Fonz Nadherny

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.

Two years. Two years of agony, grueling surgeries, and relentless recovery after I shielded my fiancé, Chad, from a fiery explosion. My back, once a roadmap of searing pain, was finally flawless, perfectly healed – a precious secret and a symbol of our new beginning. I was finally home in our penthouse, overflowing with joyful anticipation to surprise Chad before our engagement party next week. But the excitement curdled into an icy dread the moment I stepped inside. Peels of a woman' s unfamiliar laughter echoed from our master suite, followed by Chad' s low, impossibly intimate voice. "The doctor said it' s fine, the baby will be okay." Then, Izzy, my own assistant, giggled, "You haven't used this king-sized bed with her, right? You said seeing her scars made you sick." Sick. My scars. The ones I got saving his life, the constant reminder of my sacrifice. In that instant, his whispers of eternal love, his tender care during my recovery – every single lie – shattered as unmistakable sounds of intimacy spilled from our bed. The man I loved, the man I had nearly died for, a man who saw my selflessness as something repulsive, mocking my "snake-skin" behind my back. He had drugged me for months, not for my true recovery, but to keep me docile while he continued his sordid affair, all while plotting to exploit my family' s immense influence to usurp his own brother's corporate empire. How could the supposed angel I saved transform into such a monstrous, calculating deceiver? From the depths of devastation, a chilling, diamond-hard clarity emerged, sharpening my resolve. I clutched my phone, my shaking fingers composing a message that wasn't just a threat, but a meticulously planned declaration of war. Chad Baxter Jr. was poised to lose absolutely everything. He was about to discover that the "fragile" girl he thought he could break was meticulously preparing to demolish his entire world, piece by agonizing piece.

The ER waiting room hummed with a familiar, sickly glow. But tonight, I wasn't the paramedic on call. I was just Andrew, a guy in a hoodie, staring at my phone. My fiancée, Jennifer, lay supposedly critical after a hit-and-run. They said she needed emergency brain surgery. The nurse demanded payment upfront. With a cold, practiced mask, I showed them my banking app. "$17.42." That's all I had left, I claimed. It was after a "sophisticated online scam" wiped me out. Jennifer' s "parents" - two actors she' d hired - wailed. They begged me to save her. They even proposed a monstrous deal. Their son' s heart for my sick mother' s life. The world watched as a good Samaritan nurse started a GoFundMe. She was painting me as a heartless monster who' d let his fiancée die. The video went viral. Donations poured in, "saving" Jennifer. Meanwhile, my career and reputation crumbled. Every phone call from my chief was a stab. Every hateful comment online was a stab. But I didn't care. They called me a sociopath, a villain. How could I let them believe such a lie? How could I be so callous, so indifferent to the woman I was supposed to marry? My mother's fragile heart. My ruined career. It all felt like a twisted nightmare. But this wasn't my first time living this nightmare. In another life, I was the fool who fell for it all. I watched my mother die because of Jennifer' s cruel "loyalty test." This time, I knew the game. This time, I was ready to play my own hand.

The crystal chandeliers of the Plaza Hotel screamed money, framing the wedding of Chelsea Grimes and Julian Davidson as the ultimate corporate merger. But as the officiant prepared to unite two of the city's most powerful dynasties, the heavy double doors didn't just open-they exploded inward. Gideon Combs stood in the wreckage, a man in a frayed trench coat and grime-caked boots, looking like a stain on a pristine canvas. He wasn't there to object; he was there to enforce a "Legacy Pact," coldly informing the bride that her debt to a dead man hadn't been fulfilled and she didn't get to walk away. In seconds, the ballroom turned into a butchery as Gideon dismantled elite bodyguards with nothing but a broken wine bottle, eventually sending the groom flying into a tower of shattering champagne glass. When the military arrived, the room expected a firing squad, but instead, a four-star General snapped a sharp salute to the "vagrant," calling him a national asset. My family, the Singletons, saw this as a threat rather than a salvation; when I chose to stand by Gideon, my own grandmother stripped me of my keys, my cards, and my inheritance, casting me out into the pouring rain. I couldn't wrap my head around why the world's most powerful men trembled at the mention of Gideon's mentor, or what secret was etched into the black iron ring on his finger. I had traded my billionaire lifestyle for a man who looked like a drifter but fought like a god, and I had no idea if he was my protector or my ultimate ruin. As we stood on the sidewalk with nothing but twelve dollars and the clothes on our backs, Gideon's phone buzzed with a half-million-dollar bounty already active on the dark web. He didn't flinch; he just looked at the shadows closing in and whispered. "Game on."

