MY SISTER'S MAFIA FIANCE WANTS ME NOW

The man on TV was going to kill my sister. I knew it the second I saw his eyes. "Breaking news: Billionaire heir Matteo Costello announces engagement to Lagos socialite Sofia Akin—" I dropped the remote. Sofia. My sister. My older sister who died five years ago in a car accident. Or so my mother told me, while crying over an empty casket. On screen, Sofia was beautiful, in a red dress, smiling like she owned the world. But her hand was shaking where it held his. And the man beside her — Matteo Costello — wasn't smiling at all. He was looking at her like a man looks at something he owns and is about to break. The doorbell rang. My mother screamed from downstairs. Not a normal scream. The kind of scream that makes your blood cold. I ran down. Four men in black suits were in our living room. My mother on the floor. My father against the wall, a gun to his head. And in the middle, sitting in my father's chair, was him. Matteo Costello. In real life. Taller. More scarred. More devil. He looked up at me on the stairs and his eyes narrowed. For a second, confusion flashed across his face. Then understanding. A slow, dangerous smile. "Sofia?" he said. "No—" My father choked. "That's — that's her sister. Amara. The younger one." Matteo stood up. He walked to me slowly, like I was a deer that would run. "Amara," he repeated, tasting my name. "You look exactly like her. Except... innocent." He grabbed my chin, not hard, but I couldn't move. His eyes were grey, like a storm. "Where is she?" he whispered, only for me to hear. "Where is your sister?" "I — I thought she was dead—" "She ran. Last night. After she stole twenty million dollars from me. And she left this." He threw a photo on the table. Sofia, with another man, kissing. My parents had lied to me for five years. Sofia didn't die. She ran away with a billionaire mafia. "Your family owes me. Your sister stole from me, and your father borrowed forty million to cover her debts," Matteo said loudly, turning to my father. "He promised me Sofia. Now Sofia is gone." My father sobbed. "Please, Don Costello, give us more time—" "You have no time. You have daughters. One ran. So I will take the other." My whole world stopped. "What?" Matteo pulled out a contract. "Marriage contract. You will marry me tomorrow. You will live in my house. You will take your sister's place at my engagement party tomorrow night, and smile, until I find her. If you refuse, your parents die tonight, and I will still find your sister and kill her and her lover." My mother grabbed my leg. "Amara, please, you have to—" "Why me?" I whispered, tears falling. "I don't even know you!" He leaned down, his lips almost touching my ear. "Because your sister's biggest secret," he said, "is you. She told me she would rather die than let me touch her perfect little sister. So now, angel, I'm going to find out why." He let go of me and checked his watch. "You have ten minutes to pack one bag. After that, you belong to me." Behind him, my mother opened the drawer where my father kept his old pistol. And my sister — my dead sister — suddenly called my phone. Her name lit up the screen: SOFIA. Matteo saw it too. His smile vanished. "Answer it," he ordered.