ELEANOR HORTON

I was just a lower-tier nobody when the Matriarch of the New York Famiglia offered me a dangerous deal: cure the ruthless Don Enzo's psychological trauma, and rise from the gutter. But Enzo's trauma was deadly. His two previous wives were rival assassins who hid micro-explosives in their breast implants. Now, he violently attacked any woman who came near him, terrified of surgically modified bodies. Just as I managed to break through his walls by proving my natural curves were entirely real, disaster struck. Camilla, a vicious mafia princess, burst into the Don's suite with corrupt doctors. "She is a fake silicone whore and an FBI rat!" She threw forged medical dossiers and deep-fake photos onto the table, rallying the entire syndicate to demand my immediate execution. Camilla even pulled out a surgical scalpel, shrieking that she would slice my chest open herself to prove I had wires hidden inside. I was surrounded by armed guards and hostile Capos, facing the terrifying prospect of the Don's lethal paranoia returning. Would he believe the digital lies and the syndicate's accusations over the warm truth his own hands had just verified? Instead of panicking, I calmly stepped forward and looked Camilla dead in the eye. I pulled down my collar to expose a fatal flaw in their deep-fake photos, revealing the permanent, dark bite mark the Don had just left on my bare skin. It was time to show them how a real Mafia Queen destroys her enemies.

My fiancé, the golden boy of the ruthless Blackwood Syndicate, smirked and asked if I could tell him apart from his identical twin brother right before our wedding. The moment he spoke, a terrifying memory of my own murder flashed before my eyes. In that timeline, I chose him. He used his twin as a stand-in for our sacred vows so he could secretly run off with his mistress. When his mistress later died in a tragic shipwreck, he went mad with grief and blamed me. He dragged me to the roof of a casino and threw me off, screaming that my existence had sealed her fate. "You should have known it was a game!" he roared as he pushed me over the edge. As I plummeted to my death, I saw another man jump off the roof after me, desperately reaching out to catch me in mid-air. I didn't understand why my fiancé would make such a sick wager with our marriage, or why he would murder me when my hand in marriage was the only thing that made him Don. And I had no idea who the man was that willingly shared my brutal death. Blinking back to the present reality of the dressing room, I looked at my arrogant fiancé and his silent, lethal twin. This time, I walked right past the golden boy and threw my arms around the shadow.

For three months, Summer sat by her husband Julian's ICU bed, guarding their unborn child and praying for him to wake up. Finally, the hospital called with the miracle she had been waiting for. But when she rushed to his yacht to celebrate, she overheard him laughing with his mistress, Scarlett. "As soon as she has the baby, she's gone. The child was a mistake. It should never have existed." Before she could escape, Scarlett's men grabbed her. Looking out from the lounge window, her husband coldly ordered them to throw her into the freezing Atlantic Ocean. She survived, but the shock forced her into premature labor in a desolate shack. She gave birth to triplets, but her eldest son, Leo, had a fatal heart defect. To save his life, she had to endure the ultimate agony. She anonymously sent her dying newborn back to the monster who tried to kill them, faking her own death in childbirth. For five years, she hid in the shadows with her healthy twins, her heart bleeding every day she was separated from her sick boy. Now, the naive Summer Hayes is dead. She has returned as Dr. Matilda Sterling, a world-renowned cardiologist. And her very first patient at the Astor Medical Center is her son, Leo. It is time to reclaim her child and burn Julian's world to the ground.