I lay on the freezing bathroom floor, my life slipping away in crimson rivulets as I lost the baby Harrison claimed he wanted more than breath itself. In the next room, my husband was laughing into his phone, discussing party decorations with his mistress. When I finally dragged myself to the door to beg for help, he just stepped over me. "Call a doctor," he sighed, annoyed. "I have to go. Brooke's flight lands in an hour." Three days later, during a bank robbery, the gunmen held pistols to both our heads and gave Harrison a choice: save me, or save his mistress. Harrison didn't even blink. "Let the blonde go," he said, his voice void of emotion. "She's vital. Keep the wife. She's just insurance." I took a bullet because of him. But the true kill shot came when I woke up in the hospital. The family lawyer looked at me with pity and revealed the truth: Harrison never filed our marriage license. For three years, I wasn't his wife. I was just a prop. A clean face to front his estate while he laundered money. Harrison thought he had won when he drugged me and put me on a rigged boat to ship me away to an asylum. He watched from the dock as the vessel exploded into a fireball, believing his problem was incinerated. He thinks I'm dead. He thinks he's free to rule his empire with the woman who destroyed my life. But he forgot one thing: you can't kill a ghost. And I'm coming back to burn his world to ash.

My husband, the most feared mob boss in Chicago, told me it wasn't the right time for an heir. Then I found the invitation to his secret son's baptism—a child he had with a woman from our rival family. His betrayal climaxed when he shoved me so hard I miscarried our baby, and his mistress left me for dead at the bottom of a cliff. But I survived, and after watching me accept the world's highest honor for architecture on TV, he's now kneeling outside my hotel, begging the ghost he created to come home.

My adoptive family, the Millers, were titans of industry, and I, Ethan Miller, built their tech empire from the ground up. But when my adoptive brother, Liam Stone, embezzled millions, they didn't hesitate to throw me under the bus. "Ethan, you're the face of the company. You're the strong one. You can handle this." My adoptive parents, wife, and even my daughter, Mia, pressured me to take the fall. They made me sign over my company control, publicly shamed me, and watched as my health failed under the crushing stress. When I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer, they arrived not with concern, but with a monstrous request: "You have to save him. It's the only way you can make up for what you've done." They wanted my kidney for Liam, who faked terminal cancer, seeing me only as a spare part. I stared at them, the sheer, monstrous selfishness of it beyond anger, settling into chilling calm. They wanted to harvest my organs after pushing me to the brink of death. But the Ethan Miller they tried to destroy was gone. With Eleanor Vance's help, I faked my death, reborn as Elias Vance. They celebrated my demise, unaware I was watching. "Ethan Miller is already dead, Eleanor. They killed him. Now it's time for the vultures to have their feast, only to find the carcass is poisoned."

The last thing I remembered was the grinding sound of machinery, a symphony of six years in our small town, now a city death knell. My children, Lily and Tom, were so excited to visit their father Michael' s new, successful factory. "They've missed Michael so much, Ava. Let them go see him. He's just inside." Sarah, Michael's brother's widow, whispered, her arm around my shoulder, her voice a sweet poison. I watched them run ahead, their small figures disappearing through the massive doorway, believing their father was building a better life for us. They didn' t know the truth: Michael had left us for Sarah, taking our factory severance pay to build his new life with her and her children. Then I saw Sarah' s real smile-sharp, cold. She pushed an unsecured metal cart. A klaxon blared. Two screams, cut short by a sickening crunch, a spray of red. My world ended. Michael stood over me, his face filled with chilling annoyance, not grief. "Well, that's that, then," he said, flatly. "Saves me the trouble and expense of a divorce, I guess." He glanced at the machinery. "They were just baggage anyway, Ava. Holding me back." His words annihilated my soul, a physical force squeezing the breath from me. The world turned gray, then black. I died on that cold, greasy floor. And then, I gasped. I was in my cramped bedroom, sunlight filtering through the grimy window. A calendar on the wall marked the day the factory closed. Lily and Tom sat on the rug, whole and alive. "Mommy?" Lily asked, her big brown eyes filled with concern. "Are you okay?" Tears streamed down my face. I clung to them, inhaling their scent. I was back. The memory of their deaths, of Michael's monstrous words, was burned into my mind. Grief remained, a hot knot of agony, but something cold, hard, and sharp solidified beside it. Revenge. Michael. Sarah. You will pay. I will tear down your world, piece by piece, and I will make you feel every ounce of the agony you gave me. This was not a second chance at happiness. It was a second chance at justice.

