Not Her: The Shadow Bride's Great Escape

I was the invisible daughter of a low-level mobster until Ethan Cole, the city’s most terrifying Don, plucked me from the streets.

He claimed it was love at first sight. He married me, draped me in vintage diamonds, and treated me like a fragile porcelain doll.

I thought I was living a fairytale until I found the secret room in his library.

It was filled with photos of a dead woman named Olivia. A woman who had my hair, my eyes, and my face.

I wasn't his soulmate. I was a replacement part for a broken machine.

When I became pregnant, Ethan didn't hug me. He placed a possessive hand on my stomach and whispered, "The heir."

He didn't see me. He only saw an incubator for a ghost's legacy.

My father tried to warn me and died for it. I realized that once I gave Ethan this child, I would be trapped in his gilded cage forever, a broodmare for a man in love with a corpse.

So, I did the unthinkable.

I walked into a clinic and paid cash to remove the one thing he valued more than his empire.

I went home, collapsed on the marble floor in a pool of blood, and looked up at the monster who thought he owned me.

"I lost it," I screamed, tearing at his lapels. "I lost our baby!"

I watched his heart break, knowing I had just declared war.

Chapter 1

Ava POV

Gravel chewed into the skin of my palms before I even registered the screech of tires.

My bicycle lay in a mangled skeleton of metal a few feet away, its front wheel spinning lazily in the unnerving morning silence.

Pain radiated up my arms, but fear was the colder sensation seizing my chest, because the black sedan that had clipped me didn't look like an accident.

It looked like a predator that had finally decided to stop stalking its prey and strike.

The driver's door opened.

A man stepped out.

He didn't rush. He moved with a terrifying lack of urgency.

He adjusted the cuffs of his suit jacket-a dark charcoal fabric that probably cost more than my father's entire house-with precise, deliberate motions.

He was tall, violently handsome, and carried an air of authority that made the atmosphere around him feel heavy, as if he consumed all the oxygen in the street.

I knew who he was instantly.

Everyone in our world knew the face of the man who held the leash to the city's throat.

Ethan Cole.

The Don.

My father was a low-level associate, a man who paid his dues and kept his head down, terrified of the very organization he served.

I was the daughter he kept hidden, the clean thing in a dirty world.

Ethan walked toward me, his movements fluid and predatory.

He crouched down, his eyes scanning my face with an intensity that made me want to shrink back into the asphalt.

"Are you hurt, Ava?"

He knew my name.

The sound of it on his tongue felt like a caress and a threat all at once.

"I... I think I'm okay," I stammered, my voice trembling.

He reached out.

His hand was large, his fingers long and elegant. I hesitated, but the command in his eyes was absolute.

I placed my bloody hand in his.

He pulled me up with effortless strength, drawing me close enough that I could smell his cologne-sandalwood and something metallic, like rain on cold steel.

"My driver was careless," he said, his voice low and smooth like velvet dragged over gravel. "I will handle him."

I looked at the car.

The driver's seat was empty. There was no driver.

He had been driving.

A shiver ran down my spine, but I was too naive to understand it was a warning.

"It was an accident," I lied, trying to pull my hand away.

He didn't let go.

His thumb brushed over the scrape on my palm, smearing the blood slightly into my skin.

"Let me take you home," he said.

It wasn't a question.

"My bike..."

"Is garbage now," he interrupted coldly. "I will replace it."

He guided me to the passenger seat of the sedan.

I got in because you don't say no to Ethan Cole.

The ride to my father's small suburban house was silent, but the tension filled the car like suffocating smoke.

When we pulled into the driveway, my father was already on the porch.

His face went pale, his eyes widening in sheer terror as he saw the Don's car idling at the curb.

Ethan got out and opened my door.

He walked me to the steps, his hand resting possessively on the small of my back, burning through the fabric of my shirt.

"Mr. Miller," Ethan said, nodding to my father.

"Don Cole," my father breathed, his voice barely a whisper. "To what do I owe this... honor?"

"Your daughter had a little spill," Ethan said, his eyes never leaving mine. "I wanted to ensure she arrived home safely."

My father looked from Ethan to me, and I saw a flicker of something breaking in his eyes.

Resignation.

"Thank you, sir," my father said. "Ava, go inside."

I wanted to stay, to hear what they would say, but I obeyed.

I went into the hallway, but I didn't go to my room.

I stood by the door, pressing my ear against the wood, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"She is of age," Ethan's voice came through, devoid of the warmth he had shown me. "And she is unblemished."

"She is all I have," my father pleaded weakly.

"And now she will be mine," Ethan stated. "I will call on her formally on Friday. Make sure she is ready."

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I leaned back against the wall, my breath catching in my throat.

He wanted me.

The most powerful man in the city wanted me.

I touched my cheek, which felt hot.

I didn't hear the transaction in his tone.

I didn't hear the ownership.

I only heard the fairytale I had been reading about in books, blind to the bars of the cage descending around me.