Gavin

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 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.

For three years, I documented the slow death of my marriage in a black journal. It was my 100-point divorce plan: for every time my husband, Blake, chose his first love, Ariana, over me, I deducted points. When the score hit zero, I would leave. The final points vanished the night he left me bleeding out from a car crash. I was eight weeks pregnant with the child we had prayed for. In the ER, the nurses frantically called him-the star surgeon of the very hospital I was dying in. "Dr. Santos, we have a Jane Doe, O-negative, bleeding out. She's pregnant, and we're about to lose them both. We need you to authorize an emergency blood transfer." His voice came over the speaker, cold and impatient. "I can't. My priority is Miss Whitfield. Do what you can for the patient, but I can't divert anything right now." He hung up. He condemned his own child to death to ensure his ex-girlfriend had resources on standby after a minor procedure.

The ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave. At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety. As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers. "Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in. That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission. Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away.

I spent a year scrubbing floors in my fiancé’s club, hiding my identity as the daughter of the Capo dei Capi. I needed to know if Connor Bishop was a King worth merging empires with, or just a puppet. The answer came walking in wearing a neon pink dress. Jaden Juarez, a civilian he was infatuated with, didn't just treat me like a servant; she deliberately poured scalding espresso over my hand because I refused to be her valet. The pain was blinding, my skin blistering instantly. I video-called Connor, showing him the burn, expecting him to enforce the code of our world. Instead, seeing his investors watching, he panicked. He chose to sacrifice me to save face. "Get on your knees," he roared through the speaker. "Beg her pardon. Show her the respect she deserves." He wanted the daughter of the most dangerous man on the East Coast to kneel to his mistress. He thought he was showing strength. He didn't realize he was looking at a woman who could burn his entire world to ash with a single phone call. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. I simply hung up the phone and locked the kitchen doors. Then, I dialed the one number everyone in the underworld feared. "Dad," I said, my voice cold as steel. "Code Black. Bring the papers." "And send the wolves."

I was reviewing the laundering accounts when my husband asked for a hundred thousand dollars for the nanny. It took three seconds for me to realize the woman he was trying to pay off was wearing my missing vintage Chanel earrings. Damian looked me in the eye, using his best doctor's voice. "She is struggling, Ainsley. She has five boys to feed." When Casey walked in, she wasn't wearing a uniform. She was wearing my jewelry and looking at my husband with intimate familiarity. Instead of apologizing when I confronted them, Damian protected her. He looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. "She is a good mother," he sneered. "Something you wouldn't understand." He used the infertility I had spent millions trying to cure as a weapon against me. He didn't know that I had just received the investigator's file. The file that proved those five boys were his. The file that proved he had gotten a secret vasectomy six months before we started trying for a baby. He had let me endure years of painful procedures, hormones, and shame, all while funding his secret family with my father's money. I looked at the man I had shielded from the violence of my world so he could play god in a white coat. I didn't scream. I am a Pierce. We execute. I picked up my phone and dialed my enforcer. "I want him ruined. I want him to have nothing. I want him to wish he was dead."

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary. It's also the day my husband, Ethan, asked me for a divorce for the 38th time. He does this for Ilene, his childhood friend. The woman who crashed her car on our wedding day, leaving her unable to have children. Ever since, he's been repaying a debt of guilt, and I've been the price. For five years, I endured the cycle of divorce and remarriage. But this time was different. Ilene pushed me down a flight of stairs. Ethan found me bleeding and promised me justice. He swore he would make her pay. But days later, the police called. The security footage of the incident had been mysteriously erased. There was no evidence, no case. That night, Ilene had me kidnapped. As her men tore at my clothes in the back of a van, I managed to call Ethan. He rejected my call. I jumped from the moving van. And as I ran for my life, bleeding on the cold asphalt, I made a vow. This time, there would be no 39th remarriage. This time, I would disappear.

