Dashing Wave Rider

I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history. But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me. He swam past me. He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water. When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl. "You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home." Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her. I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife." He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps. He was wrong. While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room. I was packing his ring into a cardboard box. I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead. By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.

I was Isabella "Izzy" Montoya, sole heiress to a fortune that swayed nations, groomed to choose a husband who would secure my family's legacy. In my first life, that man was Ethan Ashford, my charming, long-standing crush. I poured the Montoya empire into his rise, gifted him power beyond measure. Then he soared, destroyed everything I held dear, seized our assets, and left me with nothing but ash and a shattered heart. He blamed me publicly, left me utterly ruined. I died, heartbroken, and Marc Vance, the good man who quietly loved me, died trying to expose Ethan, trying to save *me*. Our dynasty was decimated. The memories of his betrayal, the destruction of my family, and the quiet heroism of Marc Vance were vivid, cruel. How could I have been so blind? How could one man cause so much devastation? Then, I woke up. It was the day of the Legacy Gala, the day I was to announce my choice – the man who would receive the "Montoya Midas Touch." This time, Ethan Ashford would not win. This time, I would choose wisely, and the Midas Touch would not turn to dust in my hands.

Carissa's son was dying in the ICU, and the bone marrow match had just failed. The billionaire father, Guilford Gates, cornered her with a cruel ultimatum: naturally conceive a "savior sibling" to save their son. But what shocked Carissa more was his family's sudden accusation that she had heartlessly sold her baby to them three years ago. "You sold your own flesh and blood to us for five million dollars, so your body belongs to the Gates family." She was dragged into their gilded estate, treated like a filthy, rented womb. Guilford's new fiancée mocked her, the matriarch humiliated her, and Guilford looked at her with pure disgust. When she desperately tried to feed her sick son and accidentally made him vomit, Guilford violently shoved her away and banned her from the room. Carissa was devastated and entirely confused. She had never seen a single cent of that five million. Driven by a desperate need for the truth, she investigated and uncovered a horrifying reality: her own father and stepmother had secretly trafficked her baby to the billionaire behind her back, leaving her to bear the ultimate blame. Looking at the bank transfer record bought with her son's life, the last shred of Carissa's vulnerability died. She signed the conception contract without asking for a single penny. She was going to use the Gates family's immense power to destroy the blood relatives who sold her, and she would survive this hell to take back her son.

After months of tearing the continent apart, I finally found her. Covered in mud and blood, raw from the river, I was a monster, a ghost. Across the street, June looked peaceful, utterly unaware. Then, a man stepped out, shielding her with an umbrella, his arm a casual, possessive claim. My heart stopped. I unleashed my Alpha aura; June shivered, thinking it a cold snap. Frankie turned, a mocking smile in his eyes. He knew. Marcus broke ribs restraining my rage as June and Frankie drove away, taking the only light in my miserable world. The 'Tabula Rasa' spell hadn't just erased her memory; it rewired her soul, making her immune to our mate bond. She saw an ordinary stranger. Her scent gone, preferences changed. Agony shredded my mind; my power useless. My magic failed, but I had other weapons. "Buy the street. Buy the shop. Buy every property within five miles. Suffocate them with cash," I commanded. Tomorrow, I'd be Bren, a bankrupt man seeking solace, ready to reclaim what was mine.

It's common knowledge that Ethan married me only because I look like his first love. Three years of marriage, and he never once slept with me, because he thought it would be a desecration of his first love. On the surface, I was madly in love with him. In reality, I was blowing through his money like crazy and keeping a man on the side. But now there's a problem. The man I've been keeping… how does he look exactly like the richest man in New York? And even have the same name?

In my previous life, I poured my family's savings into Diego Torres. He was a scholarship student I mistook for a tech prodigy, and I helped him become a billionaire. His way of thanking me was conspiring with his first love, Kiana, to kill me in an explosion. My mistake cost me everything. But when I opened my eyes again, I found myself back in the campus cafe, years before my murder. There was still time to fix every mistake. Diego sat across from me, demanding a thirty-thousand-dollar monthly allowance for Kiana, or else he would refuse my funding. In that instant, I knew he had been reborn too.

