The Mafia Boss Found His Curvy Wife Collapsing Beside a Hidden Scale, and His Next Order Terrified Everyone Who Had Mocked Her
By the time Dante Romano discovered the hidden scale beneath his wife’s bathroom vanity, Mina had gone eighteen days without eating a full meal.
She was lying on the marble floor beside it.
Barefoot. Shivering. Her cheek pressed against the cold stone.
A silver evening gown hung loosely from the body that had once filled it with warm, unapologetic curves, and one trembling hand was still wrapped around a crumpled note someone had slipped beneath the penthouse door.
Maybe lose another twenty pounds before embarrassing him in public again.
Dante read the sentence once.
Then he closed his fist around the paper so tightly that his knuckles split.
Everyone in New York’s criminal underworld knew Dante Romano was capable of violence. They knew he could destroy a business before breakfast, end an alliance before lunch, and make a powerful man disappear before dinner.
But no one had ever seen what happened when someone taught his wife to hate herself.
Five weeks earlier, Mina Johnson had been standing behind the counter of her father’s bakery on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, dusting powdered sugar over a tray of lemon pastries, when six black vehicles stopped outside.
The bakery had been in her family for thirty-two years. Its faded red awning had survived rent increases, winter storms, a kitchen fire, and every bad decision her father had ever made.
It could not survive the three million dollars Thomas Johnson owed the Romano organization.
Mina’s father had borrowed the money to open two additional locations. When the expansion failed, he began gambling, convinced one lucky night could rescue them.
Instead, he dug the grave deeper.
When Dante entered the bakery, Thomas nearly dropped to his knees.
Dante was thirty-four, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and dressed in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than the bakery made in a month. A pale scar cut through his left eyebrow, giving his otherwise controlled face a permanent suggestion of danger.
His head of security, Leo Mercer, locked the front door behind him.
Thomas grabbed the counter.
“Mr. Romano, please. I can explain.”
“You have explained,” Dante said. “Three times.”
“I need another month.”
“You said that two months ago.”
Mina stepped between them before fear could stop her.
“My father is sick.”
Thomas looked at her sharply. “Mina.”
She ignored him.
“He hasn’t been thinking clearly since my mother died. The gambling started after that.”
Dante’s gaze settled on her.
Mina was twenty-four, with dark brown curls pinned messily above her neck and flour on both cheeks. Her green apron hugged a body she had spent years trying not to apologize for—full hips, thick thighs, soft arms, and a rounded stomach that moved when she laughed.
Dante did not look away.
Most men stared at her body and then pretended they had not.
Dante stared as if pretending was beneath him.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Mina.”
“You work here?”
“I run the kitchen. My father runs the finances.”
“That division of responsibility explains a great deal.”
Thomas flinched.
Mina lifted her chin. “Take the bakery. We’ll leave.”
“The bakery is worth less than a third of the debt.”
“Then let us repay the rest.”
“With what?”
“I’ll work.”
“For approximately one hundred and forty years?”
She hated the calmness in his voice. It made the situation feel even more hopeless.
Then Dante glanced at the legal folder Leo carried beneath one arm.
His grandfather’s will had given Dante control of the Romano organization, but not full ownership of the family’s legitimate holdings. To inherit those, Dante had to marry before his thirty-fifth birthday and remain married for at least one year.
His birthday was six weeks away.
The condition had been designed by an old man who believed a wife might make his grandson less ruthless.
Instead, it had created a problem.
Dante had no interest in the ambitious daughters of powerful families. They wanted his name, his fortune, or access to his secrets. Usually all three.
But Mina Johnson stood in front of him with flour on her face, defending the man who had gambled away her future.
She looked terrified.
She still did not step aside.
“I have another proposal,” Dante said.
Thomas stared at him. “Anything.”
Dante kept his eyes on Mina.
“Your daughter marries me. The debt disappears.”
The silence inside the bakery became absolute.
A metal tray slipped from a kitchen worker’s hands in the back room.
Mina thought she had misunderstood.
“You want me to marry you?”
“For one year.”
“Why?”
“An inheritance condition.”
“And after a year?”
“You leave with the bakery debt erased and two million dollars in a trust under your name.”
Thomas whispered, “Mina, this could save us.”
She turned on him.
“You are not part of this conversation anymore.”
Shame bent her father’s shoulders.
Dante watched her closely.
“You may refuse,” he said. “But the debt will remain.”
“And if I agree, you leave my father alone?”
“Yes.”
“No threats. No broken windows. No men following him.”
“Yes.”
“The bakery stays ours.”
“Yes.”
She swallowed.
“What kind of wife do you expect?”
“A legal one. Public appearances when required. Privacy regarding my business.”
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“And in private?”
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