At eight months pregnant, I thought my husband Derek and I had it all. A perfect home, a loving marriage, and our miracle son on the way. Then, while tidying his office, I found his vasectomy certificate. It was dated a year ago, long before we even started trying. Confused and panicked, I rushed to his office, only to hear laughter from behind the door. It was Derek and his best friend, Edison. "I can't believe she still hasn't figured it out," Edison chuckled. "She walks around with that giant belly, glowing like some kind of saint." My husband's voice, the one that whispered words of love to me every night, was full of contempt. "Patience, my friend. The bigger she gets, the bigger the fall. And the bigger my payout." He said our entire marriage was a cruel game to destroy me, all for his precious adopted sister, Else. They were even running a bet on who the real father was. "So, the bet is still on?" Edison asked. "My money's still on me." My baby was a trophy in their sick contest. The world tilted on its axis. The love I felt, the family I was building—it was all a sham. In that moment, a cold, clear decision formed in the ruins of my heart. I pulled out my phone, my voice surprisingly steady as I called a private clinic. "Hello," I said. "I need to schedule an appointment. For a termination."

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.

For ten years, I secretly loved my guardian, Ethan Hayes. After my family fell apart, he took me in and raised me. He was my entire world. On my eighteenth birthday, I gathered all my courage to confess my love to him. But his reaction was a fury I had never seen before. He swept my birthday cake to the floor and roared, "Are you insane? I am your GUARDIAN!" He then mercilessly tore the painting I had spent a year on-my confession-to shreds. Just days later, he brought home his fiancée, Chloe. The man who had promised to wait for me to grow up, who called me his brightest star, had vanished. My decade of desperate, burning love had only managed to burn myself. The person who was supposed to protect me had become the one who hurt me the most. I looked down at the NYU acceptance letter in my hand. I had to leave. I had to pull him out of my heart, no matter how much it hurt. I picked up the phone and dialed my father's number. "Dad," I said, my voice hoarse, "I've decided. I want to come be with you in New York."

For three years, I kept a secret ledger of my husband's sins. A point system to decide exactly when I would leave Blake Santos, the ruthless Underboss of Chicago. I thought the final straw would be him forgetting our anniversary dinner to comfort his "childhood friend," Ariana. I was wrong. The real breaking point came when the restaurant ceiling collapsed. In that split second, Blake didn't look at me. He dove to his right, shielding Ariana with his body, leaving me to be crushed under a half-ton crystal chandelier. I woke up in a sterile hospital room with a shattered leg and a hollow womb. The doctor, trembling and pale, told me my eight-week-old fetus hadn't survived the trauma and blood loss. "We tried to get the O-negative reserves," he stammered, refusing to meet my eyes. "But Dr. Santos ordered us to hold them. He said Miss Whitfield might go into shock from her injuries." "What injuries?" I whispered. "A laceration on her finger," the doctor admitted. "And anxiety." He let our unborn child die to save the blood reserves for his mistress’s paper cut. Blake finally walked into my room hours later, smelling of Ariana’s perfume, expecting me to be the dutiful, silent wife who understood his "duty." Instead, I picked up my pen and wrote the final entry in my black leather book. *Minus five points. He killed our child.* *Total Score: Zero.* I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I just signed the divorce papers, called my extraction team, and vanished into the rain before he could turn around.

Five years ago, I saved my fiancé' s life on a mountain in Aspen. The fall left me with a permanent vision impairment-a constant, shimmering reminder of the day I chose him over my own perfect sight. He repaid me by secretly changing our Aspen wedding to Miami because his best friend, Annmarie, complained it was too cold. I overheard him call my sacrifice "sentimental crap" and watched him buy her a fifty-thousand-dollar dress while scoffing at mine. On our wedding day, he left me waiting at the altar to rush to Annmarie' s side for a conveniently timed "panic attack." He was so sure I' d forgive him. He always was. He saw my sacrifice not as a gift, but as a contract that guaranteed my submission. So when he finally called the empty Miami venue, I let him hear the mountain wind and the chapel bells before I spoke. "My wedding is about to start," I told him. "But it' s not with you."

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.