For ten years, I disguised myself as my dead twin brother, fighting bloody mob wars to build the Falcone family's bootlegging empire. When the war ended, I thought I could finally take off the men's suits and be Anya again. Instead, my parents stole my victories to secure my father's power, demanding I disappear forever. When I tried to expose the truth, my family dragged me into a soundproof basement. My younger brother forced a metal funnel past my teeth and poured corrosive chemicals down my throat, dissolving my vocal cords into a blistered ruin. They chained me to a freezing pier, whipped me bloody, and let the men I used to lead spit on me as a jealous traitor. Then, under the guise of a family reconciliation dinner, my mother drugged my wine. While I lay paralyzed but fully conscious on my bed, my brother took heavy iron pliers and crushed all ten of my fingers, bone by bone. They wanted to ensure I could never hold a gun or write the truth again. I had slaughtered for them, bled for them, and craved only their love. In return, they pulverized my body and painted me as a hysterical madwoman just to keep the crown I had won for them. The foolish girl who wanted a family died in that agonizing pain, leaving behind only a ghost. Dragging my mangled, bandaged body into the rival Romano family's charity gala, I collapsed at the feet of their ruthless matriarch. "I invoke the sacred code," I rasped through my chemically burned throat. "I demand a Vendetta."

My husband, Alpha Kaeden, once looked at me with adoration. But after he brought Clemmie home, his eyes turned cold, glazed over by the "herbal tea" she fed him. Now, I lay chained to a steel table in the dungeon, the smell of my own burning flesh filling the air. Kaeden stood over me, indifferent to my screams. He ordered the guards to electrocute me through silver cuffs—the poison of our kind—even though he knew I was carrying his pup. But torture wasn't the end goal. I froze when I heard the doctor’s question. "The transplant carries risks, Alpha. Taking a heart from a living donor..." Clemmie didn't just want my husband; she wanted my heart to cure her "sickness" and steal my White Wolf power. I waited for Kaeden to refuse. Instead, he rubbed his temples and delivered my death sentence. "Harvest the heart. Dispose of the rest." "And the fetus?" the doctor asked. "Incinerate it." Those words killed me faster than the silver. I died on the operating table that night, my heart flatlining for three minutes to stage my death. Kaeden thinks I am ash in a jar. He thinks he saved his mistress. But when I opened my eyes in the safe house, they weren't brown anymore. They were glowing silver. Beside me, my daughter slept, alive and radiating ancient power. The weak Luna is dead. The White Wolf has risen. And I am going home to take back my pack.

My family framed me for corporate espionage, and my uncle told me I was dead to them. So I obliged. I faked my own death and built a new life as Elia Parker, a successful architect married to a tech mogul. But after five years, my past refused to stay buried. My cousin found me at my own grave and dragged me to a public event, parading me around like a ghost. My uncle, who left me to rot in a hospital, feigned shock. My aunt shrieked that I was a monster for faking my death. Then she lunged, her nails raking across my cheek and drawing blood. "You ungrateful bitch!" she screamed. As I stood there bleeding, my so-called family just watched, not one of them moving to help. It was the same cold indifference that had destroyed me five years ago. Just as I was about to break, a voice cut through the chaos, quiet but radiating power. "Is everything alright here, Elia?" It was my husband, Javier Bates. And the look on his face told me their world was about to burn.

My fiancé, Drew, had a crippling germ phobia. Our wedding was a merger in disguise-a deal where my fortune would save his family's failing company. But at the altar, in front of the world, he left me for his intern. He declared he was choosing "love over money," painting me as the cold-hearted villain who tried to buy a husband. He wasn't done. He staged a suicide attempt from my office building, live-streaming to the world how my "cruelty" had pushed him to the edge. Then, he and his new love came to my office with their final demand: twenty percent of my company and my late mother's priceless necklace. "Cassidy is quite fond of it," he sneered. The next day, during the emergency board meeting called to fire me, he called, gloating. "It's checkmate, Jaeda. Just accept that you've lost." I put him on speakerphone for the entire board to hear. "Actually, Drew," I said, as federal agents walked into the room, "I own the entire board."

I woke up gasping, the memory of my first life still fresh: my fiancé, Elliott, watching coldly as I drowned, his mind poisoned by a woman named Katarina after an accident gave him amnesia. This time, I had a plan to escape before his fateful yacht trip. But the doorbell rang. It was Elliott, home early. And holding his arm was Katarina. He claimed he'd had a "small incident" on the yacht, but his eyes were clear. He remembered me. He had no amnesia. He brought her into our home anyway, moving her into my deceased mother's studio. He ordered my parents' priceless mementos thrown in the trash. When I protested, he threw me against the wall. When Katarina "accidentally" shattered a photo of my family, he slapped me and locked me out of the house in the pouring rain. In my first life, I could blame his cruelty on his memory loss. I told myself he was a victim, too. But now, he remembered everything—our childhood, our love, our promises. This wasn't a man being manipulated. This was a monster, deliberately choosing to torture me. When Katarina smashed the last gift from my mother, I finally snapped and attacked her. Elliott's response was swift. He had his guards drag me to a soundproofed room in the basement and strap me to a chair. As the electricity seared through my body, I understood. My second chance wasn't an escape. It was a new level of hell, and this time, my torturer was fully aware of what he was doing.

At my company' s anniversary party, my husband Mark, beaming, played a game with his assistant, Lily, a cookie balanced on his forehead. As the room erupted in applause when he succeeded, I cheered, "Go, Mark!" The room fell silent. Lily' s smile vanished, her eyes welling with tears as she whimpered, "Oh, Mark." Mark, furious, snapped at me, "What' s wrong with you, Olivia? You always have to ruin everything. You're such a killjoy. So boring." Then, in front of everyone-our colleagues and friends-he bent down and kissed Lily, deeply and passionately. On our tenth wedding anniversary, watching Mark kiss another woman, I felt absolutely nothing. Later, Lily, riding comfortably in the passenger seat of our car, flashed a sickeningly sweet smile and called me "Sis-in-law." I remembered Mark once scoffing at my handmade charm, saying it didn' t match his car' s style, yet he found a custom pink paint job acceptable. The next morning, Lily posted a photo of red roses on Instagram: "This big silly man always remembers my birthday." In the corner, my wedding ring rested on a man' s hand. When Mark returned, he joked, "What' s the occasion? You even made a cake?" He then smeared frosting on my cheek, remarking on the cake' s poor presentation. If this had happened any other year, I would have screamed and cried. Instead, I calmly dumped the cake in the trash. He tried to appease me with expensive jewelry, a routine apology after every fight. But when I saw Lily' s text on his phone-"Mark, I had so much fun tonight, see you tomorrow~"-he erupted in a rage. He shoved me, throwing me off balance. My arm sliced on the coffee table, and my ankle twisted. He simply muttered, "For God' s sake, Olivia," before rushing to Lily' s side after she called him, leaving me injured and alone. Why did he care more about her fake sickness than my real injury? I was numb. I was utterly done. What else could I do but finally set myself free? That night, for the first time in a decade, I slept soundly, knowing I had made the right decision. My life had to change.

My eyes snapped open. I was five years old again, held in my father's strong arms, his face etched with worry as he sighed, "Alright, Ava, I'll marry her." The words struck me cold: Chloe Raine, my art tutor, my future stepmother, my murderer. In my last life, that exact sentence sealed my grim fate. I, a naive child, had cried for him to marry her, desperate for a mother. Chloe used my innocent longing to infiltrate the Hamilton name and wealth, only to end my life years later, once she was pregnant with her own child, by exploiting my severe peanut allergy. I remembered the chilling staged kidnapping, the car trunk, and her cold voice arranging to dump my body, every detail of the darkness, fear, and ultimate betrayal. Now, I was inexplicably back, reborn at this precise, fateful moment. My five-year-old body sobbed in my father's embrace, but inside, a cold, adult rage simmered, burning away any trace of childish innocence. This time, things would be profoundly different. Chloe, standing nearby with a barely hidden triumphant smirk, believed she had won. She wanted into the Hamilton family, but I would ensure she regretted that wish for the rest of her miserable life, turning my doting father, my powerful grandmother Eleanor, and our fiercely loyal staff into my unsuspecting instruments of a long, agonizing vengeance.

I gave him a kidney, built his empire beside him, even risked my life for our son. My world revolved around my family, and for years, it felt perfect. Then, Michael' s old flame, Jessica, reappeared, infecting our home with venom. My own son, Ethan, twisted by her influence, turned hostile, wishing me dead and abusing our pet. Michael' s words confirmed my worst fears: "She needs me. She wouldn't know how to survive without me." They left me injured on a dark, rain-soaked street after my son pulled me from the car. I found my beloved cat, Buddy, brutalized by Ethan. Then came the final photo: Michael and Jessica, naked, mocking me. My life, my sacrifices, were meticulously shredded, leaving me utterly annihilated. Emotionally, I was already gone, my spirit extinguished by their calculated cruelty. How could the very people I cherished betray me so utterly? It was then I whispered to the interface, "Confirm activation of Protocol Chimera. Simulated demise. New identity. Complete severance." The Sarah they brutalized was dead. It was time to make it official.

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 my wedding day, my father sold me to the Chicago Outfit to pay his debts. I was supposed to marry Alex Moreno, the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. But he couldn't even be bothered to show up. As I stood alone at the altar, humiliated, my best friend delivered the final blow. Alex hadn't just stood me up; he had run off to California with his mistress. The whispers in the cathedral turned me into a joke. I was damaged goods, the rejected bride. His family knew the whole time and let me take the public fall, offering me his cousins as pathetic replacements-a brute who hated me or a coward who couldn't protect me. The humiliation burned away my fear, leaving only cold rage. My life was already over, so I decided to set the whole game on fire myself. The marriage pact only said a Carlson had to marry a Moreno; it never said which one. With nothing left to lose, I looked past the pathetic boys they offered. I chose the one man they never expected. I chose his father, the Don himself.

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

Kelvin held her wrist and pulled her into a room in the hotel. "What are you doing?" Amelia asked, trying to tug at him. "Don't pretend you don't want this too." He said, rubbing his thumb at her hard nipples threatening to tear out of her dress, his eyes watching as her body responded to him. He held her neck in the most seductive way and pinned her against the wall. His hand went up under her black dress tracing her skin in a calculated path, as his fingers touched her already soaked pants, Amelia let out a soft moan and pulled him closer with a kiss. *** Amelia found herself getting married to her ex-fiancé's brother, it was an almost perfect revenge. Only to find herself wrapped deeper in the evil hands of the brothers. Would she ever be able to get her revenge and find her true love? Explore a tale of romance, suspense, treachery, and love. The fascinating novel 'For Her Sake' will have you reading until the very last page.

I was the fiancée of the Chicago Outfit’s heir, a bond sealed by blood and eighteen years of history. But when his mistress pushed me into the freezing pool at our engagement gala, Jax didn’t swim toward me. He swam past me. He scooped up the girl who pushed me, cradling her like fragile glass, while I struggled against the weight of my gown in the murky water. When I finally dragged myself out, shivering and humiliated before the entire underworld, Jax didn’t offer a hand. He offered a scowl. "You’re making a scene, Eliana. Go home." Later, when that same mistress shoved me down the stairs, shattering my knee and my dance career, Jax stepped over my broken body to comfort her. I overheard him telling his friends, "I’m just breaking her spirit. She needs to learn she’s property, not a partner. Once she’s desperate enough, she’ll be the perfect obedient wife." He thought I was a dog that would always return to its master. He thought he could starve me of affection until I begged for scraps. He was wrong. While he was busy playing protector to his mistress, I wasn't crying in my room. I was packing his ring into a cardboard box. I cancelled my transfer to UCLA and enrolled at NYU instead. By the time Jax realized his "property" was missing, I was already in New York, standing next to a man who looked at me like a queen, not a possession.

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

What's more embarrassing than a butt dial? Butt dialing your boss... And leaving a dirty voicemail when you're uhh... "thinking" about them. Working as Ruslan Oryolov's personal assistant is the job from hell. After a long day spent tending to the billionaire's every whim, I need some stress relief. So when I get home that night, that's exactly what I do. Problem is, my thoughts are still stuck on the bosshole who's ruining my life. That's fine-because of all Ruslan's many sins, being gorgeous might be the most dangerous. Tonight, fantasies of him are just what I need to push me over the edge. But when I look down at my phone squished next to me, There it is. A voicemail for 7 minutes and 32 seconds... Sent to Ruslan Oryolov. I panic and throw my phone across the room. But there is no undoing the damage done by my very vocal O. So what can I do? My plan was to just avoid him and act like it never happened. Besides, no one that busy checks their voicemails, right? But when he schedules a one-on-one meeting with me for exactly 7 minutes and 32 seconds, One thing is for certain: He. Heard. Everything.

Arden Monroe was locked in a sterile psychiatric room by her own flesh and blood. Not long after, her brother Delmar arrived with a cold ultimatum. He demanded she publicly break her engagement so her fiancé Brenden could marry her half-sister Kallie. If she refused, the doctors would declare her legally unstable, and she would rot in this asylum forever. In her previous life, Arden fought back desperately. As a result, her family froze her trust fund and completely destroyed her reputation in high society. They even framed her fiercely loyal assistant, Jennie, throwing her into a terrifying concrete cell to silence her. When Arden had absolutely nothing left to take, they orchestrated a tragic accident. She was left to burn alive in an abandoned warehouse, feeling her own bones turn to ash. Until she died, she didn't understand. She was a Monroe, her father's legitimate daughter. Why did her father and brother hate her so much? Why did they collude with political enemies to slaughter her maternal grandfather and uncles just to strip away her protection? Opening her eyes again, the suffocating smoke was gone, and she was back on the day Delmar came to force the breakup. "I'll do what you want," Arden whispered, perfectly masking her cold, murderous resolve. This time, she would inherit the secret Beaumont wealth, ally with the dying General Donovan Mathews, and burn their world to the ground.

On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes. She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia." Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours. He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity. But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture." I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her. And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm. Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite. He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet. He is wrong. I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door. And I changed the groom. As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears. The Reaper.

To save my crumbling family, I was married off to Julian Moretti, the terrifying Underboss of the Chicago mafia. But he didn't even wait for the wedding reception to end before slipping Rohypnol into my champagne. I woke up on the cold marble floor of the penthouse, only to see my new husband sleeping with his long-time mistress right in front of me. He dragged my unconscious body there just to let me wake up to this humiliation, to show me I was nothing but discarded trash. When I escaped and returned home for help, my father threw a heavy crystal glass at my head. "You ruined us, you stupid bitch! Go back and beg for his mercy!" My stepmother cursed me for not knowing my place, while I discovered they had been embezzling my dead mother's trust fund to pay off debts. Even worse, the mistress in my husband's bed was actually my father's illegitimate daughter. My own family had served me to a Capo's bed just to beg for scraps, sacrificing my life for their beloved bastard. They all thought I was just the obedient, fragile Rossi princess they could easily manipulate and feed to the wolves. They expected me to cry, surrender, and let them bleed me dry. But the fragile mafia princess they knew was already dead. In her place, the dormant instincts of "Seraph"—the lethal Mossad operative I used to be—snapped awake. I wiped my husband's blood off my knuckles, stepped over his groaning body, and made a deal with his deadliest rival. This time, I'm going to burn their entire empire to the ground.