messages showing my bank accounts were already frozen. My father was invoking the 'morality clause' in my mother’s trust fund, and my fiancé had already released a statement dumping me to marry my stepsister instead. I was trapped, penniless, and being hunted by the press for a scandal I hadn't even participated in. My own family had sold me out for a payday, and the man standing in front of me was the only witness who could prove I was innocent—or finish me off for good. I didn't have time to cry. According to the fine print of the trust, I had thirty days to prove my "rehabilitation" through a legal marriage or I would lose everything. I tracked the man down to a coffee shop the next morning, watching him take a thick envelope of cash from a wealthy older woman. I sat across from him and slid a napkin with a $50,000 figure written on it. "I need a husband. Legal, paper-signed, and convincing." He looked at the number, then at me, a slow, crooked smile spreading across his face. I thought I was hiring a desperate gigolo to save my inheritance. I had no idea I was actually proposing to Dominic Fields, the reclusive billionaire shark who was currently planning a hostile takeover of my father’s entire empire.

The Mute Heiress's Fake Marriage Pact

The Mute Heiress's Fake Marriage Pact

Alma
5.0

I was finally brought back to the billionaire Vance estate after years in the grimy foster system, but the luxury Lincoln felt more like a funeral procession. My biological family didn't welcome me with open arms; they looked at me like a stain on a silk shirt. They thought I was a "defective" mute with cognitive delays, a spare part to be traded away. Within hours of my arrival, my father decided to sell me to Julian Thorne, a bitter, paralyzed heir, just to secure a corporate merger. My sister Tiffany treated me like trash, whispering for me to "go back to the gutter" before pouring red wine over my dress in front of Manhattan's elite. When a drunk cousin tried to lay hands on me at the engagement gala, my grandmother didn't protect me-she raised her silver-topped cane to strike my face for "embarrassing the family." They called me a sacrificial lamb, laughing as they signed the prenuptial agreement that stripped me of my freedom. They had no idea I was E-11, the underground hacker-artist the world was obsessed with, or that I had already breached their private servers. I found the hidden medical records-blood types A, A, and B-a biological impossibility that proved my "parents" were harboring a scandal that could ruin them. Why bring me back just to discard me again? And why was Julian Thorne, the man supposedly bound to a wheelchair, secretly running miles at dawn on his private estate? Standing in the middle of the ballroom, I didn't plead for mercy. I used a text-to-speech app to broadcast a cold, synthetic threat: "I have the records, Richard. Do you want me to explain genetics to the press, or should we leave quietly?" With the "paralyzed" billionaire as my unexpected accomplice, I walked out of the Vance house and into a much more dangerous game.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book