On the first anniversary of our reconciliation, I thought my tech mogul husband and I had finally turned a corner. Then I discovered our entire marriage was a spectator sport. It was a cruel, year-long revenge game orchestrated by him and his lover, and I was the punchline. For their amusement, I was poisoned with food contaminated with dog feces, publicly humiliated with a twenty-million-dollar auction scam, and beaten until my ribs broke by his family's private security. I endured it all, playing the part of the clueless, loving wife while they laughed about it in a group chat called "The Jillian Andrews Comedy Hour." But their grand finale was a step too far. I overheard him calmly planning to leave me to die in a remote cabin during a blizzard, a "tragic accident" that would finally set him free to be with his mistress. He thought he was writing the final chapter of my life. He didn't know I was about to use his murder plot as my own perfect escape. I faked my death, vanished into thin air, and left him to explain to the world how his beloved wife disappeared off the face of the earth.

It took seven years for Ethan to convince me I was the center of his universe, and exactly seven weeks for his "business partner," Chloe, to prove I was just a placeholder. I was the woman who ironed his shirts and managed his schedule, yet she was the one he comforted at 2 AM. But the real end didn't come with a fight. It came with an explosion. At a family gathering, a gas heater malfunctioned. Glass shattered, and fire erupted. In that split second of life or death, Ethan didn't look for me. He threw his body over Chloe. He shielded her from the flames, cocooning her in his arms, whispering frantically to her while I stood twenty feet away, watching my boyfriend of seven years act like I didn't exist. When I confronted him later, he didn't apologize. Instead, he let Chloe carve her initials over ours on our anniversary tree. When I tried to stop them, he shoved me into the dirt to comfort her over a broken nail. "You are dead to me, Ava," he screamed. "Jealousy makes you ugly." He thought I would beg. He thought I was an appliance he could unplug and plug back in whenever he wanted. He was arrogant enough to believe I would always be there, waiting for his scraps. He was wrong. While he was playing hero to his mistress, I didn't cry. I booked a one-way ticket to Portland, snapped my SIM card in half, and vanished. By the time he realized the silence in his apartment wasn't peace, but abandonment, I was already gone.

My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend. From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down." That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny. But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded. I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said." Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off." My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers. I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal. Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing. As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury. In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho." How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me? Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault? Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred? I would not be his victim. Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done. I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties. This was not an escape; this was my rebirth. Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.

For seven years, I scrubbed floors, cooked books, and hid my identity as the Vitiello heiress just to test if Dante Moretti loved me for me, not my father’s power. But the massive digital billboard in Times Square froze the blood in my veins. It wasn’t my face next to his under the headline "The King and his new Queen." It was a cocktail waitress named Lola. When I walked into the lobby to confront him, Lola slapped me across the face and crushed my late mother's locket under her stiletto heel. Dante didn't defend me. He didn't even look sorry. "You’re useful, like a stapler," he sneered, checking his watch. "But a King needs a Queen, not a boring clerk. You can stay on as my mistress if you want to keep your job." He thought I was a nobody. He thought he could use me to launder his money and then discard me like trash. He didn't realize that the only reason he wasn't in federal prison was because I was protecting him. I wiped the blood from my lip and pulled out a secure satellite phone. Dante laughed. "Who are you calling? Your mommy?" I stared him dead in the eyes as the line connected. "The pact is void, Papa," I whispered. "Burn them all." Ten minutes later, the glass doors shattered as my father’s military helicopters descended onto the street. Dante fell to his knees, realizing too late that he hadn't just lost a secretary. He had just declared war on the Capo dei Capi.

After the crash that killed my parents and stole my voice, my childhood friend Josiah swore he would be my voice. For years, I believed him, my silent world revolving around the boy who pulled me from the wreckage. I was even relearning to speak, just for him. Then I overheard the truth. To his friends, I was just the "town tragedy girl," a burden he was tired of carrying. The cruelty didn't stop. He let his new girlfriend publicly humiliate me, and when she faked an injury, he forced me to my knees to apologize in front of everyone. The final betrayal came during a storm. He abandoned me in the woods, deaf without my hearing aids, leaving me to face the same terror that shattered my life years ago. He chose her. He broke his promise. He broke me. So I left. I found my own voice, my own strength. Three years later, I returned for my first art exhibition, and when I saw his face in the crowd, I knew he was about to hear everything he'd forced me to keep silent.

