Bing Caratozzolo

On our seventh anniversary, the Capo dei Capi lit up the New York skyline with drones spelling my name, swearing on his life that I was his only Queen. Moments later, he abandoned me on the dock to rush to his mistress—my own sister, Sophia. Sophia sent me a photo of him kissing her belly with the caption: "He finally has a real woman. It's a boy." Lucien wanted an heir above all else. I was just the placeholder; she was the vessel. I didn't scream. I didn't confront him. I simply initiated Ghost Protocol. I left the wedding ring, signed the divorce papers, and erased Eleonora Marino from existence. By the time Lucien found the DNA test proving Sophia’s baby wasn't his—that he had betrayed his loyal wife for a lie—I was already gone. He executed my sister in a rage and spent his fortune burning down the world to find me. Six months later, he bought the high-security Swiss lab where I was hiding, forcing his way back into my life. He stood before me, gaunt and desperate. "I killed her, Nora. She paid for what she did to us. Come home." I looked at the man I had once worshipped. "Infidelity is a choice, Lucien. But murder? That is who you are." "We are enemies now."

On my eighteenth birthday, I expected to find my Fated Mate. Instead, I found my executioner. I shifted for the first time, but my wolf was small and frail. Marcus, the future Alpha and the man I had secretly loved, looked down at me not with adoration, but with cold, clinical disgust. "A weak, scrawny Omega," he sneered, his voice echoing across the silent clearing. "You have no muscle. Your bloodline is nothing." He didn't just reject me; he humiliated me. "I, Marcus, reject you as my mate." The bond snapped, shattering my bones and my spirit. He banished me to the human city, leaving me to die in a freezing alleyway like unwanted refuse. For weeks, I lay in the mud, my body ravaged by fever and the agony of a severed soul tie. I accepted that I was worthless, a mistake made by the Moon Goddess. But just as the darkness threatened to swallow me whole, a pair of strong arms lifted me from the dirt. A stranger with eyes like obsidian fed me his blood and whispered a truth that changed everything. "You are not weak, Ellie," he growled, his power vibrating against my skin. "You are a White Wolf." I wasn't a runt. I was a legend. Now, fully healed and radiating power, I am returning to the pack that threw me away. Marcus is about to marry another, but when he sees me, he won't be looking at a reject. He will be looking at the biggest mistake of his life.

I was the daughter of a wealthy tycoon, deeply in love with my fiancé, Conrad. But on our wedding day, he arrested my father. My ten-year relationship was a lie. He was an FBI agent, and my best friend, Bonny, was his accomplice. The betrayal shattered me. I was forced into electroshock therapy, which erased my talent for architectural design-the one thing that was truly mine. My life fell apart. After a failed suicide attempt, I was saved by a kind stranger and my father's last words. I rebuilt my life from the ashes, becoming a successful photographer. Years later, Conrad reappeared, full of fake regret, begging for a second chance. I looked at the man who had destroyed me and compared him to a cat that had once bitten me. "I forgave you," I told him, "but I will never trust you again." My friend Corey, acting as my fake husband, defended my honor by punching Conrad in the face. Eventually, Conrad's career imploded due to a scandal involving Bonny. He was ruined. As for me? I was in Paris, my photography career soaring, when I picked up a sketchbook. Miraculously, the lines flowed. My gift was returning. I was finally in control of my own story.

For eight years, I thought I had succeeded in my mission to save Mark Johnson, a "high-value target with self-destructive tendencies," as the System called him. I was his fixer, his anchor, the stable force that pulled him from the brink, transforming him into a successful, confident husband. My mission, it seemed, was complete. But peace, I learned, was a language Mark never truly wanted to master. His craving for chaos reawakened with the return of Emily Carter, his old flame. I smelled her perfume on him at 2 a.m., then heard him arranging for her to stay in our home under the pretense of her being his cousin, shattering the world I had built. I confronted him, not with tears or accusations, but with cold, hard facts-the perfume, the late nights, the fingerprint security he' d never deleted for her. He looked ashamed, but still had the audacity to suggest Emily was "fragile" and "needed him," as if his betrayal was a mere inconvenience. Then, the true horror: he suggested, with earnest eyes, that I should "accept her." "Can' t you just… accept her? We could make this work. The three of us." The sheer audacity, the monstrous lack of respect, turned my love into pure revulsion. In that moment, the last ember of affection died. I looked at the man I had dedicated my life to, the "project" I had poured my soul into, and finally felt nothing but a vast, cold emptiness. I picked up my phone. "<System, I need to know my options.>" A white-hot rage, pure and clean, burned through my heartbreak, cauterizing the wound. I accepted the Exit Protocol, ready to forfeit everything to sever ties with this man and this life.

