His Fiancée Betrayed Him Publicly—Then the Mafia Boss Chose the Woman Everyone Mocked...

The rain had turned into a torrential downpour by the time we walked out onto the grand stone terrace overlooking the front driveway. Two heavy-set security guards held Chloe Davenport by her arms near the fountain.

She looked completely unrecognizable.

Her immaculate blonde hair was plastered to her face in wet, stringy clumps. Her expensive designer coat was soaked through and covered in mud from climbing over the security fence. Her mascara had bled down her cheeks in black streaks, and her eyes were wide, frantic, and wild with desperate rage.

"Let go of me, you animals!" Chloe shrieked, kicking wildly at the guards. "Beatrice! Beatrice, I know you're up there! Make them let me go!"

Dominic stepped to the edge of the terrace stairs, his arm moving instinctively to slide around my waist, drawing me close to his side. "Throw her off the property," he ordered the guards coldly. "If she steps foot on this estate again, call the police and have her arrested for criminal trespass."

"No! Wait!" Chloe screamed, her voice cracking with hysterics. She fell to her knees in the wet gravel, sobbing uncontrollably. "Beatrice, please! Look at me! I'm your sister!"

I looked down at her from the top of the terrace stairs. Sixteen years of psychological torture, sixteen years of being called fat, useless, ugly, and invisible—all kneeling in the dirt at my feet.

"Let her speak," I said quietly to the guards.

The guards stepped back, though they kept their hands near their holsters. Chloe scrambled to her feet, wiping rain and mud from her face, staring up at me with a terrifying mixture of hatred and desperation.

"You have to stop this, Beatrice," Chloe sobbed, taking a step toward the stairs before Dominic’s cold stare froze her in place. "The federal agents are at our house right now! They took Papa’s passports! They froze my credit cards! I tried to buy a coffee ten minutes ago and my card was declined! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?!"

I almost laughed. A multi-million-dollar federal corruption case, her father facing prison, her co-conspirator behind bars—and Chloe was devastated because her credit card was declined at a coffee shop.

"You chose to help Liam execute a fifty-million-dollar fraud, Chloe," I said calmly, my voice carrying over the sound of the falling rain. "You chose to stand in front of five hundred people, throw Cabernet on my dress, and try to frame me for a crime that carries a twenty-year sentence. Did you really think there would be no consequences?"

"I was doing what Papa told me to do!" Chloe lied frantically, her hands shaking. "It was Liam's idea! Liam said Dominic was going to ruin us anyway! I didn't mean what I said to you last night! You know how I get when I'm stressed! We're sisters, Beatrice! We shared a home!"

"We didn't share a home, Chloe," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, hard tone. "You lived in a mansion, and I lived in your shadow. You used my intelligence to finish your school projects, you used my labor to keep your father's business solvent, and when you were finished with me, you tried to throw me into a federal prison so you could live happily ever after with Liam Russo."

Chloe’s eyes narrowed, the fake tears instantly drying as her true, venomous nature resurfaced. "You think you're smart, don't you?" she spat, taking another step forward, her face twisted with bitter malice. "You think because you put on a nice suit and got this criminal to put a ring on your fat finger that you're suddenly somebody? You're nothing! You will always be the ugly, pathetic orphan my father took in out of pity!"

Dominic shifted beside me, his jaw tightening, his hand clenching into a violent fist. "That's enough," he barked, his voice ringing like thunder through the courtyard. "Bartholomew, take her."

"No," I said, holding up a hand to stop the guard.

I walked down the marble steps slowly, step by step, until I was standing directly in front of Chloe in the pouring rain. I was taller than her now—not in height, but in presence. I looked down into her mud-streaked face.

"You called me a nobody last night, Chloe," I said softly, my voice steady and deadly clear. "You said nobody would ever want me. But look at us now. I am sitting on the board of the Davenport Trust. I own the Brooklyn waterfront development rights. I am married to the most powerful man in New York. And you are standing in the rain, covered in mud, begging me for mercy."

Chloe stared at me, her chest heaving, unable to utter a single word.

"I won't ask Dominic to destroy you, Chloe," I whispered, leaning in closer so only she could hear. "Because you and your father have already destroyed yourselves. Now get off my property before I have you arrested for the wine you threw on me last night."

I turned my back on her and walked back up the stairs.

Behind me, Chloe let out an ear-splitting shriek of pure rage, clawing at the air before the security guards grabbed her firmly by the arms and dragged her kicking and screaming down the driveway toward the iron gates.

Dominic met me at the top of the stairs. He wrapped his coat around my wet shoulders, pulling me into the warmth of his chest.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently.