Dolorita Drinker

The day my guardian, Dante Moretti, announced his engagement was the day I started planning my death. Not a literal one, but the death of the girl who had orbited his world for ten years. He was the Don of the Moretti family, the man I'd secretly loved since I was a child. But with his new fiancée, Sofia, on his arm, he began to erase me. He even forgot my severe allergy, gifting me a watch that would blister my skin. He had ripped apart the diary where I confessed my love for him. "I am your guardian," he'd spat. "Do not ever cross that line again." Yet one night, drunk and stumbling, he crashed his mouth onto mine, his hands roaming my body as he pushed me against the wall. He groaned, but the name that escaped his lips wasn't mine. "Sofia..." When I screamed my own name—Elara—he shoved me away in horror. He wasn't horrified by his betrayal, but by the fact that he'd kissed the wrong woman. That was the final straw. I took the acceptance letter to a university in Toronto that I had kept hidden like a prayer. I called my estranged father and booked a one-way ticket. This time, I would burn my old life to the ground and leave nothing but ashes behind.

I died of a broken heart while my fiancé, Kade, was busy comforting his "best friend" over a cold. When I opened my eyes, I was back at our engagement party, ten years in the past. I didn't hesitate. I took off the ring and called it quits. But Kyla wasn't letting go that easily. She deliberately ate a peanut cookie, faking a severe reaction to frame me. Kade didn't ask questions. He looked at me with pure hatred. "You monster! You knew she was allergic!" He even blamed me for his driver's sudden heart attack, screaming that I was a murderer who deserved to be ruined. I didn't defend myself. I didn't cry. I simply boarded a plane to London and vanished from his life. Thirteen years later, I returned as a world-renowned architect. Kade, who had finally uncovered the truth and spent a decade in silent penance, fell to his knees begging for a second chance. I looked at the man who had once been my world and smiled coldly. "I forgive you, Kade. But the Harper who loved you is dead. You killed her yourself."

The crystal chandelier swayed violently above the dinner table. In that fraction of a second, time seemed to stop. My husband, Dante, didn't hesitate. He didn't reach for me. He dove across the table, tackling his "fragile" first love, Mia, to the floor. He shielded her body with his own. Gravity took over. The heavy metal slammed into my legs, crushing them instantly. While I lay buried under the debris, bleeding into the beige carpet, Dante was screaming for a medic—because Mia had a paper cut. It wasn't the first time he chose her. He had run my taxi off the road because she faked a fall. He gave her my dying father's antique rosary just because she thought it was a pretty accessory. But the final blow wasn't physical. While Dante was at a hotel comforting Mia through a "nightmare," he ignored the urgent calls to authorize my father's bone marrow transplant. My father died alone of infection because Dante was too busy playing hero to a liar. When Dante finally returned to the penthouse, expecting me to be waiting there to beg for his forgiveness, he found the house silent. He found the signed divorce papers in the fireplace. And then, he found the death certificate dated three days ago. I didn't leave a note. I didn't leave a fight. I just left him with the silence he deserved, and vanished into the night.

From the moment I was born, a tiny, almost invisible birthmark behind my left ear sealed my fate. My mother, living by old superstitions, saw it as a bad omen, setting me apart from my identical twin, Sophia. She became the family favorite, showered with love and opportunity, while I became the "unlucky" one, living in her shadow with a nanny on a forgotten corner of our estate. Then, the unimaginable happened: Liam Davis, the adopted son of a powerful political figure, was at our family dinner, when he was never supposed to be there. And Sophia, my identical twin, who was supposed to marry the tech CEO Ethan Vance, shocked everyone by declaring her choice: she would marry Liam Davis. Sophia, with a smug, triumphant smile, later cornered me, "I told you I wanted your life. This time, I'm taking the right path from the beginning. Liam's power, his influence... it will all be mine. You can have the bankrupt tech genius." Her words chillingly confirmed it: she remembered everything from our first life, just like me. In that past life, I was married off to Liam Davis, a cold, distant man whose political ambition was built on secrets and ruthless tactics. His rise to power was bloody, leaving me a shield against his enemies and enduring constant humiliation in the shadows. Sophia had seen only the glamorous result, not the treacherous path, blindly envying my hard-won position. She thought marrying Liam was her shortcut to the life she deserved. Now, she believed she was seizing a better future, unaware that she was stepping into the very hell I had endured. She had chosen Liam, but she hadn't chosen the man he became with me. And I, the "unlucky" twin, was left with Ethan Vance, the supposed "bankrupt tech genius" destined for ruin. But I refused to be a passive victim again. This time, I knew the game, and I understood Sophia' s blindness. She wanted my old life? She could have it. Because this time, I would choose my own path. And maybe, just maybe, this "failed" marriage might hold a secret I never anticipated.

The California sun felt like a fresh start, a golden promise for my new life as an architect in LA, working alongside my successful older brother, David. But that promise shattered the moment my phone buzzed with an unknown number. "So you' re the one," a cold voice sneered, "The little sister who' s trying to sleep with her brother." My mind reeled. David, engaged? He never told me. And then this woman, Chloe, his fiancée, accused me of being a "homewrecker," her words laced with venom. The next morning, she escalated, posting a photo of David and me in our office' s company-wide chat, publicly branding me as someone with "no shame." "You' re not his 'sister.' You' re not related by blood at all," she broadcasted, twisting the truth of my adoption into a weapon, exposing our private family history to my new colleagues. I turned to David, my protector, expecting him to defend me. Instead, he simply messaged, "Sarah, don' t engage. Just ignore it. You' re making it worse." His inaction was a betrayal, a chilling realization that the brother I idolized was letting me be publicly humiliated, prioritizing "image" over my dignity. What kind of monster would weaponize family history? And why was David, my anchor, abandoning me to the storm? I knew then that this wasn't just a jealous fiancée; this was a battle, and my cherished brother was on the wrong side.

The final code for "True Love AI" glowed on my office monitor, a perfect symbol for my perfect life: successful tech CEO, marrying the woman I' ve loved for five years in seven days. Then Olivia called, her voice flat, devoid of warmth. "Ethan, can you come home? We need to talk." When I arrived, she dropped a bomb: she couldn' t marry me. She had to marry Daniel Reed, her ex-boyfriend, to fulfill his "deceased mother' s dying wish." My world fractured. This multi-million dollar AI, this sprawling estate, our perfect future-all secondary to some archaic notion of filial piety. And then came the sting: she wanted me to fund their wedding, a casual request for $50,000 for "arrangements." How could she betray me so utterly, and then demand I finance her new life? Could she truly be so cold, so transactional, after everything? But as I stared at her audacious texts, a small detail from a shared photo clicked into place. If she saw my love as a tool for manipulation, then I, Ethan Miller, would return the favor. My wedding would proceed as planned, but she wouldn' t be the bride.

The crystal decanter felt heavy in my hand as I prepared to strike my sister, Gabby, believing she had betrayed our family. Suddenly, glowing blue messages appeared before my eyes, revealing a shocking truth: I was being played, and my brother Ethan and our supposed sister Nicole were orchestrating a cruel frame-up. My world shattered as I watched them feign innocence, and Ethan, caught in his lie, spitefully ordered Gabby to be locked in the terrifying wine cellar, a place of profound trauma for her. The realization that I had been a blind participant in my family' s monstrous charade, that I had stood by while Gabby was tormented, hit me like a physical blow. But seeing Gabby's pure terror, and knowing Ethan had tortured her for weeks, something cold and sharp hardened inside me: I was done feeling guilty; I was going to turn her into a weapon.

Father is addicted to gambling and abusive; mother is promiscuous. I am the result of their impulsive decision one night, and they did not want me. My grandparents took me back home. But my life did not get much better. I was abused by my uncle's family and bullied by classmates. It wasn't until my third year of junior high school that a transfer student came to our school, a troublemaker who skipped classes, drank and fought. When I was dragged into the bathroom and about to be bullied again, he stood in front of me.

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'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

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 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 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.

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

Elora Griffiths was on her way to drop her daughter off at school when her husband's enemies opened fire in the street. The bodyguard her husband had personally assigned to protect them abandoned the car the instant the shots rang out. Mother and daughter were hit multiple times, teetering on the brink of death. Elora frantically called her husband, Rodger Griffiths, but he didn't answer. Her brother, Hugh Dale, arrived just in time and saved them both. "How could this happen? Didn't Rodger assign someone to protect you?" Hugh asked. Elora sobbed uncontrollably, "The bodyguard ran away!" On the way to the hospital, Elora kept trying Rodger's number, desperate. One call after another... Finally, on the ninety-ninth attempt, the line connected. On the other end was the female bodyguard, trembling, her voice barely holding back tears. "Rodger, it's really not my fault! There were so many assassins. I would've died if I tried to stop them! I was so scared..." Elora held her breath, waiting for her husband's wrath to thunder down. But Rodger just sighed. "Forget it. The important thing is you're safe," he said. Meanwhile, Elora's daughter took her last breath in her arms. The pain was suffocating. She held her daughter close as her body went cold and stiff, teeth gritted in fury, "Hugh, I'm divorcing him! I'll cut off every single arms shipment to the Griffiths family from the largest arms company in Crownport!"

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."

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."