My husband stood me up on the biggest night of my career—my first solo art exhibition. I found him on the news, shielding another woman from a storm of cameras while the entire gallery watched my world collapse. His text was a final, cold slap in the face: "Kacie needs me. You'll be fine." For years, he'd called my art a "hobby," forgetting it was the foundation of his billion-dollar company. He had made me invisible. So I called my lawyer with a plan to use his arrogance against him. "Make the divorce papers look like a boring IP release form," I told her. "He'll sign anything to get me out of his office."

My mate, Alpha Santino, brought another woman into our home. She was a pregnant Omega, the widow of his fallen Beta, and he swore to protect her above all others. He gave her my seat of honor, left our bed cold each night to soothe her feigned nightmares, and ignored me completely. I was the Luna of the Blackstone Pack, but I was becoming a ghost in my own life. The final betrayal happened in my own bedroom. She stood over my vanity and deliberately shattered my mother’s sacred moonstone necklace, the last piece of my family I had left. When Santino burst in, he didn’t see my heartbreak. He saw only her fake tears. “What did you do to her?!” he roared, his voice laced with the Alpha’s Command, a sacred power he used to crush my will. Then, for her, he did the unforgivable. He raised his hand and struck me, his mate. In that instant, the love I had desperately clung to turned to ice. The man I had sworn my life to had not only betrayed me but had defiled the sacred bond the Goddess herself had blessed. As the pain of his betrayal ripped through me, something ancient and powerful awakened in my blood. I rose to my feet and spoke the words that would destroy his world and begin mine. “I, Alessia Bianchi, reject you, Santino Moretti, as my mate.”

A suggestive iMessage on the family iPad was the first crack in my perfect life. I thought my teenage son was in trouble, but anonymous Reddit users pointed out the chilling truth. The message wasn't for him. It was for my husband of twenty years, Anthony. The betrayal became a conspiracy when I overheard them talking. They were laughing about his affair with my son's "cool" school counselor. "She's just so... boring, Dad," my son said. "Why don't you just leave Mom and be with her?" My son didn't just know; he was rooting for my replacement. My perfect family was a lie, and I was the punchline. Then, a message from a lawyer on Reddit lit a fire in the wreckage of my heart. "Gather proof. Then burn his entire world to the ground." My fingers were steady as I typed back. "Tell me how."

He told me his Inner Wolf was dormant. He claimed he couldn't feel the Mate Bond, that divine connection the Moon Goddess gifts to us. I believed him. For years, I waited in the shadows, protecting his secret, convinced my Alpha was just broken. But the truth revealed itself in the middle of a fire. During a rogue ambush, an explosion threw me into a ditch. My ankle was crushed in a hidden poacher’s trap, the silver teeth searing my flesh like acid. I screamed for him. Ethan sprinted through the smoke. He stopped, looking down at me. He saw the trap. He saw the blood. He saw the silver burning me alive. Then he looked at Chloe. She was sitting on the grass nearby, clutching a tiny, insignificant scratch on her forehead, wailing like a child. He didn't hesitate. Not for a heartbeat. He turned his back on me. He scooped Chloe up in his arms, cradling her like she was made of precious glass, and ran to safety. As the flames licked closer to my trapped leg, his voice cut through the Mind-Link, cold as a winter grave. "You are too weak, Ava. You don't deserve to be my Luna." He wasn't dormant. He never was. He just didn't want me. I didn't die in that fire. I dragged myself out, leaving my love in the ashes. The next morning, I limped into the Pack Hall. My leg was a ruin, but my mind was clear. Ethan sat on his throne, Chloe smirking on his lap. He looked at me with annoyance, expecting me to beg. Instead, I stood tall, letting my own wolf rise. "I, Ava Miller, reject you, Ethan Reed, as my mate."