On the eve of my dream wedding, everything seemed perfect with my charming fiancé, Ethan Blackwood. Our partnership was built on mutual respect and shared ambitions, or so I believed. Then, his mother raised a toast to Chloe Hayes, the "dead" childhood friend Ethan rarely spoke of, the girl who supposedly died saving him. The next day, as I walked down the aisle, all eyes were on me, but Ethan' s were fixed on the church doors. A stunning woman stood there, frail but firm, her voice echoing, "Ethan? I came back for you." My groom' s face went white. He whispered, "Chloe?" In front of the city's most influential people, Ethan stumbled towards her, pulling her into a desperate hug, completely forgetting I existed. My white silk dress turned into a humiliating shroud as cameras flashed, capturing my public discarding. He finally looked at me, with no love, no apology, just annoyance. "Olivia," he stammered, "I… I' m sorry. I don' t know what' s happening." His attention quickly returned to Chloe, whom he shielded, calling her "fragile" and leaving me abandoned at the altar. The headlines screamed: "Billionaire Groom Abandons Bride at Altar for Ghost of Dead Girlfriend!" My parents, concerned only about stock prices and reputation, told me to "handle this" and "not look weak." I watched as articles about Chloe' s death vanished from the internet, Ethan already controlling the narrative to protect her. Alone in my hotel suite, I wondered, who was I without him? I was just the woman publicly discarded. That night, my phone rang. It was him. "Liv, are you okay?" he asked, but then Chloe' s voice cut in, dripping false innocence, "Oh, Ethan, tell her I' m so, so sorry." My rage finally boiled over. "Get her off the phone, Ethan!" He defended her, spoke of his guilt, then offered to "compensate" me. I laughed, a bitter sound. "You think this is about money?" I was a placeholder. The moment his ghost became flesh, I was disposable. He pressured me, "Liv, please, just try to be reasonable." I gave him an ultimatum: "You tell her to leave. You come back here and explain yourself to me, alone." Chloe wailed in the background, "Oh, Ethan, she hates me!" His voice hardened, blaming me, "Do you hear that, Olivia? Is that what you want? To be this cruel?" I hung up, the phone clattering to the floor. He was still in love with her. I was the third person in a two-person story. With cold resolve, I pulled off my engagement ring and threw it out the window. Then, I called my agent. "Book my flight. I want to leave tomorrow."

My mother' s voice cut through the party noise. "If it wasn't for my sacrifice, how could Kyle be so successful today?" She was openly boasting that she' d given my college fund to my cousin, Kyle. I stood hidden in the shadows, my hands shaking. Years of scholarships, working dead-end jobs, meticulously saving every penny for my Ivy League dream-all gone. "Ethan was never going to amount to much anyway," my aunt, her sister, added with a sneer. "Look at him now. A dead-end job, a miserable wife." My parents had enabled it all three years ago, when I'd been eighteen, acceptance letter in hand. "There's a family emergency," my mother had said. "Kyle has an amazing opportunity to study in Europe, and they're a little short." A little short for his tuition, but my entire life' s savings for my own education was apparently disposable. Now, Kyle swaggered through the party, designer suit, wealthy wife, a life that should have been mine. And I, Ethan? I was trapped in a mind-numbing warehouse job, just paying the bills for a small apartment I shared with a wife I didn' t love and a daughter who deserved so much more. "Ethan just doesn't have the drive," I heard my mother tell a neighbor. "He's lazy. Not like Kyle." The words hit me like physical blows. My vision blurred. The anniversary cake I bought with my overtime pay, a small gesture of connection, slipped from my numb fingers. It crashed to the floor. "Ethan! What is wrong with you?" my mother shrieked, rushing over, not to me, but to the mess. "You clumsy idiot! You've ruined everything!" My father followed, his face a mask of disappointment. "Can't you do anything right?" They stood there, judging me. My aunt and Kyle smirked. Later, my last twenty dollars, a fruit basket, rejected. "We don't need this cheap junk," my father said, not even looking at me. "Go make yourself useful. Your aunt needs another drink." That night, listening to them celebrate the man who stole my future, something inside me finally broke. The buried resentment ignited. It wasn't just about the money. It was about my life. And I was going to take it back.