The hospital ceiling was a blinding white, and I was losing my baby in a pool of rusty red. Because of my selective mutism, I couldn't scream as the doctors demanded a next-of-kin signature for the emergency surgery I needed to survive. With trembling hands, I called my husband, Julius. The line clicked open to the sound of cheering and a baby's first cry. Julius wasn't at work; he was in a delivery room, holding another woman's hand. "I'm right here, Chanelle. One last push. You can do it." When he finally realized I was on the line, his warmth vanished instantly. "Elinor? I'm busy. Don't call just to breathe on the line." He hung up while I was hemorrhaging on the gurney. Minutes later, my mother-in-law appeared not with comfort, but with a lawyer and a legal waiver. "Sign away any claim your lost child gave you, or you don't get a cent for this procedure." I signed the paper with a hand slick with blood, watching my child’s existence be erased for a few more minutes of life. When I returned home, Julius didn't ask if I was okay. He called me "barren" and "hysterical" while his mother forced a tray of raw, bloody organs into my hands, demanding I cook a recovery meal for the mistress. They thought my silence was a weakness, a padlock they could keep locked forever. They didn't know I was a forensic accountant with a secret crypto fortune and the original blueprints for every design the mistress had ever stolen from me. I realized then that I wasn't an incubator or a maid—I was the one who held the keys to their entire financial empire. I took off my five-carat ring, tossed it into the fireplace, and sent a single message to a lawyer. "It's time for total war."

Fitzgerald Woodard was the "stray" I used to torment in prep school, a boy I once paid to kneel in the mud for my amusement. Now, the tables have turned, and he’s the billionaire who bought my father’s debt, dragging me into his mansion as a "personal asset" listed in a contract I never read. He didn't just want the money back; he wanted to see me break. He stood over me in the rain and told me he owned the very machines keeping my father alive, and with one flick of his thumb, he could stop his breathing forever. The nightmare escalated until I didn't recognize myself. He forced me to eat cold soup off the floor like an animal and gripped my hand over a heavy hammer, forcing me to crush a young guard's bones just to prove I was as much of a monster as he was. His childhood sweetheart, a nurse I once humiliated, stood in the shadows, whispering that I was nothing more than a used-up toy he was already bored of. I lay on the cold marble, shivering from a fever he refused to treat, realizing that the curse he placed on me years ago had finally come true. Every act of cruelty I had ever committed was being repaid with interest, and the man I once looked down on was now the only god I had left to pray to. Suddenly, he threw me out into the freezing night with nothing but rags on my back and a shattered phone. The hospital called with an ultimatum: fifty thousand dollars by noon, or they pull the plug on my father’s life support. Standing barefoot on the biting asphalt, I watched his black SUV disappear into the dark. I have nine hours to save the only person I love, and only one way to get the money. I have to go back and kneel before the devil I created.

My husband, Cameron, stole my father's last gift to me-a one-of-a-kind watch. I found it on the wrist of his mistress, Kenda, during a video call where she thanked him for the gift and their "late nights." When I confronted him, he tried to gaslight me, using the years of painful, humiliating fertility treatments I endured as a weapon. "You've been under a lot of stress lately," he said, a cruel glint in his eye. He had convinced me I was barren, all while he was stealing from my family's foundation to fund her life. He even told her the watch was too ostentatious for me. The affair was a sting, but the calculated cruelty of his deception was a mortal wound. He made me believe I was broken. My grief turned to ice. I walked out of my study, leaving him stammering, and picked up my secure phone. I made a single call to the only man I trusted. "Gunner," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "I need you."

I thought I was the luckiest Omega in the world when the Alpha of the New Moon Pack chose me. I was pregnant with his heir, sleeping in his bed, believing the warmth I felt was love. But then I found the medical report hidden in his desk. "Subject: Scent Modulator. Dosage: High." It wasn't a fated bond. It was a drug. He was chemically forcing me to love him. My best friend dragged me to a restaurant window, and I watched him kiss my cousin, Olivia. Through the glass, I heard the words that shattered my soul. "Just a few more months," Ethan told her, caressing her hand. "Once the incubator drops the brat, we'll dispose of her. Then we raise the heir as ours." I was never his Luna. I was livestock. A walking womb chosen for my bloodline compatibility because his mistress was barren. My father had tried to warn me with his dying breath, but I had been too blinded by the synthetic scent to listen. Grief threatened to kill me, but the White Wolf inside me woke up screaming for vengeance. I went back to the house. I didn't pack a bag. I went straight to the kitchen and brewed a tea of Wolfsbane and Mugwort. I drank it all, weeping as I felt the bond to the baby snap. Then, I walked into our bedroom, left the divorce papers on his pillow, and whispered into the mind-link: "I, Ava Miller, reject you, Ethan Cole, as my mate." As he screamed in my head, I blocked him and walked into the rain. He thought he broke a weak Omega. He didn't know he had just unleashed a White Wolf.