I served the Dunlap family for six years, managing their dark accounts and raising children that weren't mine, all while waiting for my husband to truly love me. But when the "real" mistress returned, my devotion was rewarded with a death sentence. My husband, Gavyn, didn't just ask for a divorce; he dragged me to a cliff edge. He stood next to Iliana, the woman who stole my life, and looked at me with cold indifference. He called me a thief. He called me an "incubator"—a temporary vessel used to hold his place until his princess came back. Then, he ordered his hitman to finish it. I managed to bribe the hitman and jumped into the freezing ocean, but the fall cost me the only thing that mattered. Alone on a desolate beach, shivering and broken, I miscarried Gavyn's child—the baby he didn't even know existed. I lay in the sand, hollowed out by grief. I couldn't understand how the man I worshipped could discard me like trash. He didn't just break my heart; he tried to erase my existence. But fate wasn't done with me. On that same beach, I found a wounded young man hiding in the woods. He wasn't just a stranger; he was the lost heir to the Sosa crime family—Gavyn's mortal enemies. When the Don, Daniel Sosa, came to claim his nephew, he offered me a hand. Now, the world thinks Alex Dunlap is dead. But tonight, I am walking into the Grand Gala on the arm of the most dangerous man in the city. And I’m going to burn Gavyn’s empire to the ground.

Seven years ago, my fiancé, Don Dante Moretti, sent me to prison to take the fall for my adopted sister, Chiara. He called it a gift—a way to protect me from a worse fate. Today, he picked me up from prison only to abandon me at my family's estate. His reason? Chiara was having another one of her "episodes." My parents then informed me I'd be staying in the third-floor storage room, so as not to disturb the fragile girl who stole my life. They celebrated her "recovery" with a lavish dinner party, while I was treated like a ghost. When I refused to join, my mother hissed that I was ungrateful, and my father called me jealous. They assumed I couldn't understand their venomous whispers. But prison was my university. I learned Spanish. I understood every word. It was then I realized I wasn't just a sacrifice; I was disposable. The love I once felt for all of them had turned to ash. That night, in the dusty storage room, I logged onto an encrypted channel I'd set up years ago. A single message was waiting: "The offer stands. Do you accept?" My hands, scarred and steady, typed back, "I accept."

Ten years ago, I saved the life of New York’s most dangerous mob boss with a sewing kit. I gave Ethan Reed my youth, my loyalty, and my heart. But the moment his ex-girlfriend Chloe returned, I became disposable. It didn't matter that she had abandoned him. It didn't matter that she poisoned me, killing the unborn child Ethan didn't even know we had. When Chloe needed a kidney transplant due to her drug abuse, Ethan didn't protect me. He strapped me to a gurney. "It's just one kidney, Ava. You owe me." He harvested my organ to save the woman who murdered his heir. And when he was done, he decided I was a loose end. He dragged me to the edge of a bridge in the pouring rain. "This is how it ends," he said, his eyes devoid of love. "A tragic suicide." He pushed me into the freezing water, watching me drown to secure his happy ending. He thought I was dead. He thought the canary had sung its last song. But he forgot one thing. I was the chemist who built his empire. When his greatest rival pulled me out of the river, I didn't pray for salvation. I prayed for revenge. Three months later, I walked into his charity gala on the arm of his enemy, wearing a white suit and a smile sharp enough to cut glass. Ethan dropped to his knees when he saw me. But I wasn't there to forgive him. I was there to burn his house down.

The scissors made a sickening crunch as I severed the long hair Marcus worshipped. For three years, I had been his "silk anchor," the hidden woman who grounded him while he conquered New York. But as the dark strands hit the porcelain sink, my phone lit up with a news alert that shattered my world. *Thorne Enterprises CEO Marcus Thorne and Isabella Vance announce engagement.* While I was waiting for his call, he was sliding a massive diamond onto another woman's finger. At the gala that night, I was forced to watch them. Izzy leaned across the table, her voice sweet enough to rot teeth. "You look exhausted, Olivia. Especially now that you're... alone." Marcus didn't defend me. He didn't even look at me. He just swirled his scotch and told me to focus on the merger data, dismissing me like an inconvenient employee rather than the woman he swore to protect. He thought I was a pragmatist. He thought I would stay in the shadows, accepting the scraps of his affection while he married for power. He was wrong. I went home and packed my life into a single suitcase. I took the river rock he had carved for me—the one he called his anchor—and left it on the empty easel with a note in black marker. *You were my rock. Now you’re just a stone.* By the time he realized his mistake and came pounding on my door, I was already gone, flying toward a new life in Montana where he couldn't reach me.

