Who Is The Author Of Ten Years For His Sicilian Lie?

She was the daughter of a monster. He was the man who put a bullet in her father’s skull. Now, they're both trapped in a game of obsession, betrayal, and blood. When Mirabella Belluci escapes her brutal Mafia past in Chicago, she doesn't expect to be hunted by the man who freed her. Giovanni Moretti. He is cold, calculating, and a sworn enemy of her family and is meant to watch her from the shadows. Instead, he watches too closely... and wants too much. But in a world where love is weakness and loyalty is lethal, desire comes at a cost. And the closer they draw to each other, the deeper they sink into a war that could destroy them both. "Obsession is just another kind of loyalty.”

It was my sixth year with the Mafia Don. On the night of my birthday, he came home with a young, beautiful stranger by his side. Everyone thought I would break down or fall apart because of his betrayal. Instead, I smiled, my fingertips brushing lightly over the diamond ring on my ring finger. What they didn’t know was that I had come for revenge. Six years ago, he killed my father and my fiancé. So, I remained by his side, waiting for the right moment to send him to hell. How could I have fallen for him?

Shortly after we said "I do," the Family sent my husband, Dario, down to the Mexican border. He told me it was a meat grinder down there—cartel territory. where guys were zipped into body bags every day. He said he had to go—to expand the territory, for the glory of the Family. He claimed it was too dangerous and that his enemies would paint a target on my back, so he wouldn't take me with him. I believed him. I stayed behind in his old, rot-infested house in New Jersey, taking care of his bitter, spiteful parents. I spent my days and nights in the Family's moldy laundromat, washing bills stained with blood. He told me he sent every dime he made down there to the widow of a brother who took a bullet for him. He asked me to be understanding. I never complained. Day after day, I pressed expensive suits in that humid laundromat, waiting for him to come home. It wasn't until the eighth year that a mobster came back drunk. When I asked about Dario, he froze, then sneered at me through a haze of alcohol. "Dario? Are you kidding? He’s been a King in Manhattan for years. He’s the youngest Underboss of the Corleone family." I stood frozen, the iron in my hand burning a hole right through a shirt. "And he got married seven years ago. Biggest cathedral in New Jersey. Half the mob was there to toast the groom..." He pulled a crumpled photo from his leather jacket. Snuggled up against my husband was a woman in a high-end couture gown—the very same "poor, widowed sister-in-law" he had told me about. The next day, I contacted a fixer who specialized in fake IDs. On the application for a one-way ticket to Europe—a ticket to vanish off the face of the earth—I filled in the fake name I had prepared long ago. He trapped me for seven years with a sham marriage. From now on, I’d be done with this damn loyalty.

One immigration application ended my marriage— and erased me from my husband’s world forever. I was Arabella Ashford— the wife of the man everyone wanted to marry. An Italian mafia heir—Born into power, wealth, and fear. A bloodline successor watched by international law enforcement, forbidden to cross borders, permanently barred from U.S. territory. They said he adored me— built me a private estate so I’d never hear the city, sent me flowers for no reason, just to make me smile, remembered every little thing I liked, every habit and quirk, No one saw the truth. And while the world called him perfect— he was putting another woman in my place, and another life in her womb. So I made my choice. I filed for permanent residency overseas. With that one signature, I erased myself from his world. From that moment on, he would never find me again. This was the price of his betrayal. He didn’t realize I was losing him that day. When he discovered the woman he betrayed was already beyond his reach. That was when he lost everything. He gave up his position. Walked away from his inheritance. Turned his back on a throne men would kill for— all to cross an ocean he was never allowed to enter.

On our tenth wedding anniversary, I was trapped in a cabin with my daughter, Sofia Costello, as floodwaters raged outside. With shaking hands, I used the emergency satellite phone to call my mafia husband, Henson Costello, and begged for help. I dialed more than 90 times before the call finally went through, yet all I heard was the breathy moans of his first love, Angelina Rossi, on the other end. "Henson...slower..." Before I could even process the shock of his betrayal, I heard a conversation that sent me straight into hell. "That kid was dead weight anyway. Trading him for control of Pier 9 was the best deal the family ever made." It seemed that Leo Costello, my son, who had supposedly drowned at the beach five years ago, had not died in an accident after all. Henson had used him as part of a business deal. All this time, I had been drowning in guilt for taking him to that beach, blaming myself for the tragedy. I never knew the truth was this cruel. Tears streamed down my face as my body shook uncontrollably. After ten years of marriage, I finally realized I had never truly known the man I loved and sacrificed everything for. I picked up my phone again and dialed Vincenzo Moretti's number. "Vince, I'll marry you. But you have to help me destroy the Costello family from power." After a brief silence, his voice came through the line. "Aurelia Astor, I've been waiting ten years to hear you say that."

Everyone in Palermo knew Alessandro De Luca had a reputation. He was the Boss of the De Luca family, one of the oldest bloodlines in Sicily — a name tied to the port, the courts, and half the construction contracts in Palermo. Wealth, power, discipline—those things were expected. Romance was not. He didn’t chase women, and he never went back to the same one twice. Until me. When we broke up after a brutal argument, he did something no De Luca had done in generations—he stood outside the gates of the Moretti estate, my family home, for an entire day and night. I watched from behind the curtains and never opened the door. The next day, he came inside the estate kitchen himself. Alessandro De Luca, who grew up surrounded by servants, tried to cook my favorite seafood pasta with his own hands. He burned the sauce. I threw it away without tasting it. On the third day, he found the necklace my grandmother had left me—something my uncle had sold years ago—and bought it back, paying far more than it was worth, just to return it to me. At a formal family dinner, in front of elders and allies, he made it clear: No more women. Only me. It took him a year to win me back. That summer, fireworks lit up the Palermo coastline as he announced our engagement. I believed he had chosen me. Until the night of a private gathering at an old harbor estate. A young woman was being pulled forward in the middle of the courtyard, her dress torn at the shoulder, tears running down her face. Alessandro went still. Then he stood up. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t explain. He just walked toward her. And something inside me went cold. I rested my hand over my abdomen. There was something I hadn’t told him yet. He broke his word that night. So I broke mine.