The Seat Beside The Mafia Heir Chapter 01

The Seat Beside The Mafia Heir Chapter 01

I was still standing in the hallway of Santa Lucia Private Clinic when Nina Rossi’s voice carried down the hall.

“Gia Romano, you really know how to pick your battles. Serena steals your fiancé, and you turn around and sleep with her mafia brother?”

Okay, when she put it that way, it sounded insane.

I’d been engaged to Matteo Conti for seven years.

He cheated on me with Serena Bianchi—the one person in the world I trusted most.

I was heartbroken. I went to The Black Saint, got drunk, and ended up spending the night with a dangerously handsome stranger.

That stranger turned out to be Lorenzo Valenti, Serena’s soon-to-be stepbrother.

I was still trying to figure out what to do about the two people who betrayed me.

Then opportunity walked right into my lap.

At 11 a.m., I stopped by La Rosa Nera in Milan to pick up lunch for Nina.

The place pretended to be a restaurant, but everyone knew Milan’s old families used it as an unofficial council room.

They used it for weddings, business deals, and arrangements that never made it into contracts.

I walked in and spotted Serena sitting in a private booth by the window.

She wore a fitted ivory satin dress, her dark brown hair falling past her shoulders. Her lips were pale, but her eyes were anything but innocent.

Her voice was soft as she spoke, her smile polished. Her fingers traced the rim of her wine glass like she’d rehearsed the scene a hundred times.

The man across from her wore an impeccably tailored suit. His posture was cold and composed. His cufflinks were understated but expensive.

He didn’t need to introduce himself.

He sat there like the room had already been cleared for him.

I knew what I was looking at.

This wasn’t a casual lunch.

It was a family-arranged introduction.

Serena spotted me. Her face paled.

“Gia?”

I pulled up a chair and sat down between them.

I didn’t look at her. I smiled at the man across the table.

“So, are we discussing an alliance, or is this just lunch with extra paperwork?”

The man didn’t answer right away.

He watched me with cool, sharp eyes, like he was deciding whether I was a problem or an opportunity.

Serena’s smile stayed in place, but her voice turned cold.

“Gia, don’t do this here. This table isn’t for you.”

I rested my chin on my hand, held her gaze for a few seconds, then turned back to the man.

“Let me introduce myself properly. I’m Gia Romano. Serena’s best friend, and the former fiancée of the man she’s currently seeing.”

I smiled calmly.

“Matteo and I broke up less than a day ago. Is that clear enough, or do I need to draw you a family tree?”

Serena’s face went white.

I kept my eyes on her.

“Didn’t you say Matteo made you happy? Was last night not enough? Already auditioning your next marriage prospect?”

She stared at me, frozen.

I leaned in, dropping my voice.

“How do you do it? Take your friend’s fiancé one night, then sit down for marriage talks the next? Teach me. I’d love to know if that backup-plan strategy actually works.”

Then I turned back to the man.

“All this trouble for one woman? Want to trade up? One night, no family drama.”

The man finally smiled.

Not because he was amused.

Because someone had finally put a knife on the table.

And he liked it.

Serena looked like someone had flipped all her cards faceup in public.

I had two people I trusted most in the world.

One was Nina Rossi, who I’d grown up with.

The other was Serena Bianchi, who I’d met in high school.

Nina and I had been neighbors since we were kids. The Rossi family wasn’t big, but they’d always worked for the Romanos.

We grew up on the same street, knew which doors to avoid and which calls to answer.

We got into trouble together, fought like enemies, but if anyone came after one of us, the other was always first to swing back.

She was my ride-or-die.

Serena was different.