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.

My husband, Liam, was the man I literally gave a piece of myself to, a kidney donated to save his life. I loved him with a devotion that ran deeper than blood. But this morning, I discovered the heart beating inside him was now completely unfaithful, and the life I saved had been used to destroy mine. For years, Liam, the empire-builder, was my perfect husband, still making my favorite breakfast. Then his phone buzzed: a text from "Ava Sinclair" – *Can't wait for tonight.* His panicked reaction and cold, fake kiss shattered everything. His betrayal quickly unraveled: late nights, whispered calls, a strange perfume. On our anniversary, he gave Ava the real "Star" necklace, sending me a fake. A hidden photo and ultrasound confirmed it: Liam with Ava and "our baby." He then abandoned me for Ava. Overhearing Liam call me "the brand" and "barren" while I carried his child, I made the agonizing choice to terminate my pregnancy. Hollowed but resolute, I burned with injustice. I had sacrificed a life because of his lies; the man I saved viewed me as a broken asset. When Liam called, oblivious, promising a "real surprise" at his tower, my voice was steel. I would go, not to celebrate, but to walk into the fire and finally be free.

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."

Strapped to the cold metal table in the hospital basement, I begged my Fated Mate, Alpha Marcus, for mercy. He ignored my tears. With a voice devoid of warmth, he ordered the doctor to inject liquid silver into my veins—a poison designed to dissolve the wolf spirit. "Do it," he commanded. "If she remains a wolf, she is a liability. As a human, she can stay as an Omega." I screamed as the silver acid ate through my soul, severing the connection to my wolf. Marcus didn't flinch. He wasn't saving me from my burn injuries; he was clearing the path for his mistress, Rachel, and their secret illegitimate son. Broken and wolfless, I was forced to watch him publicly claim his bastard child as the new heir. He thought I was submissive. He thought I would quietly fade into the servant's quarters to be his charity case. He didn't know I had cracked his safe and found the DNA tests proving his three-year betrayal. On the morning of his wedding to Rachel, I smiled as I climbed into the car that would take me to my "exile." Ten minutes later, my scheduled email exposing every lie hit the Council of Elders. And while Marcus fell to his knees screaming at the sight of my burning vehicle, realizing he had destroyed his True Mate for a fraud, I was already gone.

I was the brilliant mind behind the Thorne Pack's defenses, yet as an Omega, I was treated worse than a servant. My "Chosen Mate," Alpha Marcus, used my blueprints to build his reputation while I scrubbed his floors. Everything changed the day the elevator cable snapped. It wasn't an accident; it was a silver-coated trap set by Isabelle, the woman Marcus was parading around as his new favorite. As I lay in the hospital, silver poison scorching my veins, the doctor begged Marcus for the antidote authorization. Without it, my wolf would die. But Marcus didn't even look up from his phone. "Not now," he dismissed, stroking Isabelle’s hand. "Isabelle scraped her knee when the building shook. She's terrified. Eleanor is tough; she'll survive." He walked away, leaving me to endure surgery without anesthesia. I screamed until my throat bled, feeling every cut, every stitch. In that agony, the foolish girl who loved him finally died. When he returned days later, expecting me to beg for his attention, I didn't bow. I stood up, my eyes glowing with a power he had never seen. "I, Eleanor Vance, reject you." The bond snapped with a thunderous crack. As Marcus fell to his knees in shock, the door opened. Julian Croft, the Alpha King, stepped in. He looked past my ex-mate writhing on the floor, locked his golden eyes on mine, and smiled. "I believe," he rumbled, "the lady is finished with you."