"InnovateHer," my tech company, just hit a billion-dollar valuation. I built it from nothing, fueled by ramen noodles and 18-hour days, while my husband, David, coasted in a mid-level job. He watched me struggle, then offered to join; to take the "boring stuff," the finances, the HR. I, the visionary, the CEO, happily handed him the reins. "I just want to support you," he' d said, and I believed him. Then my debit card, linked to my multi-million-dollar earnings, was declined buying my son a birthday Lego set. "Insufficient funds?" panic clawed at me. David's voice on the phone was cold, dismissive. "I moved the money… This is what you wanted." He granted me an allowance-a paltry $5,000 credit limit on a card in his name-for the company I built. Soon, my own employee, his mousy executive assistant Maya, was openly challenging my authority, claiming "David's orders." My mother-in-law, Brenda, a woman who never approved of my career, declared it was time for me to "step back," to take a "mommy track" position in my own company. David, my husband, the man who once whispered he was the proudest husband in the world, nodded in agreement. "You're too emotional to run a company this big," he sneered. Then, Brenda brought Maya into my home, to "help" with dinner. My son, Leo, just six, stared at me with coached resentment. "I hate you! You' re a bad mommy! I want to live with Daddy and Maya!" he screamed, his words tearing a hole through my soul. I finally understood: This wasn't just betrayal. This was a calculated coup. And in the silence of my terror, a new, cold clarity dawned. They thought they had broken me. They were wrong. They had just woken me up.

The letter in my hand promised a dream-a master seamstress position at a prestigious fashion house, a chance to reclaim the skill I' d spent a lifetime perfecting. But when I shared the news with my son, David, and his wife, Sarah, in the house I' d bought for them with my retirement savings, their response wasn't joy, but a chilling demand: "Since you' ll have your own income now, it' s only fair that you start paying rent." The words hit me like a physical blow. Rent. In my own home, where I' d cooked, cleaned, and cared for their child for years without asking for a dime. They dismissed my sacrifices, claiming they were merely "my duty as a mother," an "investment" that now required repayment. Their greed escalated, demanding all of Leo' s care, then escalating into vicious accusations and threats of divorce, of taking my grandson away, all to force me into submission. My son, David, sat by silently, a coward, choosing his manipulative wife over his own mother. My heart shattered, but a cold resolve settled over me. There was no family left to save. I gathered the few things that mattered and walked out, leaving behind the shattered remnants of a love that had become a cage.

The stench of stale beer and sweat hung heavy at the post-game party, a ghost from a life I thought was behind me. I stood in a quiet corner, trying to disappear as the music vibrated through the floor. My ex-boyfriend Liam' s best friend, Kevin, suddenly plowed through the crowd, his face stark with raw panic. "Ava! You have to help. They took him!" he screamed, his words a horrifying echo of a past I' d desperately tried to escape. He begged me to rescue Liam from the black van, reminding me of all the "stuff" my dad taught me. But in my first life, answering that call plunged me into a thirty-year nightmare: a soul-crushing marriage to a man who resented me, a daughter who mirrored his coldness, and ultimately, a lonely death while they escaped. This time, I just told him to call the police. Liam' s heroic football career ended that night with a shattered leg and a lost scholarship, and I became the town's despised "ice queen." When he, also reborn, confronted me, his fury was absolute – blaming me for every consequence of my choice to save myself. And his toxic girlfriend, Jess, ensured his family's utter ruin, leading to his mother's heart attack. How could I be the villain for choosing to live, for refusing to be dragged back into a miserable existence by the very man who once condemned me to a lonely death? The sheer entitlement of his blame, even after he remembered our shared, horrible future, made my blood run cold. Was I truly bound to others' expectations, forever a cage to myself? But when a broken, desperate Liam finally appeared on my doorstep, not asking for himself, but tearfully begging me to save his innocent parents from Jess' s destructive spiral, I knew my past wouldn't fully release me until I severed the deepest, most toxic ties – even if it meant one last, dangerous confrontation to finally claim my own peace and freedom.