For ten years, I poured my heart into Ethan Scott. My father, a New York media tycoon, had groomed Ethan to inherit his empire and marry me, his only daughter. I was hopelessly devoted, convinced he was my forever. That belief shattered today. I walked in on Ethan revealing his true plan to an intern, Maria: he' d marry me for control, then discard me and take over my family' s empire with her. My decade of love was just a stepping stone. Later that evening, as my father asked me to choose a husband from Ethan and two others, Maria' s calculated lie from years ago-the one that made them brand me a cruel heiress-boiled to the surface. Ethan, Andrew, and Brian still believed her, their contempt a constant reminder. They saw me as the prize, but I was just a pawn to them. Why did they believe Maria so blindly? How could they be so utterly wrong about me, and so righteously cruel? How could my deep love turn into such a brutal, calculated betrayal? Then, at my 21st birthday gala, Andrew slapped me across the face, Maria dramatically burst in, framing me for attempted murder, and Ethan publicly shamed me in front of New York' s elite. They thought they had won. They thought they had annihilated me. But they were about to witness a different kind of coronation.

Sarah Miller, with her uncanny gift of foresight, was a sensation. Her "Sarah Sees" livestream, broadcast from her humble Vermont farmhouse, brought comfort and answers to thousands. She was a rising star, a rare and authentic voice in the world of online spiritual guidance. But then, out of nowhere, an old childhood acquaintance, Jessica Evans, appeared. "Mystic Jess," she called herself, launching a strikingly similar channel. Whispers of Sarah being a "copycat" began, subtly fueled by Jessica and an influential local figure, Alex Peterson. The online comments turned vicious, branding Sarah a "fraud" and "liar." Her followers evaporated, her income vanished. The local community, once supportive, grew cold, and the stress bled into her family's life. Then came the vandalism, spray-painted threats, culminating in a confrontation that tragically led to her father's fatal heart attack. I watched my family shatter, my life ruined, all by someone who seemed to mimic my every move, even my private thoughts, always one step ahead. How could Jessica know what I was about to say or do before I even did it? My own gift, once so clear, became a dark, confusing static whenever I tried to foresee anything about Jessica or my grim future. It made no sense. Crushed by grief and public scorn, wishing for an end to it all, I closed my eyes. A snap, a void, then a gasp. I opened them to find sunlight streaming through my old bedroom window, my laptop waiting-showing the exact date I launched my first livestream. I was back. And I wouldn't let it happen again.

The federal courtroom buzzed, a low hum under the harsh fluorescent lights, as my fiancée Chloe begged me to sign a plea bargain for corporate espionage. This exact scene, these same tear-streaked pleas were painfully familiar. I'd lived this nightmare once before, framed by Chloe and her lover Derek, condemned to a brutal prison where I was left infertile, slowly dying alone in a cold cell. But this time, I was reborn, remembering every agonizing memory, every betrayal, burned into my mind. I feigned compliance, signing what sealed my supposed guilt, my heart a brewing storm under a calm facade. Chloe, dripping with false sympathy, celebrated, convinced Derek's narrative of my villainy would protect him as she took over my life, discarding my belongings and claiming our home as hers. She then imprisoned me in the building's damp basement, where she confessed the horrifying truth: she had systematically poisoned me for years to ensure my infertility, then brutally whipped me, counting each lash. The searing pain of the blows, the cold calculation in her eyes, mixed with the shock of realizing her long-term, meticulously planned evil, threatened to break me. How could someone I loved mete out such depravity? Yet, beneath the agony, a burning resolve tempered my spirit. Then, just as I was dragged back to court, battered and broken, seemingly destined for ruin, the doors burst open. Olivia Hayes, CEO of the company I supposedly betrayed, the woman from my true past, strode in, radiating icy power. She not only unilaterally withdrew all charges but then, to the utter shock of everyone, knelt before me and asked: "Ethan, this lifetime, will you marry me?" She remembered. And this time, armed with a second chance, our perfect revenge was just beginning.