I signed my own divorce papers thinking they were an investment in our future. Craig handed me the stack of documents with a smile, telling me it was to secure assets for our unborn children. I trusted him more than gravity, so I didn't read the fine print. Hours later, at his promotion party, I watched him announce his engagement to Chanel, the company heiress. I rushed to check the folder I had signed. It wasn't a trust fund. It was a complete dissolution of our marriage. I received no alimony. He kept the house and the stocks. And the box for "no child visitation" was already checked. The cruelest twist came the next morning. I stared at a pregnancy test with two pink lines. I was pregnant with the child of a man who had just tricked me into a divorce and called me "dead weight" in a text to his mistress. When I tried to disappear and rebuild my life, Craig didn't let me go. His ego couldn't handle my silence. He kidnapped me, locking me in a warehouse to "fix" our marriage, delusional enough to believe we could be a happy family after he caused me to lose the baby. I thought I would die in that cold, dark room. Then, a truck rammed through the wall, engulfed in flames. Felix, the quiet assistant I had barely noticed for five years, walked through the fire to get me. As he carried me out of the burning wreckage, leaving Craig behind, I realized he wasn't just an employee. He had been waiting to save me all along.

I lay broken in a hospital bed after a brutal car crash, but my family never came. My father and brother were too busy preparing for my manipulative half-sister Ainsley's wedding. The groom was my fiancé, Clayton. While I fought for my life, his last words to me over the phone were a cold command. "Go to hell for all I care." They abandoned me, told the world I was dead, and even carved my name on a tombstone. They buried me under a mountain of lies so Ainsley could steal the life that was mine. But I didn't die. I was reborn. Five years later, I returned as Ivy Richardson-a bestselling author, married to a tech CEO, and backed by a family with unimaginable power. I only came back to settle my mother's estate. But the first person I met was Clayton, standing in front of my grave, mourning the girl he helped kill.

My marriage ended at a charity gala I organized. One moment, I was the pregnant, happy wife of tech mogul Gabe Sullivan; the next, a reporter' s phone screen announced to the world that he and his childhood sweetheart, Harper, were expecting a child. Across the room, I saw them together, his hand resting on her stomach. This wasn't just an affair; it was a public declaration that erased me and our unborn baby. To protect his company's billion-dollar IPO, Gabe, his mother, and even my own adoptive parents conspired against me. They moved Harper into our home, into my bed, treating her like royalty while I became a prisoner. They painted me as unstable, a threat to the family's image. They accused me of cheating and claimed my child wasn't his. The final command was unthinkable: terminate my pregnancy. They locked me in a room and scheduled the procedure, promising to drag me there if I refused. But they made a mistake. They gave me back my phone to keep me quiet. Feigning surrender, I made one last, desperate call to a number I had kept hidden for years-a number belonging to my biological father, Antony Dean, the head of a family so powerful, they could make my husband's world burn.

My husband was in the shower, the sound of water a familiar rhythm to our mornings. I was just placing a cup of coffee on his desk, a small ritual in our five years of what I thought was a perfect marriage. Then, an email notification flashed on his laptop: "You're invited to the Christening of Leo Thomas." Our last name. The sender: Hayden Cleveland, a social media influencer. An icy dread settled in. It was an invitation for his son, a son I didn't know existed. I went to the church, hidden in the shadows, and saw him holding a baby, a little boy with his dark hair and eyes. Hayden Cleveland, the mother, leaned on his shoulder, a picture of domestic bliss. They looked like a family. A perfect, happy family. My world crumbled. I remembered him refusing to have a baby with me, citing work pressure. All his business trips, the late nights-were they spent with them? The lie was so easy for him. How could I have been so blind? I called the Zurich Architectural Fellowship, a prestigious program I had deferred for him. "I' d like to accept the fellowship," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I can leave immediately."

The neurosurgeon looked at me with pity, delivering a diagnosis that severed seven years of devotion in a heartbeat. According to the scans, my husband, Dante Rizzoli, remembered how to strip a Glock blindfolded and launder millions. He just didn't remember loving me. Overnight, I went from being the cherished Mafia Princess to an unwanted stranger in my own penthouse. While I filled our home with his favorite lilies trying to spark a memory, Dante brought home Gia. She was loud, tacky, and draped over him like a cheap suit. The Capo had forgotten his wife, but he seemed to remember his lust perfectly fine. I swallowed the humiliation, clinging to the hope of his recovery, until I stood outside his office door with a tray of espresso. I heard his dark, amused laugh rumbling through the wood. "The amnesia is the most useful card I've ever played," Dante told his soldier. "It buys me time to enjoy Gia without the family breathing down my neck. Elena is a boring, safe relic. I need fire, not a porcelain doll." My heart didn't race. It stopped. The medical anomaly was a lie. He hadn't forgotten me; he was just done with me. I set the tray down silently. I wasn't going to wait for him to remember anymore. I walked out of the penthouse and dialed a number I hadn't used in years. "Get the new ID ready," I whispered into the phone. "Elena Vitiello dies tonight. Livia Moretti leaves at dawn."