A woman brought a boy into my clinic with my mate’s eyes and a genetic disorder exclusive to his Alpha bloodline. She named my mate, Damien, as the father, and through our bond, I felt his love for her as he lied about where he was. That night at the pack gala, he shoved me to protect that boy, causing me to miscarry the baby I’d just learned I was carrying. As I bled on the floor, he comforted his son over a scraped knee, never once looking back at me. His mistress later pushed me from a cliff, rejecting me in his name. But I survived, and a week later, I boarded a plane to Switzerland, ready to be reborn from the ashes of the woman he destroyed.

The last thing I remembered was the screech of tires and a crushing impact. Then, I was a ghost, floating above my own lifeless body, pulled from the wreckage. I watched silently as my fiancé, Liam, the man I' d given everything for, proposed to my stepsister, Scarlett, at my funeral-the very ring I' d once admired. Their passionate kiss, the congratulatory smiles of our friends-it all ripped through me with a pain far worse than death. My entire life had been a lie, a sacrifice for their happiness, and the regret consumed me whole. I woke up with a gasp, drenched in sweat, in my childhood bedroom. The date on my laptop screen read June 12, 2008-the day it all went wrong. An email glowed: "Internship Offer: Prestigious New York Firm." I had a second chance. My heart turned to ice as the doorbell rang-it was Liam, charming as ever, with a bouquet of my favorite flowers. He walked in, proposing marriage, but only if I gave my prestigious internship to Scarlett, his "soulmate." "Marry me, Chloe," he whispered, "if you give her your internship spot...She' s my soulmate, you know that, but you...you're the one I want to build a home with." This time, I slowly pulled my hands from his, a cold smile touching my lips. "No." His facade cracked, revealing the selfish man beneath. "You're over, Liam," I said, holding the door open. "I'm taking the internship. And I am never, ever going to sacrifice my life for yours again."

For eighteen years, the Miller mansion was my sanctuary, a gilded cage built with the love of my adoptive father, Richard, and my brother, Ethan. My top-floor studio, overlooking the city, was my universe, filled with their unwavering support for my art and their endless affection. Then Tiffany arrived, Richard' s biological daughter, a ghost from his past. I welcomed her, eager for a sister, but the dream shattered almost overnight. One night, Richard gave me a beautiful, antique paintbrush-a cherished gift. But a single, perfectly timed tear from Tiffany, a trembling voice whispering about her deceased mother, instantly shifted the narrative. Suddenly, I was the villain, my joy overshadowed by her fabricated grief. Richard took the brush back, Ethan consoled her, and I was left with a cold, heavy stone in my chest. This was just the beginning. Soon, the Miller Corporation faced ruin, and I, their beloved adopted daughter, became a commodity. My family, the men who had once adored me, arranged my marriage to a stranger to save their empire. They saw a necessary sacrifice, not a heartbroken daughter. When I fled to my Uncle David, he offered escape, a life devoted to my art. But I believed it was my last act of loyalty to the family I once loved. That night, on the grand staircase, Tiffany ensured my "loyalty" came with a price. She faked a stumble, pushed me, and sent me sprawling, my ankle twisting in agony on the marble floor. Richard and Ethan rushed to her side, not mine. "Chloe, what is wrong with you? Your jealousy is going to destroy this family!" Richard roared, his face a mask of cold fury. They saw only Tiffany' s tears, never my pain, my twisted ankle, or the innocent truth. In that moment, something inside me broke for good. The marriage wasn' t a sacrifice anymore. It was an escape, a desperate flight from a family that no longer saw me.

