The Mafia King's Runaway Ghost Bride

Isabella POV

The freezing Chicago wind bit through my thin silk nightgown, and my bare feet were numb against the wet cobblestones. My head throbbed, my memories a hazy, terrifying blur that stopped abruptly at my sixteenth birthday party. How did I get here? Where was my family?

"Well, well. Look what wandered into Ricci territory."

Two men stepped from the shadows of a brick alleyway, their fedoras pulled low. The glint of a switchblade caught the dim light of the streetlamp. I backed up, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Before they could lunge, a low, synchronized rumble shook the street. A procession of gleaming black 1928 Cadillac V-8 Town Sedans swept around the corner like a funeral march. The lead car bore a crest I didn't recognize, but the sheer, suffocating aura of danger radiating from the motorcade was unmistakable.

The two Ricci soldiers froze, their bravado evaporating instantly. They pressed themselves against the damp brick wall, eyes wide, terrified of drawing the attention of whoever sat behind those tinted windows.

I didn't wait. I seized their distraction, slipping silently into the pitch-black alleyway and running until my lungs burned.

Damien POV

The Valentine family mausoleum was a sanctuary of white marble and suffocating silence. For five years, it had been my only church.

But tonight, the heavy stone door stood ajar. The sacred seal was broken.

A cold, lethal calm washed over me, masking the inferno igniting in my blood. I stepped inside. My most trusted Enforcer stood by the marble altar, his face pale in the lantern light.

"Don Moretti," he rasped, swallowing hard. "The casket... it's open. She's gone."

I stared at the empty, satin-lined box. The scent of dried roses and dust mocked me. Someone had dared to touch her. Someone had stolen my ghost.

The fragile thread holding my sanity together snapped.

"Lock down the city," I commanded, my voice a deadly, hollow echo in the tomb. "Find her. Find my Isabella's body. And bring me the head of every man who dared to touch what is mine."

A city-wide Vendetta had just begun. I would burn Chicago to the ground to get her back.

Isabella POV

My legs were trembling so violently I could barely stand by the time the familiar wrought-iron gates of the Valentine estate loomed before me. Home.

I pressed the security intercom button, my fingers slick with cold sweat.

"Valentine residence," a raspy, familiar voice crackled through the speaker.

"Luca?" I sobbed, leaning my forehead against the freezing iron. "Luca, it's me. Please let me in."

Through the small security monitor, I saw the elderly butler's face drain of all color. He stared at the screen as if looking at an apparition. "Miss... Miss Isabella?" he whispered, his voice trembling with absolute terror and disbelief. "But you're..."

His eyes rolled back. He clutched his chest and collapsed out of frame. A second later, the estate's emergency alarms began to blare, a deafening siren that shattered the quiet night.

Marco POV

The heavy bag groaned under the force of my fists. Five years. Five years of rage, and the blood on my knuckles still wasn't enough to wash away the grief of losing her.

The gym doors burst open. A breathless Associate stumbled in over the blaring alarms. "Capo! At the gates-they say it's Miss Isabella! She's alive!"

Red coated my vision. I grabbed the man by his collar, lifting him off his feet. "If this is a sick joke, I will rip your tongue out-"

"Marco?"

The soft, confused voice cut through the siren like a blade.

I froze. I dropped the Associate to the floor and turned slowly, my heart stopping in my chest.

She stood in the doorway, shivering in a dirty silk nightgown, looking exactly as she had at sixteen. My tough exterior, the ruthless Caporegime the city feared, shattered into a million pieces. A raw, guttural sob tore from my throat. I crossed the room in two strides and pulled my baby sister into a desperate, crushing embrace, weeping into her hair like a lost child.

Lorenzo POV

The wailing was intolerable. I threw my pen onto the mahogany desk, the legal documents for our legitimate fronts forgotten. Marco was losing his mind again.

I stormed out of my study, my face a mask of cold disapproval. "Marco, for God's sake, control yourself. What is the meaning of this-"

The words died in my throat.

Marco shifted, and I saw her face.

The files in my hand slipped from my numb fingers, scattering across the marble floor of the foyer. The wall of ice I had meticulously built around my heart for five long years cracked and collapsed in a single heartbeat. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I just moved, falling to my knees beside them, wrapping my arms around my brother and the sister we thought we had lost forever.