I Slept With My Boyfriend’s Mafia Boss, Now My Family Thinks I Married a Nobody

The night a kidnapping trap left me drugged and hunted, a wounded stranger saved my life. Hours later, after the drug had completely worn off, I gave him the first night I had been saving for my boyfriend.

Three months later, I learned I was pregnant.

Then I discovered the stranger was Roman Vescari, New York’s most feared Mafia Don.

And my cheating boyfriend?

He worked for him.

I thought that was the worst secret in my life.

Until I went home pregnant, secretly married Roman for protection, and listened to my own family laugh because they thought I had married a broke nobody.

They had no idea the man they were insulting was the same Don they would eventually beg for mercy.

***

My phone vibrated against the metal counter of the casino’s private medical suite.

*Two years, Lena. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t keep locking me out.*

Mason’s text glowed on the screen, heavy with the same tired pressure he’d been pushing for months. He thought saving my virginity was an outdated joke. To him, my body was a milestone overdue for collection. To me, it was the only piece of myself I hadn’t compromised.

I shoved the phone into my scrub pocket, turned the lock on the medicine cabinet, and stepped out into the VIP corridor.

Shouting erupted from the private lounge at the end of the hall.

A young woman in a sequined gown was convulsing on the carpet, knocking over a cocktail table. A silver bucket and shattered champagne flute lay in a pool of liquid beside a wet service towel.

"Help her!" a hostess screamed. "She just collapsed!"

I dropped to my knees beside the girl, recognizing the senator's daughter from the penthouse suite. "Get security," I ordered, grabbing the discarded towel to clear her airway.

The moment the damp fabric touched my bare skin, a synthetic chemical smell hit my nostrils. A burning tingle flared across my palms, sinking through my pores like liquid fire.

Before I could pull away, a heavy hand locked around my forearm.

I looked up straight into the cold eyes of a man in a black tactical vest holding heavy-duty zip ties. He wasn't casino staff.

"You saw too much, nurse," he muttered, wrenching me to my feet and dragging me toward the service elevator.

I fought, digging my heels into the plush carpet, but his grip was iron. The corridor lights suddenly shattered as suppressed gunfire cracked through the hallway.

A tall man in a bloodstained charcoal suit stepped out of the shadow of the exit stairwell. Blood soaked through the left side of his shirt near his waist, but his posture didn't waver.

With two precise, deafening shots, the man in the suit dropped my captor.

The kidnapper collapsed in a heap. I stumbled back against the wall, trembling, the strange chemical heat already racing into my blood.

The shooter grabbed my wrist. His grip was scorching hot, his dark eyes fierce and calculating.

"Move," he commanded, his deep voice carrying no room for argument. "More are coming."

He dragged me down a service corridor I didn't know existed, punching a code into a reinforced panel hidden behind an electrical unit. The door hissed open, and he shoved me inside a concrete underground safe room, locking the blast door behind us.

He sagged against a metal workbench, his hand clamped over his lower abdomen. Dark crimson poured between his long fingers.

"First aid kit," he grunted, nodding toward a steel footlocker. "Get it."

My training kicked in over the panic. I dropped beside him, tearing open the kit. "Take off your jacket and shirt. Now."

He stripped off the tailored jacket and tore open his dress shirt. The bullet had torn across his lower abdomen, grazing the skin just above his beltline. The sight of his sculpted torso covered in sweat and dark blood made my pulse hammer.

My fingers brushed his lower stomach as I packed the wound with sterile gauze. His skin was burning, his abdominal muscles flexing hard beneath my hands.

"Keep steady," he murmured, his gaze locked onto mine.

Heavy footsteps pounded on the ceiling above us. Voices barked through the ventilation duct.

He didn't hesitate. He seized my waist, lifted me off the concrete floor, and shoved us both into an empty utility locker built into the wall. The space was barely two feet wide.

To fit inside, he pulled me straight onto his lap.

I was forced to straddle him, my knees bracketing his thighs, my chest pressed flat against his bare, wounded torso. Every ragged inhale he took pressed directly against my ribs. His large hands gripped my hips to keep me balanced, his thumbs digging into the curve of my waist.

Outside the thin locker door, searchers swept the safe room, their boots scuffing the concrete.

My heart hammered against my throat. The drug was taking hold now—a designer stimulant meant to incapacitate and inflame the senses. My skin felt raw, oversensitized, starving for friction. I shifted involuntarily on his lap, a soft whimper catching in my throat as my pelvis brushed his hard frame.

His grip on my hips tightened until it bruised.

"Don't move," he whispered against my ear, his breath searing my jawline. "Stay still, sweetheart."

After several suffocating minutes, the footsteps receded and the outer door clicked shut.

He pushed the locker door open and set me on the floor.

My scrub top was soaked through with his blood, sticking uncomfortably to my chest.

"Take that off," he said, turning to a metal cabinet and tossing me a spare, folded white dress shirt. "You're tracking biological evidence."

My hands shook so hard I could barely unbutton my scrub top. I stripped it off in the dim light, shivering as the cool air hit my bare bra, and slipped into his oversized white shirt. The fabric smelled of cedar and expensive cologne, hanging halfway down my bare thighs.

The heat inside me spiked violently. My pupils blew wide.

"What did you touch out there?" he asked, stepping close, inspecting my face.

"A towel... the champagne," I gasped, leaning toward his solid chest. "I feel like I'm burning up."

"Trapping stimulant," he muttered under his breath. "They dosed the girl to keep her compliant."

I reached out, my fingers curling into his forearm, desperate for relief from the fever clawing under my skin. "Please... touch me. It hurts."

Instead of touching me, he caught both my wrists and held them away from his body.

"Look at me," he said sharply. "What's your name?"

"Lena."

"Where are you?"

"The casino safe room."

"What happened?"

"I touched the drug. You pulled me out."

His gaze stayed locked on mine. "Good. You're aware. That still doesn't mean I'm taking advantage of this."

He moved me to the cot, soaked a clean towel with cold water, and pressed it to the back of my neck. For several minutes, he kept his distance while I fought to breathe through the heat tearing through me.

It didn't ease.

My hands curled into the thin mattress. "Please."

His jaw tightened. "Lena."

"I know what I'm asking." I forced myself to meet his eyes. "If I tell you to stop, you stop."

"Immediately."

I nodded.

This time, when I reached for him, he didn't step away.

His mouth came down on mine.

The kiss was hard and controlled at first, but the fever under my skin turned every touch into fire. I clung to his shoulders, feeling the rigid restraint in his body give way inch by inch. He kept watching my face, stopping whenever I tensed, making me look at him before he continued.

Outside the blast door, the casino remained silent.

Inside, the night blurred into heat, blood, and ragged breathing until the chemical fire finally began to break.

Sometime before dawn, I pulled his oversized shirt around me and slid down against the concrete wall while he collapsed onto the narrow cot beside me. Exhaustion swallowed everything.