Chapter 10
Senior year first semester I’d had enough
I told my parents I was leaving Going abroad for college.
They caved
I went to that loud, hot city. And that’s where I met Luca.
Back then, his family was still intact. He was sunshine and bright smiles. Loud Talented. Nothing like the suffocating
quiet of that private school.
All through college in London, I held onto that smile of his.
Alessandro was there too. Same school.
But we never sought each other out.
Later. I learned from someone else that he’d been keeping tabs on me the whole time.
My major. My street. My library.
Every ‘coincidental meeting had been calculated.
He’d planned to tell me at graduation.
But I skipped the ceremony. Booked a flight home the night before.
Because Luca said he missed me.
And then I spent years rebuilding Luca.
My work was in Sicily. I saw Alessandro more than I saw my own fiancé.
I hated him for it
He knew how badly Luca and I needed the Sicily project-the one that would prove something to my parents. He refused
to budge
Everyone at the company knew. Rebecca had an enemy
She threw files at him in bid meetings. Flipped tables in negotiations
No one would’ve guessed the two enemies would end up in the same bed
When I brought Alessandro home, my parents faces lit up.
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The Unchosen Alpha
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My father met him at the door. Shook his hand. Said ‘Magnificent’ three times.
My mother wiped her eyes and whispered. “Welcome home.”
Alessandro dropped the sly grin entirely. Almost shy.
“Sir. Ma’am,” he said. And they both melted.
At dinner, my father brought up the Sicily reclamation project.
That was their test. Their bait.
Luca had won the bid.
For ten years, my parents had watched from a distance.
Watched me build Luca from nothing. Run the projects. Take the risks. Hold the line.
And finally, reluctantly, they’d admitted I had talent.
So they decided to let me win. Even if they hated the man I’d chosen.
But the wedding changed everything.
“That project,” my father said, swirling his wine and beaming at Alessandro, “is a gift for my new son-in-law. That boy
had no idea what he was holding. What do you think, son?”
Alessandro put a piece of fish on my plate. “Whatever my wife wants.”
But here was the truth-from the day we signed that certificate, he stopped holding back.
Before, he’d always pulled his punches. I’d thought it was because of my father.
Then my mother told me: my father had ordered him to push me.\
So Alessandro had walked right up to the edge. Every time.
Now? No teams.
He pulled the rug right out from under Luca,
Luca heard the news while drinking.
Bottles everywhere. Empty ones. Broken ones.
He was alone in that apartment, staring at walls where my presence no longer existed
His men couldn’t reach him.
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The Unchosen Alpha
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‘She’s just throwing a fit She’ll come around.”
“No way Even if she left him-not Costa.*
Finally, Marco brought Serena.
The second she walked in. Luca seized her by the throat and slammed her against the wall.
‘That night. You got me drunk. Climbed into my bed. You said your father would invest. Where’s the money? Why did he
pull out?”
Serena went bone-white. Stammered nothing
Her father had gone mad enough to turn on his own daughter.
Luca hadn’t meant to cheat.
But he’d woken up with a body next to his. And he’d thought it was me.
He was dirty now.
If he was already dirty, why stay clean?
He told himself it was for the money. But Serena was young. Hot. Wild. And he got addicted.
I never found out.
And the less I knew, the more he wanted me to know. Wanted me to accept.
If I accepted, he’d feel better.
Now he regretted it.
Regretted not stopping the first time. Regretted assuming I had no options. Regretted not seeing the enemy coming
That night, he hurled his phone at the wall.
Screamed at the ceiling all night long.
“Why? How?”
After I left him, his company crumbled. Major projects stalled.
He tracked the money. It led back to Sicily. To a man named Vincenzo
Rebecca’s father
The man who ran a small surgical clinic
Chapter 10
The Unchosen Alpha
Who really controlled half the Mediterranean shipping routes.
Everything clicked into place.
He knelt outside my father’s gate all night in the rain. Begging to see me.
A guard came in and told me.
I was curled up on the couch, watching a movie with Alessandro.
“No.” I said.
Alessandro kissed the top of my head. “You’re beautiful when you’re cruel, he murmured.
The rain fell all night.
By morning, the gate was empty.
A wet envelope lay on the ground.
Inside was a ring.
The one I’d left behind the night before the wedding.
I had the guard throw it out.
I wasn’t here to pick up trash this time.
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The Unchosen Alpha
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