Married to the Mobster by MISTAKE

Chapter 3

The jet looked like something out of a billionaire’s fever dream.

All silver curves and private runway exclusivity, parked under floodlights like a prize about to be claimed. Two men in black suits stood at the base of the stairs. Not a word between them, but their eyes did plenty.

They looked at Luca with professional nods.

They looked at me like I was luggage.

I stepped out of the SUV in Luca’s shirt, now paired with a too-tight skirt from my suitcase and heels I regretted the second they hit the tarmac. My legs still ached—from s*x, from running, from everything.

Luca took my hand like he did it all the time. Like it was muscle memory.

“Ever been to New York?” he asked.

“I have an ex who moved there.”

“Is he still breathing?”

I gave him a look. “You planning to fix that?”

He didn’t answer.

Just walked me up the stairs like we were boarding a honeymoon flight instead of running from blood-soaked crime scene fallout.

The inside of the jet was everything I expected from a man like Luca Moretti.

Leather. Wood grain. A full bar. A bedroom at the back with satin sheets that screamed we’re not just sleeping here.

I raised a brow. “You put a bed on a plane?”

He sank into one of the leather chairs across from me. “I f**k better at altitude.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

I stayed standing, arms crossed, while the engines hummed to life beneath us.

Luca relaxed like he owned the sky. One leg crossed, jacket draped casually over the seat.

“Get comfortable,” he said.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “What did your father mean—make the marriage permanent?”

“It means we act married. Publicly. Privately. Completely.”

“Even after Vegas wears off?”

He gave me a slow, dark look. “Especially then.”

“And if I say no?”

“You won’t.”

I stepped closer. “You really think you know me that well?”

“I know you came for me. Twice.”

“And you think that means I’m going to play mob princess?”

He stood.

Crossed the cabin in three long strides.

And when he stopped in front of me, I didn’t back up.

“You’re not a princess,” he said, voice low. “You’re a queen.”

He hooked his fingers into the hem of my skirt and dragged it higher.

“Which means I’m going to f**k you,” he murmured, “until you wear my name like it was carved into your skin.”

His fingers dragged my skirt up past my hips. The leather chair pressed against the backs of my legs. There was no music, no candlelight—just the low rumble of the jet and the sharp pull of tension between us.

I didn’t say yes.

But I didn’t stop him.

His thumb brushed between my legs.

“You’re already wet,” he said, voice rough with satisfaction.

“You’re the one who doesn’t believe in underwear on getaway flights,” I muttered, trying not to gasp.

His eyes burned into mine.

“You want it fast?”

“No,” I whispered. “I want it filthy.”

Luca growled like an animal finally let off the leash.

He turned me around and bent me over the armrest of the chair. My knees hit the plush leather cushion. My hands gripped the edge of the seat. Then I heard his zipper, the sound of him pulling himself free, the heavy heat of his c**k nudging against me.

I didn’t get a warning.

He slid in with one long, brutal thrust.

My gasp echoed across the cabin.

“Oh, f**k—”

“That’s it,” he said, grinding into me. “Take all of it.”

I did.

I couldn’t not.

He f****d me like he was staking a claim—deep, punishing thrusts that made the seat creak under us, that had me gasping and moaning and begging without shame.

His hand slipped between my legs, thumb pressing to my c**t.

“You don’t walk into my life, marry me, bleed for me, and think I’m letting you go,” he growled against my ear.

“You’re insane,” I choked.

“And you’re mine.”

He spanked me, hard, and I cried out again, my hips rocking back against his with a desperation I couldn’t even pretend to control.

The pressure built too fast.

Too hard.

“Luca—”

“Come on my c**k,” he demanded. “Do it now.”

I shattered.

My vision blurred. My legs shook. The orgasm ripped through me like lightning, and I sobbed into the leather, hips jerking as he kept pounding into me without mercy.

He groaned deep in his throat.

One more thrust. Then another.

And then he stilled.

Hot, thick pulses as he came inside me, still gripping my hips, still buried to the hilt.

“f**k,” he breathed.

We stayed like that for a moment—sweaty, panting, wrecked.

Then the plane jolted, a sudden burst of turbulence.

He laughed softly.

“Even the sky likes watching you come.”

I reached back blindly and smacked him in the thigh.

“Get off me, Moretti.”

He pulled out slow and smooth, and I felt every inch of him leave me.

I was still catching my breath when I collapsed sideways into the chair.

He tucked himself back into his pants, buttoned up like he hadn’t just ruined me.

Then he glanced toward the cockpit.

“Pilot says we’ll land in thirty.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered, adjusting my skirt with what little dignity I had left. “Remind me to tell your father his son f***s like a maniac.”

Luca sat across from me again, still watching.

Still hungry.

“He already knows.”

The plane landed so smoothly I barely felt it.

Still, the second the wheels touched down, something inside me tightened. A gut-level awareness that I wasn’t going home—I was being delivered.

The door opened. Cold New York air rushed into the cabin like it had teeth.

Luca stood, jacket already on, gun probably holstered somewhere I didn’t want to know about. I followed him out in silence, heels clicking against the steel steps of the jet.

A black SUV idled on the tarmac.

A man in a dark navy trench coat waited beside it, standing so still he might’ve been carved from concrete.

Luca approached him without hesitation.

“Mr. Moretti,” the man greeted him with a slight nod. Then his gaze slid to me. “She’s with you?”

“She’s mine.”

“Password?”

“La Regina,” Luca said smoothly.

The man stepped aside.

I blinked. “Did you just say a password?”

Luca gave me a look. “Family protocol. If I didn’t say it, he’d shoot you.”

My mouth dropped. “He what?”

“You’ll never know.”

I climbed into the SUV before I could overthink that.

