"I'll marry you to kill you." Elena Vitale thought escaping her mafia fiancé's organ-harvesting plot was the hardest part-until she crashed into Lucien Moretti's arms. The ruthless casino king offers a deal: Become his fake wife to infiltrate the syndicate, or drown in the Chicago River tonight. But their transactional marriage ignites forbidden sparks. She's FBI agent "Nightingale" hiding a lethal poison ring; he's a werewolf enforcer with a vendetta against her family. When Elena discovers Lucien's secret mission connects to her sister's death, they must choose: Betray their oaths or burn the underworld together. A runaway bride with a syringe dagger. A werewolf godfather who bleeds silver. Every lie could be their last kiss-or a bullet to the heart.
Chapter 1 Bloody Veil Runaway
The orange blossom perfume in the bridal suite clung to Elena's throat like arsenic-infused nectar. Beyond the bulletproof chapel windows, Neo Sicily's skyline pulsed with holographic advertisements for cloned organs and vengeance brokers. Through her vanity mirror, she watched Dr. Valenti adjust the IV bag labeled "Nutrient Solution"-the same lie they'd told her sister Clara before harvesting her corneas.
"Tesoro, you look... exquisite." Her fiancé Victor's gloved hands slid up her bare spine, fingers clinically palpating each vertebra. "The Marchetti heir will pay triple for L3-L4 discs this pristine."
Elena's stiletto heel ground into the carpet's DNA-print pattern. Seven hundred and forty-three days. That's how long Clara's grave had yawned empty beneath their family mausoleum.
"Shouldn't you save the anatomy exam for our vows?" She tilted her head, allowing the diamond tiara to refract rainbow prisms-and the microcamera woven into her veil to capture Victor's smirk.
His surgical scalpel emerged like a silver tongue from his sleeve. "Modern brides should appreciate efficiency. We'll extract during the recessional hymn."
The first gunshot, disguised as a champagne cork popping, ignited Elena's counterattack.
Tulle became a garrote around Victor's carotid. "Where are Clara's eyes? Mounted in some collector's sensory tank?"
Dr. Valenti lunged with a bone-marrow extractor. Elena bit through the cyanide capsule sewn into her collar-except it wasn't cyanide.
"Ghost pepper aerosol, dottore." She spat crimson mist into his face shield. "A true Sicilian dowry."
Chaos erupted in sprays of sacramental wine and cryogenic cooler boxes. Elena's escape unfolded through Clara's dying whispers:
Shatter the stained glass with Louboutin stilettos.
Grapple down using the altar's gold-threaded ropes.
Don't look back at the IV bag labeled "Bride #13".
Neo Sicily's winter river stabbed her lungs with shards of liquid nitrogen. The wedding gown fused to her skin like a leaden burial wrap-until an iron hook pierced the embroidered bodice.
"A songbird who swims?" The voice dripped with Havana cigar smoke.
Lucien Moretti loomed on a smuggler's yacht, his unbuttoned shirt revealing the silver wolf brand marking all Sicilian spazzini-the shadowy waste collectors who made billionaires disappear. Fresh blood steamed on his knuckles in the December air.
Elena spat river algae onto his handmade Oxfords. "I'd rather feed the lampreys than be your broodmare."
"Broodmare?" Lucien's laughter rumbled like collapsing mineshafts. "I require a wife to claim the Moretti casinos. You need a wolf to gut your beloved surgeon."
He tossed a marriage contract speckled with arterial spray. "Sign with blood or become chum. Your choice, Mrs. Moretti."
Searchlights from Victor's helicopter bisected the storm. "I want her liver still singing!"
Lucien's pupils slit-vertical like a predator's. "Change of plans, canary. We consummate this union now."
Elena ripped her sodden skirt away, exposing her thigh-mounted toxin dart. "Touch me and lose those pianist fingers."
A feral grin split his face. "Dio, I adore lethal women."
As bullets pinged against the yacht's graphene hull, he yanked her into a chokehold reeking of gunpowder and bergamot. "Scream convincingly, wife. Or your FBI handler receives your larynx by dawn."
In the chaos of counterfeit moans and gunfire, Elena's gaze locked onto the flickering CCTV monitor-security footage of Clara striding through a laboratory corridor, very much alive. The timecode burned into the footage: December 23, 2023. The exact date when Clara's tombstone claimed she'd been dead two years.
"Your sister's corneas paid for this yacht," Lucien breathed against her jugular, "but her stubborn heart still beats in Geneva."
"Liar!" She jammed the poison dart into his neck.
He caught her wrist effortlessly, the syringe already emptied. "Rule one of mafia marriages, tesoro..."
Darkness swallowed her senses, laced with the bitter almond scent of amaretto-the same fragrance Clara always wore. The last coherent image burned into her retinas: Lucien's wolf-brand pulsing like mercury, his lips moving in a silent Sicilian curse she recognized from her sister's autopsy photos.
Chapter 1 Bloody Veil Runaway
28/03/2025