I used to think my life was a gilded cage, trapped by the family who adopted me, the Blakelys. They showered me with privilege, but it was just a facade. Then, everything changed. I' m on my knees, a throbbing pain in my cheek, accused by my adoptive mother, Elizabeth, of assaulting my "sister," Nicole. Nicole plays the perfect victim, her eyes brimming with fake tears as Elizabeth tells me, "You are not our daughter, Stella. Nicole is. You owe her everything." They stripped me of my identity, making me feel like a replacement, a charity case who had stolen another's life. In my last life, their words shattered me. I was a naive girl, easily manipulated, unknowingly prepped for sacrifice. I died at twenty-one, my "Golden Aura"-my very life force-drained to fuel their real daughter's ascent, sealing my real parents' gruesome fate. But the joke's on them. I'm back. Reborn at eighteen, with every chilling memory of my past life and the decade I spent as a wandering spirit. This time, I' ll play their twisted game, but with one crucial difference: I make the rules. And I will burn their world to the ground.

I was given a second chance, reborn to right the wrongs of my first life and finally cherish Elara, the wife I had scorned. But this time, she was the one who was cold, distant, obsessed with another man, Julian Croft. Her indifference rapidly twisted into ruthless cruelty when she forced my mother into a dangerous bone marrow transplant for Julian, then imprisoned me to prevent my interference. The humiliations escalated: public mockery, water torture in a hotel pool, and even my hand broken on her command for a fictional injury to Julian. Then, she tried to burn my parents alive with me watching, falsely accusing me of driving Julian away. The Elara I knew, the woman who died for me, was gone, replaced by a monster. My love, which had survived death and rebirth, finally died, and I realized I had to escape this nightmare. So, I faked my own death, vanished from the world, and started a new life, finally free. But even in death, secrets refuse to stay buried, and when Elara uncovers Julian' s shocking deceptions and attempts at murder, she discovers that Asher Blackwood is not only alive but deliberately ran from her. Now, she's searching for me, desperate for answers and forgiveness, but I have a final message for her, a choice that will determine our fate across lifetimes.

I'd moved on. A decade ago, Ethan Hayes shattered my heart, ditching me for another woman after secretly giving me birth control disguised as vitamins, then publicly shaming me. Now, I was Queen Sarah of Valoria, attending a glamorous D.C. embassy ball with my loving husband, King Alaric, and our charming son, Liam. I thought I was free of the past. Then I saw him. Ethan. Right there, with the same woman, Jessica Vance, her hand on a pregnant belly. All the old agony, the humiliation, flooded back. He and Jessica accosted me, mistaking my simple Valorian silk for catering staff attire, offering me cash, and then, claiming my dress was stolen, tried to have me thrown out for "harassing royalty." He even unclasped his expensive cufflinks, offering them to me with a condescending smirk. My heart pounded with the phantom pain of his betrayal, the audacity of his delusion. How could he still be this man? Just as he was about to signal security, my five-year-old son, Prince Liam, intervened, kicking the guard attempting to remove me. Then, loud enough for the entire ballroom to hear, he declared, "She is my mother! Queen Sarah of Valoria!" The room fell silent. Ethan's face went white. Alaric stepped in, his glacial gaze fixing on my ex. This wasn't just a confrontation anymore—it was a diplomatic incident. And it was time for my past to finally understand who I truly was.

Ethan Miller, a software engineer, centered his world on his wife, Olivia, often feeling overlooked by his family who favored his 'successful' older brother, Mark. A year after Mark's wife, Olivia's twin, tragically died, Olivia's mother made an unthinkable demand: that Olivia surrogate a child for Mark to continue their bloodline, a bizarre proposal shockingly backed by Ethan's own parents and the entire family. Ethan's world imploded when he found Olivia and Mark in his bed; Olivia's flimsy excuse of 'saving Mark' from suicide was accepted by the family, who gaslit Ethan, physically abused him, and threatened him with institutionalization after Mark staged an injury. The ultimate blow came when Olivia announced her pregnancy with Mark's child, portraying it as a noble sacrifice for Chloe's legacy, utterly invalidating Ethan. Betrayed, humiliated, and mentally tormented by his closest kin, Ethan simmered with a burning rage and disbelief, grappling with how his own family could conspire to such lengths and make him doubt his own sanity. With his spirit broken but a cold resolve hardening him, Ethan secretly divorced, moved to New York, and began meticulously crafting an elaborate, 'eye-for-an-eye' revenge, hiring an actress to unleash Olivia's own manipulative tactics back on her.

