Married to the Mafia Alpha

CHAPTER 3: THE WOLF AND THE JOURNALIST

Isabella’s POV



I REPLAYED the humiliation on loop like a bad song I couldn’t turn off.

Dominic Valtieri’s smirk was a bruise I couldn’t scrub away — calm, deliberate, like a man who could crush me but preferred to flick me aside. I told myself it was strategy, that I wasn’t fragile. The truth was worse: I’d slept hard, woken with the taste of expensive whiskey and the echo of his voice in my mouth.

At my kitchen table, laptop open, I buried myself in the hunt. The headlines were all curated lies — galas, charity funds, political dinners — but beneath them ran the same refrain: untouchable, feared, adored. Women appeared on his arm and vanished from the record within a week.

The real trail lay in old police blotters, buried reports, and shell charities tied to Wolfmoon Club businesses. A pattern emerged: security firms, contractors, and “nonprofits” overlapping with companies owned by the Valtieri trust. The story was forming.

Then my doorbell rang.

On the mat: a bouquet of white roses, wrapped in black tissue. No card. No note. Theatrical, deliberate. Apology? Claim? Warning?

I didn’t believe in coincidence with men like Dominic. I carried them to the counter as if they were live explosives, loosening the ribbon, weighing possibilities like chess moves.

My phone buzzed — Maria, the ex-Wolfmoon waitress. She was ready to talk. We set a meeting at a downtown coffee shop. Public. Mid-morning. Safe enough.

Before leaving, I tucked a single white rose behind my ear. I wanted to see how Dominic’s kind of men reacted.

The shop smelled of burnt beans and bravado. Maria sat in the corner, hunched over a laptop, eyes darting toward the door. She looked like a woman about to tell me something I wouldn’t be able to unknow.

“This is good,” she said, eyes bright. “But listen — people are scared. If you dig too deep, you’ll get followed. You heard about that woman who vanished after posting about the Wolfmoon’s charity gala? Her photographer stopped answering his phone the next day.”

My pen hovered over the notebook at my elbow. Fear was a useful tool in my line of work. It sharpened me. “Names,” I said. “Anything.”

Before Maria could answer, the bell over the door jingled, and a man walked in like he owned every inch of air he was breathing. He was tall, easy in a fitted coat, tousled hair that looked styled by a god with a grudge. He ordered something I didn’t hear, flashed a smile, and then — like fate with a sense of irony — turned and spotted me.

Liam Valtieri.

I should have been able to maintain the cool, professional detachment I cultivated for interviews. I didn’t. He moved like predator-light: casual, controlled. When he offered me a seat with a smile that said he knew more than he was saying, I was already deciding whether to say yes.

“You, Isabella Cross? The persistent one?” he asked, sliding into the chair opposite me before I could answer. He was charming in a cup, and it should have made me want to roll my eyes. Instead, it pushed a little thrill against my ribs.

Before I could get my guard up, two men in dirty coats slipped into the shop. Their eyes scanned the room in quick, practiced sweeps. They settled on our corner like vultures.

“Excuse me,” the nearest one said, voice like gravel. He stood too close and leaned in as if he owned my personal space. “You look like you know a thing or two about the Wolfmoon.”

My spine went rigid. Maria squeezed my hand under the table and gave me a look that said Get out. I tried to stand — failing gracefully while keeping my notebook hidden — but the man blocked me with a shoulder.

“Hey,” Liam said, his voice low, and the men’s attention snapped to him.

I watched him move like silk undone into steel. His smile didn’t fade; it sharpened. “Gentlemen,” he said, conversational, “I believe my friends here are busy.” He leaned in and, with a single glance, made the men reassess their life choices. They backed away, muttering. The one who’d touched me gave my chair an odd, lingering look before they left, like he was measuring potential profit.

Liam’s hand brushed my arm as he helped me gather my bag. It was a light touch — nothing scandalous — but it sent a flashlight beam straight to the place in my chest where Dominic’s rejection still stung.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, though my voice sounded small even to me. But my ears were tuned. I heard the gratitude in Maria’s whisper.

I saw the way Liam watched me, not with the heat of a man lusting, but with the scrutiny of someone assessing a piece of property.

“You should be careful,” he said when we were outside, the city air sharp and bright against the window glass. “The Alpha already has eyes on you.” He said it like it was a fact I should already know. His eyes flicked to me, then away. “But if you need someone to escort you, I can arrange it.”

There were a thousand ways to interpret that sentence. Protective. Threat. Offer. Threat disguised as an offer. Something in the way he held himself told me he was used to having his loyalty requested and granted in the same breath. He was Dominic’s right hand. Loyal. Complicated in a way that made me want to test edges.

“Why would the Alpha care about a journalist?” I asked, more to unsettle him than out of genuine ignorance.

Liam’s smile softened. “Because you poke at things that could get people killed.” He gestured toward the street. “Because you’re loud.” Then, quieter: “Because you probably don’t back down when someone tells you to.”

We stood for a moment beneath the sun, and I realized he wasn’t trying to flirt so much as measure my spine. The implication was clear: I could be useful to him. Or dangerous. Or both.

“Thanks,” I told him. “I’ll be fine.”

He nodded, but there was something in his face like an apology. Like he knew who he served and what that would mean for me.

THAT NIGHT, sleep was a false promise. When it came, it brought Dominic’s eyes — silver-grey, burning like metal. He was less a man than an atmosphere: whiskey on my tongue, cedar in my lungs, a hand at my neck that could bless or break.

“Stay where I can see you,” he murmured in the dream, a command disguised as an invitation.

I woke with my jaw clenched, his phantom touch still warm. The apartment was dark, the bouquet of roses a pale island on the counter. The city hummed beyond my windows.

Taking the trash to the curb, I froze.

In the strip of mud outside, a perfect paw print — four pads, a sharp central mark — was pressed into the earth like a signature. The edges were crisp, still cool from the night air. Not human. Not a dog. My stomach dropped, and my professional detachment wavered.

I glanced at the building across the street. Black windows stared back. The city carried on, indifferent.

Someone — or something—had left this for me. A warning. A claim.

The roses no longer felt like a gift; they were the first breadcrumb. My lead had teeth and a name: Dominic Valtieri.

The night air bit my face, and the journalist in me thrilled at the scent of danger. The woman in me… less so.

Either way, I was already in too deep.