Traded To The Bratva: My Husband's Betrayal

Ninety-nine days. That was exactly how long it had been since my husband, Dante, traded my life to a Russian cartel just to save his mistress from a panic attack.

I walked onto the grounds of the Vitiello estate only to find him caressing her six-month-pregnant belly at my own funeral. He didn't look like a grieving widower; he looked like a man who had finally buried his mistake.

When I revealed I was alive, Dante didn't fall to his knees in relief. Instead, he protected Lucia. He believed her lies that I was insane, that I was a threat to his "heir."

To prove his loyalty to her, he stood by while my father whipped me in the family chapel until my back was in shreds. Then, he dragged me to the roof and threw me into a freezing pool, watching me drown simply because Lucia claimed I pushed her.

He didn't know Lucia was faking the pregnancy. He didn't know she was the one selling secrets to the Bratva. He broke his loyal wife to protect a traitor.

Now, six months later, he stands in the rain holding the Vitiello diamond necklace, begging me to come home. He thinks he can buy forgiveness.

But he doesn't see the man standing in the shadows behind me—the enforcer who took a bullet for me when Dante was busy breaking my bones.

I looked at the diamonds, then at my husband.

"I don't want a King," I whispered. "I chose the soldier."