He loves her, adores her, and gives her everything that she could ever hope for. Everything is too good to be true for Euralia, only to find out that he has a purpose for this kind of treatment--he wants to own every fiber of her being. Not wanting to belong to anyone, she felt embarrassment cripple her identity. The choking feeling of being controlled by someone made her rebel against him. Thus, the tug-of-war began. He chased her, she fled! He controlled and oppressed her, she fought back and rebelled! He chased after her and spent every last bit of everything he had, just so she could finally see his worth. Would they find anything in common? Will they work it out?

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."

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.

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.

"Once she's finally dead, I want you to take me - right there, in that outlaw President's own bed... promise me, Blaze." Lying in a freezing pool of my own blood, I watched the man I had loved for three years flirt shamelessly with my cousin. Meanwhile, my so-called "best friend" greedily stripped the wedding ring off my bleeding finger. "Take her. Have your fun with her, just don't let that pretty face go to waste," the scumbag sneered, kicking me aside. As a group of tattooed thugs approached with sickening, lustful grins, I was swallowed by absolute, shivering despair. Just as I prepared to bite my own tongue to end it all-a deafening engine roar shattered the night. My husband, the ruthless MC President Axel, the "monster" I had spent my life trying to escape, charged into the hellfire covered in blood. He used his massive frame to shield me from every bullet. With his dying breath, his normally cold eyes held nothing but desperate, humble tenderness. "Don't be afraid... I love you..." When I opened my eyes, I was reborn a year before our fatal fallout. To completely sever ties with the cheating scumbag, I secretly liquidated all my designer assets, transferring the funds into an untraceable offshore account. But the financial report was handed straight to Axel. He forcefully cornered me against the wall, his eyes swirling with a devastating mix of soul-crushing heartbreak and violent obsession as he ruthlessly bit my lip. "Chloe, even if you run to the ends of the earth, I will drag you back in chains!" he growled, his voice hoarse and his eyes red. "But from tonight on... until I see your lover's corpse with my own eyes, don't you ever try to touch me again." I wrapped my arms tightly around his solid waist from behind, my small hands slipping under his half-open leather jacket to trace the hard lines of his tense abs. Feeling his massive body instantly freeze into stone, I stood on my toes and whispered breathily against his ear: "Okay. But before you kill him... hubby, don't you want to come back to bed and fulfill your duties as my husband first?"

Three days before the wedding. I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman. Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress. The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem. It didn't spell Elena. It read Sofia. He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name. Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife. He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared. "The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?" "Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport." "Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys." I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday. He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.

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."

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

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.

I didn't mean to call my boss. I definitely didn't mean to leave a seven-minute voicemail of dirty secrets about him. Working for Ruslan Oryolov is the job from hell. The man is impossible-demanding, arrogant, and way too gorgeous for his own good. After eighteen months of fetching his coffee and swallowing my pride, all I wanted was one night of stress relief. But the billionaire CEO of Bane Corporation isn't just a boss from hell. He's the head of the Oryolov Bratva-and now that he's heard every secret I never meant to share, he's decided to claim me. His contract. His rules. His protection for my three orphaned nieces and nephews-the only reason I'm signing my life away to a man I should fear. He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now he wants my soul.

I was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder. It was Clayton. The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister's engagement party. "Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up. Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock. "Ivy? You're... we buried you." They hadn't buried me. They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability. Clayton's shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger. He accused me of faking my death for attention. He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain. He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize. "You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation." But he made a fatal mistake. He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees. He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it. Before Clayton's fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist. Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us. "Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand." I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face. I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself. I came back to bury them.