Before My Mafia Husband Returned from the Dead, I Rejected the Proposal My Best Friend Arranged Chapter 01

Before My Mafia Husband Returned from the Dead, I Rejected the Proposal My Best Friend Arranged Chapter 01

On our wedding night, my Mafia husband, Luca Moretti, suddenly died in bed.

Luca was the designated heir to the Moretti Family and the Underboss in charge of the warehouses and transportation routes around the docks.

With him gone, I—a widow from a minor affiliated family—became the sole legal beneficiary of his enormous estate and lost the strongest protection I had within the Family.

The Family lawyers loyal to Luca told me to remain at the villa for the time being while they handled everything.

Several Capos, however, kept hinting that I should remarry while I was still young and hand over control of the businesses as soon as possible.

To them, a young widow with no Moretti blood and no crew loyal to her had no business holding the Family’s resources for long.

Even my best friend, Vanessa Reed, secretly introduced me to Ethan Walker.

He had an ordinary administrative job at a logistics company loosely affiliated with the Family.

He was broad-shouldered and lean-waisted.

He didn’t have Luca’s looks, status, or wealth, but he seemed young and considerate.

Then, on the day Ethan proposed to me, floating comments suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[Don’t accept his proposal! Your best friend introduced this man to you on purpose because she knows your husband isn’t really dead! His spirit has been right beside you this whole time!]

[The second you take that ring, he’ll have proof that you found someone new the moment you inherited the Moretti assets. Everyone will see you as a woman who wanted power and betrayed her marriage vows!]

[Luca’s love will turn to hatred. He’ll believe you betrayed both your vows and your loyalty to the Family, and once he comes back to life, you’ll be the first person he settles the score with.]

[And your dear best friend will swoop in to comfort the Luca you supposedly “betrayed.” She’ll become his wife and have his love, status, and assets all to herself. They’ll spend forty happy years together, and the entire Family will hold their marriage up as a love story.]

I stared at the man in front of me, holding up a diamond ring.

After several seconds of silence, I decided to believe the comments.

I raised my hand and slapped him across the face.

…

Ethan covered his cheek, and the gentle expression he’d worn moments ago vanished instantly.

“What’s wrong with you? I’m proposing to you, and you suddenly hit me?”

I had no interest in dealing with his sudden anger.

Luca had always been fiercely possessive.

The first time we met, he was five years old.

That day, he’d gotten into a fight at his private school.

His father, the Moretti Don at the time, told him in front of the school board and the Family lawyers that as long as he didn’t break Family rules, he could have anything he wanted.

Trying to take something by force, his father said, was the stupidest way to get it.

But Luca didn’t ask for anything.

He simply reached past his father and took hold of me where I was hiding behind him.

From that day on, I had an older “brother” who wasn’t related to me by blood.

My father was only an associate who managed several legitimate businesses for the Moretti Family.

My closeness with Luca gave the Bell family a certain standing among the affiliated families and placed me under Luca’s protection from childhood.

Even as a child, he looked after me like a little grown-up.

From the time I was one until I turned eighteen, he personally involved himself in everything from my rides and schooling to my security arrangements.

Even my mother complained that he cared far too much about me.

Luca heard those complaints and never changed a thing.

When I was nineteen, a few street punks causing trouble near the edge of Moretti territory whistled at me.

Luca didn’t spill a drop of blood.

He simply ordered the Capo responsible for that district to clear out every troublemaker overnight and had all businesses under the Family tighten their security.

For the next five years, the docks became the safest commercial district in the entire city.

At first, I didn’t believe the floating comments.

On our wedding night, I’d held Luca in my arms until his body turned cold and stiff.

Later, I’d watched with my own eyes as his coffin was sealed and lowered into the ground.

But if I could suddenly see mysterious comments floating in midair, maybe a dead man coming back to life wasn’t completely impossible either.

What if they were telling the truth?

The thought that Luca might have been watching me with Ethan for the past three months made me tremble uncontrollably.

Even the breeze suddenly felt colder.

“Serena.”

Vanessa frowned, clearly unable to understand why I’d suddenly rejected him.

“You’ve spent so much time with Ethan. You said yourself there was only one step left between you two. You’ve been dating this long, so isn’t marriage the natural next step? Why are you suddenly saying no?”

“He’s got an amazing body. Just try it once and you’ll love it.”

Vanessa walked toward me, her tone openly suggestive.

I was about to answer when I caught sight of more comments scrolling through the air.

My entire body tensed.

[Luca has been following you for the past three months. Vanessa’s constant suggestive comments have already pushed him close to giving up on you. Thank God you didn’t accept the proposal! There’s still a chance to fix this!]

Only then did something click.

Vanessa really did make comments like that around me all the time.

I had never done any of the things she was hinting at.

I’d always assumed it was just suggestive banter between friends.

But now, if Luca’s ghost really had been beside me the entire time, Vanessa had been doing it deliberately.

She wanted to turn Luca’s love for me into hatred.

“When exactly did I ever say I wanted to sleep with him?”

Maybe it was the first time I’d ever challenged her directly.

Vanessa’s expression stiffened.

“Vanessa isn’t wrong. Sooner or later, we’re going to get that close anyway.”

Ethan frowned, impatience already creeping into his voice.

“What is going on with you today? I love you, and you love me. Why won’t you accept my proposal? Don’t you want me to stay with you anymore?”

More comments flooded the air.

[The person he really loves is your best friend. He even bought the ring in her size, and he’ll still insist he was nervous and accidentally bought the wrong one.]

[Luca comes back to life in three days. Don’t believe a word they’re saying!]

I took the ring from Ethan and, with the comments scrolling rapidly before my eyes, slipped it onto Vanessa’s ring finger.

It fit perfectly.

Ethan’s smile froze, and he immediately pulled his hand back.

“It was my first time proposing. I was nervous, so I bought the wrong size.”

Even his excuse matched.

The comments had predicted Ethan’s explanation word for word.

For the first time, I began to believe the rest of their warnings might be true too.

If Luca really was going to come back to life and I accepted Ethan’s proposal, I wouldn’t just lose my claim to assets worth billions.

Luca would see me as a woman who had betrayed our marriage vows and the Family—and he would deal with me himself.

The comments said Luca would return in three days.

So I might as well wait and find out whether they were telling the truth.

“You misunderstood.”

I looked at Ethan’s expectant face and gave him a cold smile.

“I only see you as a friend.”