My whole life had been a meticulous climb. Every blueprint, every award, every late night was for one person. Isabelle Vance, the golden daughter of a political dynasty, my childhood sweetheart I swore to marry. Winning the prestigious Thornton Prize was supposed to be our moment, the culmination of years, the validation I needed to finally propose. But at the gala celebrating my success, she arrived on her cousin Spence' s arm. Her eyes barely met mine, and when I confronted her, she delivered a chilling public dismissal. "That was just a silly, youthful understanding, Ethan," she declared, her voice cold and clear, echoing through the hushed ballroom. My world shattered publicly. Confused and heartbroken, I tried to cling to hope, but she pulled further away, always with Spence. Then, her engagement party-not to me, but to him. When I begged for an explanation, she slapped me, hissing, "Leave and never contact me again." Her powerful father orchestrated my exile to a remote, struggling region, burying me professionally. There, fighting pneumonia and despair after a life-threatening accident, Spence sent me a cruel wedding album of him and Izzy, beaming, meant as a final taunt. I lay there, convinced I was dying, wondering: how could the woman I dedicated my life to betray me so utterly? Why was I tossed aside like trash, my achievements meaningless, my love a joke? Was I just a "project" to them, unworthy of their world? The injustice burned deeper than any fever. But from the brink of death, a park ranger named Clara found me. She didn't care about my past, my ambition, or the Vances. She taught me what genuine love was, healing my body and soul. Now, years later, I'm back in Boston, not as a broken man, but with a family forged in resilience. And it's time to finally put the past, and Isabelle, to rest.

I was a successful Silicon Valley mogul, a man of immense wealth and, as it turned out, even greater naivety, deeply in love with my beautiful fiancée, Ava. Our meticulously planned future seemed perfect until tragedy allegedly struck: Ava "died" in a devastating rock-climbing accident, leaving my world utterly shattered and adrift. For years, in my grief, I poured millions of dollars into commemorative foundations and generously supported her "grieving sisters," Chloe and Zoe, genuinely mourning a love I believed was tragically lost. Then came the crushing blow: I stumbled upon her in Monaco – radiant, laughing, and shockingly alive on Liam Knight’s arm, their children by their side, oblivious to my existence. They were living a lavish life, funded entirely by the immense fortune I had unknowingly gifted them through her fabricated death, a calculated deception that bled me dry for years. The sheer shock of this colossal betrayal, the agonizing realization of decades of meticulously planned deceit perpetrated by those I trusted most, was so profound it literally stopped my heart. My previous life, built on a foundation of love and trust, crumbled to ash as I felt the ultimate sting of idiocy and a crushing, all-consuming fury that burned hotter than any pain. But death wasn't the end for me; it was merely a reset. I snapped awake in the familiar luxury of my sprawling Silicon Valley mansion, the annoying beep of my alarm no longer a nuisance, but a powerful clarion call. It was the precise morning Ava was supposed to 'die,' the very day that had marked the agonizing origin of all my past life's misery and betrayal. This time, however, I wasn't the heartbroken, unsuspecting fiancé anymore. I was reborn, armed with every single painful memory and a cold, unyielding resolve, and my objective was terrifyingly clear: meticulously reclaim everything they stole, and ruthlessly expose every single viper who dared to prey on my trust.

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 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 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 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 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."

On our ninth anniversary, my husband Dominick didn't toast to us. Instead, he rested his hand on his mistress's pregnant belly in front of the entire crime family. I was just a debt payment to him, a ghost in a forty-thousand-dollar gown. But the humiliation didn't end in the ballroom. When his mistress, Chastity, started hemorrhaging later that night, he didn't call an ambulance. He dragged me to the family clinic. He knew I had a serious heart condition. He knew a transfusion of that magnitude could trigger a fatal cardiac event. "She is carrying my son," he said, his eyes devoid of any humanity. "You will give her whatever she needs." I begged him. I bargained for my freedom. He lied and agreed, just to get the needle in my arm. As my dark red blood flowed through the tube to save the woman destroying my life, my chest tightened. The monitors began to scream. My heart was failing. "Mr. Reyes! She's crashing!" the doctor shouted. Dominick didn't even turn around. He walked out of the room to hold Chastity's hand, leaving me to die on the table. I survived, but Annis Myers died in that clinic. He thought I would return to the penthouse and continue being his obedient, silent wife. He thought he owned the blood in my veins. He was wrong. I went back to the penthouse one last time. I struck a match. I let the room burn. By the time Dominick realized I wasn't in the ashes, I was already on a plane to London. I had left my wedding ring in an envelope, along with the medical records that proved his cruelty. He wanted a war? I would give him one.

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

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.

My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent. But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress. Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you." To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife. When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala. He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent. He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters. He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage. But he made a fatal error. He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign. They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me. And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck. I didn't jump to die. I jumped to be reborn. And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.