The inside smelled like clean leather and money. I kept my hands folded in my lap, acutely aware that I wasn’t just stepping into Luca’s world now—I was in it.

“This is your life?” I asked quietly. “Code words, bodyguards, armed staff?”

“No,” he said. “That was just the runway. The real show starts at the house.”

I turned to him.

“What happens there?”

“You meet my family.”

I swallowed.

“And if they hate me?”

He looked at me too long. Too seriously.

“Then I have to pick.”

“Between me and them?”

He didn’t say anything.

But he didn’t have to.

The car wound through iron gates taller than any prison I’d ever seen.

Beyond them stood Moretti Manor.

If a palace had a lovechild with a fortress and hired a haunted cathedral for décor, it’d be this place. Gothic arches. Black stone. Ivy curling like fingers around the windows. And balconies that didn’t say welcome, they said surveillance.

I stared up through the tinted window. My throat tightened.

“That’s not a house,” I muttered. “That’s a threat with plumbing.”

Luca didn’t blink. “You get used to it.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

The SUV pulled to a stop in front of twin staircases that curled up toward blood-red doors. The kind of entrance where you didn’t knock—you waited to be summoned.

A valet opened the door.

I stepped out slowly, pulling my coat tighter, even though the cold wasn’t the thing making me shiver.

I could feel them already.

Eyes.

From behind curtains, across balconies, through tinted windows.

The manor didn’t need guards.

It was the guard.

Luca joined me on the pavement. His hand found the small of my back like a brand.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No.”

“Perfect.”

He walked me up the steps like I belonged there.

Like I was already part of it.

The doors opened before we touched them.

Three people waited inside.

One woman in silver. Two men in suits.

The woman didn’t smile. Her heels clicked on the marble as she walked forward, cool and clinical.

She was stunning.

Tall. Pale. White-blonde hair pinned back in a style that said no fun ever. Her cheekbones looked like they’d been cut in Geneva.

Her eyes dragged from my shoes to my thighs to the ring on my finger.

“So. This is her.”

“Mother,” Luca said.

Oh.

Shit.

She didn’t blink.

“You’re American,” she said.

“So is your son,” I replied. “In bed, anyway.”

The silence in the entryway was instant and thick.

Luca’s mother stared at me for one long beat… then gave the ghost of a smile.

“Bold,” she murmured. “I see the appeal.”

A man with slicked-back hair stepped forward. Sharp jaw. Cold eyes. No smile.

“This is Carlo,” Luca said. “My cousin.”

Carlo didn’t offer a hand. Just looked me over like I was a lab experiment no one had signed off on.

“You’ll need to be briefed,” he said. “Etiquette. Protocol. Media training—”

“Oh,” I interrupted, “are you the butler?”

His jaw ticked. One point for me.

“She doesn’t kneel, Carlo,” Luca said, his voice dry. “Get used to it.”

Then another figure stepped forward from the shadows near the staircase.

Older.

Broader.

Darker.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t need to.

The weight of him shifted the room.

“Luca,” I whispered. “Who is that?”

Luca didn’t move. “That’s my father.”

The man’s eyes stayed locked on mine.

“And he wants to meet you,” Luca added, “alone.”

The room they brought me to was colder than it had any right to be.

No windows. Just thick velvet curtains that didn’t move. A massive oak desk. Two leather chairs. One of them occupied by the man who ran an empire with a phone call.

Don Moretti.

He didn’t rise when I walked in.

He didn’t even blink.

I stopped just inside the door, coat still on, hands at my sides like I was waiting for judgment. He watched me in silence. The kind that wasn’t awkward—it was strategic.

He was built like a general and dressed like an executioner—black suit, steel cufflinks, no tie. Every inch of him said I built this world and I can burn it down.

Finally, he spoke.

“What’s your maiden name?”

“Reyes,” I said, slow. “Ava Reyes.”

“Of?”

“Phoenix. Originally.”

“No family in New York?”

I shook my head. “None that send cards.”

He tapped a cigar against a crystal ashtray. Didn’t light it.

“You think this is a game?” he asked.

“Vegas was.”

“You think this marriage is a mistake.”

I lifted my chin. “Yeah. I do.”

He stood.

The air changed.

Don Moretti stepped around the desk with the deliberate patience of a man who knew no one would ever dare stop him.

He didn’t stop until he was in front of me.

Close enough to smell the cologne—wood smoke, whiskey, and war.

“No,” he said. “It wasn’t a mistake. Luca doesn’t make mistakes.”

“I’m pretty sure I qualify.”

“No,” he said again. “He chose you.”

He stepped even closer.

And I realized suddenly that this—he—was what all the others had been afraid of.

“You don’t know what it means to wear our name,” he said.

“Then teach me,” I answered, because I refused to flinch.

“You wouldn’t survive the first lesson.”

“Try me.”

His lips twitched. Almost a smile. Almost.

“When you fail him,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “I won’t kill you. I’ll let you live long enough to watch him fall. Piece by piece.”

My throat tightened, but I didn’t step back.

“The last woman who crossed a Moretti didn’t get a grave,” he murmured. “She got a legend.”

The door burst open.

Luca strode in like a storm, jaw tight, eyes burning.

“You done testing her?”

“She’s still standing, isn’t she?” his father said.

“I said she was mine,” Luca growled. “Not bulletproof.”

“Then teach her to be both.”

Luca crossed to me, took my arm—not hard, not gentle—and pulled me toward the door.

But before I crossed the threshold, the Don’s voice stopped me.

“Ava.”

I turned slowly.

He stared at me with the kind of weight that pressed straight into bone.

“Be careful what you make Luca love,” he said. “The last time he did, it nearly destroyed him.”