KIDNAPPED AT THE ALTAR IN A BLOOD-STAINED GOWN: The Mafia Kingpin Forced Me to Marry Him to Avenge My Father's Deadly Betrayal, But What We Uncovered in the Safe Will Leave You Speechless!

By the second night of my captivity, the silence within the Carbone estate was more maddening than any physical cruelty could have been.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked with agonizing regularity. No one spoke to me except Elena, who delivered meals on silver trays—steaming bowls of broth, roasted meats, fresh bread—none of which I could stomach. I spent the hours pacing the perimeter of the room, counting the floorboards, listening to the muffled footfalls of guards patrolling the corridor outside.

My father had forty-eight hours. The deadline was set to expire at noon on the third day.

At ten o’clock on the second night, the bolt clicked open.

Marco entered, carrying an uncorked bottle of dark red wine and two crystal tumblers. He wore no jacket now, his white linen shirt unbuttoned at the throat and the sleeves rolled to his forearms, revealing corded muscle and the edge of an intricate black tattoo that disappeared beneath his cuff.

""You haven't eaten,"" he observed, setting the bottle and glasses on the low table near the fire.

""I don't have an appetite for a kidnapper's hospitality,"" I replied, standing with my arms crossed near the window, looking out into the pitch-black woods.

""I am not your host, Isabel. I am your collector,"" he said, pouring a measure of wine into both glasses. ""And if you intend to survive what comes tomorrow, you will need your strength.""

I turned to face him, my heart hammering against my ribs. ""Has he called?""

Marco picked up his glass, swirled the crimson liquid, and took a slow sip. His gaze was entirely devoid of malice, which made the answer far more devastating.

""At three o'clock this afternoon, your father’s corporate jet touched down at Le Bourget airport in Paris,"" Marco said quietly. ""At four-fifteen, all domestic accounts held under the Vance Corporation were emptied and wired through seven layered shell corporations in Zurich and Dubai.""

The air left my lungs in an icy, suffocating rush. I gripped the back of the armchair to steady my legs.

""He left,"" I whispered, the words tasting like ash. ""He took the money and he left.""

""He took his money,"" Marco corrected coldly. ""He did not pay a single cent of what he owes my organization. Nor did he contact the Rossi family, who financed his real estate developments with forty million dollars of illicit union pension funds.""

""And me?"" I asked, looking up into his pale, unblinking eyes. ""Did he ask about me?""

Marco reached into his pocket and placed an audio recorder on the table. He pressed play.

A crackle of static filled the room, followed by the familiar, cultured voice of Roland Vance, speaking through an encrypted satellite link.

“Take the collateral and choke on it, Carbone,” my father’s voice said, completely devoid of warmth, stripped of the fatherly affection he had showered on me during wedding rehearsals. “Isabel is twenty-six. She’s an adult. If you think I’m handing over nineteen million dollars for a girl who cost me five hundred thousand a year in maintenance, you’ve grown sentimental in your old age. Do whatever you want with her. She isn't my problem anymore.”

The line clicked dead.

The silence that followed was so deep I could hear the embers disintegrating in the hearth.

I didn't cry. The pain was too vast, too absolute for tears. It felt as though my entire life—the ballet lessons, the private schools, the loving father who had walked me down the aisle carrying garden roses—had been an elaborate stage play, and the curtain had just been torched.