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

I spent three years building the Silver Creek Pack’s defense grid, turning us into a commercial superpower. I did it all for Alpha Craig, believing that once the economy stabilized, he would finally complete our Fated Mate bond. But at the Annual Assembly, he didn't Mark me. He pulled Chanel Murphy onto the stage, draped her in red silk, and announced her as his future Luna. When I tried to leave, he used the Alpha Command to force me into submission, ordering me to design the security for his wedding to another woman. I went home to burn our memories, only to discover I was pregnant with his heir. Knowing he would steal my child to raise with Chanel, I made the agonizing choice to sever the bond myself. But Chanel wasn't satisfied with just stealing my life. She framed me for poisoning her unborn baby—a baby that didn't even exist. Craig didn't ask for proof. He didn't listen to my pleas. He used his Alpha power to crush me to the floor and performed the forbidden Blood Severing ritual, slicing his hand and mine to physically rip our souls apart. He thought he was discarding a jealous, useless Beta. He didn't know that the trauma of his rejection would shatter the seal on my bloodline, awakening the legendary White Wolf. Three months later, his pack is in ruins, his defenses are failing, and I have returned. But I’m not here to fix his mistakes. I’m standing on the stage as the Director of Project Chimera, with the most powerful Alpha King in the world holding my hand. And Craig is about to learn that you don't get a second chance with a goddess you tried to destroy.

I thought my life was perfect. I had a loving boyfriend of five years, Jaxon, and was getting ready to celebrate my brother Hanson' s wedding. I even picked out the perfect cream-colored dress for the rehearsal dinner. But that perfect world shattered when I found Jaxon in the parking garage, tangled up with my brother' s fiancée, Karla. They had been having an affair for three years. When I tried to expose them, they twisted the story, painting me as a jealous liar trying to ruin the wedding. My own brother, Hanson, believed them. He slapped me across the face, his eyes filled with hate. "You stay away from this wedding," he snarled. "If you try to ruin this, I swear, I will make you regret it." Jaxon just stood there, choosing his mistress over me, watching as my own family turned on me. They thought they had broken me, casting me out as the crazy, unstable sister. But as I fled that night, I made a vow. They would all pay. And I would be the one to collect.

I sold my cameras and lenses—everything that defined me—to buy the first servers for my husband’s startup. Fifteen years later, on my birthday, Dustin left me alone to celebrate with his new assistant, Jami. When I confronted him about the affair, he didn't apologize. He threw a fifty-thousand-dollar check at me and told me to buy something pretty. But the betrayal didn't stop there. Jami broke into our safe and stole my late mother's vintage sapphire ring. When I tried to take it back, she snapped the eighty-year-old gold band in half. I slapped her. In response, my husband shoved me hard. My head cracked against the solid oak nightstand. Blood poured down my face, staining the rug I had picked out. Dustin didn't call an ambulance. He didn't even check my pulse. He stepped over my bleeding body to comfort his mistress because she was "stressed." When his parents found out, they didn't care about my injury. They came to where I was hiding, accused me of being clumsy, and threatened to leave me with nothing if I ruined the family image. They forgot one crucial detail: I was the one who designed, coded, and installed the penthouse's smart security system. I had synced every camera to my private cloud before I walked out. I had the video of him assaulting me. I had the audio of him admitting to fraud. And I had my father on speed dial—the man who owned the bank holding all of Dustin's loans. I looked at his terrified parents and pulled up the footage on the TV. "I don't want your money," I said, my finger hovering over the 'Send' button to the District Attorney. "I want to watch him burn."