His Ex-Fiancée Returned to Humiliate Her—The Mafia Boss Stood Up and Called Her “My Wife”

The estate was a fortress of limestone and steel on the edge of Lake Michigan.

When they walked through the front doors, the staff was already rushing forward to take their coats. Clara kept Dominic’s jacket wrapped tightly around her, feeling exposed despite the layers.

"Prepare a hot bath for my wife," Dominic ordered the head housekeeper. "And have her dress sent to the cleaners. If the stain doesn't come out, burn it."

Clara followed him up the grand, sweeping staircase to the master wing. For eighteen months, they had shared this wing, but never the same room. They had lived a quiet, domestic lie.

She was a brilliant forensic accountant who had found a massive discrepancy in the federal case against him. When the cartel backing the feds found out she dismantled their trap, they put a hit on her.

Dominic had offered her a twenty-million-dollar payout and the absolute protection of his name. A piece of paper filed in a courthouse. A ghost marriage.

"Why did you do it, Dominic?" Clara asked, stopping in the middle of the hallway. "Really. Victoria was your fiancé. She broke your heart."

Dominic stopped and turned around. He looked at her as if she had just spoken in a foreign language.

"You think Victoria broke my heart?"

"She left you when the feds raided your businesses. She returned the ring."

Dominic let out a harsh, cynical laugh. "I paid the federal agents to stage that raid, Clara. I needed an excuse to get rid of her without starting a war with the Montgomery family. I knew she would run the second she thought the money was gone."

Clara’s jaw dropped. "You staged it?"

"I don't marry cowards," Dominic said, taking a slow step toward her. "I marry women who can look at a crumbling empire and figure out how to rebuild the foundation."