My parents were murdered, our family bakery destroyed, and my fiancé walked out. That’s when Detective David Carter, his brother, swooped in like a hero. He promised justice and protection, then proposed. Five years later, I was pregnant, building a new life with him, certain I was finally safe. But that safety shattered one night. I overheard David’s hushed confession: he was obsessively in love with Veronica Hayes—my parents’ killer. He’d married *me* to protect *her*, to keep me quiet, a mere pawn in his twisted game. My entire life, even our unborn child, was a monstrous lie designed to shield a murderer. The betrayal burned deeper than any wound. At his family’s dinner, Veronica brazenly confessed to the killings, taunting me with a chilling detail. I slapped her in a desperate rage. My husband, David, violently shoved *me* aside, his fury reserved for me, not her. I fell, the pain unbearable, losing our baby in a bloody haze. His family cast me out like trash. Abandoned, violated, and gutted by grief, I was just another casualty in his sick obsession across two families. How could the man who promised to protect me be the architect of my deepest agony? How could his love for another destroy everything, even his own child? With nothing left to lose, I engineered my own disappearance, vanished, and then strategically unleashed every piece of evidence hidden by my supposed savior. The truth, now exposed, would finally bury them all.

I, Mike Evans, died young from endless work, a fool who gave everything to build a future. But then, as my soul drifted, I watched my supposed devoted wife, Jessica, calmly discard my ashes, her face devoid of grief. Moments later, she was in *our* bed with Chad Peterson, my best friend, laughing, truly laughing. My son, Kevin, the one I poured every dime into for his surgical career, walked in and called Chad, "Dad." My entire fortune, built brick by painful brick, was now theirs to exploit. Jessica’s "girls’ trips" and Kevin’s "specialized training" were just cover stories for their years-long affair. This sickening truth, this profound betrayal, ripped through me with a pain far more searing than death itself. My life, my sacrifices, had fueled their illicit happiness, making me nothing more than a convenient workhorse to be discarded. How could I have been so monumentally, tragically blind to such a colossal lie? Then, an unexpected jolt, a blinding flash, and I gasped, choking on lake water. I was back, years in the past, at the exact moment I was supposed to "save" Jessica from drowning. The very incident that launched my miserable first life of servitude. But this time, things would be different. This time, the game would change.

My sister and I are twins. In a big fire, my sister died. My parents actually made me marry the prince instead of my sister. After marrying him, he asked me, "Why did you disappoint him, not fulfilling his wish to climb onto the dragon bed, only able to marry him, do you regret it?" He treated me as if I had betrayed his sister, humiliating me step by step...

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

I was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table. Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen. "Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over." I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward. Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant. She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest. As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me. He hugged her. "It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you." The betrayal didn't stop there. When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police. When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations. He declined the call. He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife. That was the moment the chain broke. As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come. I opened the door and jumped into the dark. Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement. Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."

I was staring at the two pink lines on the plastic stick, trembling with the terrifying joy of carrying the heir to the New York underworld’s most ruthless faction. Then the intercom buzzed, and a voice splintered my world. "The little art student actually thinks I'm going to marry her? It was just a game to pass the time while you were in Europe, Estella." I froze. My boyfriend, Holden, was in the next room, laughing with the daughter of his rival. He explained that I was just a "clean civilian image" he needed to secure a business deal. Now that the deal was signed, he was dumping the "stray" to marry the "Queen." I tried to run, but freedom only lasted forty-eight hours. Holden didn't just break my heart; he turned my terror into content. He kidnapped me, tied me to a chair at the edge of a cliff, and forced me to choose between my life and his new fiancée's. Then, he pushed me off the edge. As gravity snatched me, I heard him laughing. I landed on a stunt airbag. It was just a "social experiment." A sick prank for his amusement. "Don't be so dramatic, Kenia," he called down. "It's just a game." He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a prop in his life. But he forgot that I knew his secrets. I dragged my injured body to a payphone and dialed the one number Holden told me to fear—the rival Don, Gael Simpson. "It's Kenia," I whispered, clutching the receiver like a lifeline. "I'm calling in the debt."

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.