Gertrude

For three years, I was locked inside a mafia black site, enduring daily electroshock therapy and forced chemical cocktails. I truly believed I was losing my mind, until my fingers brushed against a hidden wiretap taped beneath the treatment table. The recorded voices belonged to my husband and my biological brother. "Turn her into a mindless vegetable before Friday, so I can legally seize her proxy votes." It turned out I was never sick. My late father, the legendary Don, had left me a controlling stake in the syndicate, locked in an offshore trust that would thaw in exactly seven days. To steal my inheritance, the two men I trusted most conspired to fry my brain into a wet pulp. My husband even let his secret mistress parade through the asylum, mocking my emaciated, scar-covered body. They dragged me back to the family estate, starving me in a damp storage room and threatening to bring the shock machines to my bedroom if I didn't sign over the territories. Every time I had fought back over the years, they used my agony as irrefutable proof of my insanity, strapping me down tighter and turning the dial higher. They didn't want to cure me; they wanted to completely erase me. But my father had foreseen their bottomless greed and built an untouchable legal fortress for me. Looking at the jagged date branded into my wrist, I knew exactly what I had to do. I dropped to my knees, slapped my own face hard, and played the perfect, broken lunatic. I just had to survive the next seven days, and then I would take back my throne and bury them all.

The world was a symphony of agony, played on the strings of my own body. I was tied to a chair in a damp basement, the metallic tang of blood filling my mouth as my fingernails were ripped from their beds by a pair of rusty pliers. My best friend, Corrine, stepped into the flickering light wearing my favorite Chanel suit and the engagement ring that was supposed to be mine. Beside her, my fiancé Aldo held the pliers, his voice smooth and cultured as he demanded I sign over my entire inheritance to them. As I struggled, a news report flashed on an old TV in the corner: Hunter Gallagher, the man I had treated like dirt but who had always tried to protect me, was dead in a horrific car explosion. Corrine laughed, whispering in my ear that they had lured him to his death using a fake kidnapping tip. He died trying to save me from a trap set by the people I trusted most. They didn't just want my money; they wanted to erase me. They plunged a needle full of heroin into my neck, watching with cold, mocking eyes as my heart hammered against my ribs and finally seized into nothingness. I died in that basement, a blind, spoiled girl who had let her true protector be murdered. As the darkness closed in, my soul burned with a single, silent vow: If I ever get another life, I will drag you both to hell with me. Suddenly, I gasped for air, my lungs fighting against a weight that wasn't there. I wasn't in the basement; I was in my own bed, my fingernails intact and my skin unbroken. I checked my phone, and my heart stopped—it was May 20th, exactly one year before my death. Hunter was still alive, and this time, I wasn't the prey.

I stood center stage at my own art exhibition, surrounded by the Pack elite who looked at me with nothing but pity. My husband, the Alpha Prime, was missing. Then someone pointed at the TV. There was Dante, live on the news, shielding another woman—a leggy Beta named Isabella—from the rain with his own body. While I stood alone, treated like a defect because I couldn't shift, he was playing the perfect gentleman to his mistress. That night, I walked into his office with a stack of boring gallery logistics paperwork. Buried deep on page four was a Severance Bond—an archaic law declaring a mate unwanted property. Dante didn't even read it. He was too busy laughing with Isabella to notice he was legally signing away his wife. I took the folder, packed a bag, and vanished into the night, taking the secret of his unborn heir with me. When he finally tracked me down in the Swiss Alps during a blizzard, he expected a submissive wife ready to return. Instead, he found a woman who looked him in the eye and said, "You are not needed here." I thought I was free, until a year later, when our daughter’s blood began to burn her alive from the inside. Her powerful Alpha bloodline was at war with her body, and my magic wasn't enough to save her. Trembling, I dialed the number I swore I’d never call again. "Dante," I sobbed. "It's Luna. She’s dying." The man who once treated me like a resource tore through mountains to save us. But this time, the Alpha Prime didn't come to conquer. He came to kneel.

For three years, I was the perfect Mafia wife. I ensured my husband Jared's suits were impeccable and his public image flawless. I even sat at tables with Russian killers and calmly translated the order to execute a man who betrayed our Family. My value was my composure and my loyalty. The moment an internal memo praised Jared for his 'heroism' during the Mayland Warehouse Massacre, I knew our marriage was over. Because I was the one he'd left to die. The memo was a masterpiece of fiction, claiming he made a split-second decision to protect the Family's "most valuable asset." That asset wasn't me, his wife, who was calmly negotiating with cartel members for our lives. It was Bianca, his fragile mistress, who was crying on the phone in a sector he was ordered to stay out of. When I packed my bags and left, he had the audacity to call me hysterical. "You're my wife," he scoffed. "Was I your wife at Mayland, Jared?" I asked. "Did you think of your wife for even a second while you were running to save your weak little woman?" He was a coward who had ignored a direct order from a Don, and the Family was calling him a hero for it. But I had the proof: a thirty-second recording of his profound dishonor. I wasn't just seeking an annulment. I was petitioning the Commission, and I was going to use that recording to burn his world to the ground.

For years, I was the secret architect behind my fiancé Ethan's success. I even torched my own reputation to cover up his theft, believing he was the love of my life and we were a team. Waking from a car crash he engineered, I overheard his plan. He had not only caused my accident but also orchestrated the "stress" that led to my miscarriage. Now, he was stealing my masterpiece, "Echoes of the City," and planning a public proposal to trap me in a gilded cage. At the gala, he left me on stage mid-proposal, the ring clattering to the floor, to rush to his mistress's side. At another party, after she told me he was "relieved" I'd lost our baby, I confronted him. He shoved me hard, sending me sprawling to the floor in front of everyone before walking away with her. Lying there, humiliated, I realized he didn't see me as a person. I was just a tool to be used and discarded. The love I felt for him didn't just break; it turned into a cold, dark void. But he made one mistake. He forgot about the one man in the city he truly feared, a powerful Don who had once praised my work. I picked up my phone and sent a single, desperate text to his rival: "This is Sarah Jenkins. I need your help."

My fiancé of twenty years left me at the altar for another woman, a manipulative liar faking a terminal illness. To grant her "dying wish," he not only demanded a divorce but personally injected me with a drug to ensure I could never have children. On the day he tried to marry her, I entered a proxy marriage with a comatose billionaire to escape-and my new husband woke up.

My anniversary flight was about to board when my husband' s assistant, Chloe, appeared, tears streaming down her face, begging for my ticket because her mother was supposedly dying. It was absurd, but I told her to find another way, unaware of the trap I was walking into. When I arrived home, my husband, Liam, confronted me, accusing me of abandoning Chloe. He then offered me a glass of water, which, unbeknownst to me, was drugged. I woke up alone, stranded in a scorching desert, the sun a blazing inferno above me. A helicopter appeared overhead, and I saw Liam with Chloe, who was holding a phone, livestreaming my torment with the hashtag #AvaWalksTheDesert. They boasted about my family' s supposed bankruptcy and ordered me to apologize to Chloe. When I refused, Liam' s bodyguards took my shoes, leaving me barefoot on the burning sand, where rusty nails were then dumped in front of me. I forced myself to walk, nails piercing my feet, leaving a trail of blood. The doctor on board screamed that I was losing too much blood, but Liam was unconcerned. Then, a sack of highly venomous desert vipers was dumped in my path, preying on my deepest fear. I stood frozen, paralyzed by terror, as one viper slithered toward me and bit my calf. The doctor cried out for antivenom, but Chloe "accidentally" knocked the vial, shattering it. Liam, more concerned with his pride and the livestream than my life, demanded I apologize to Chloe and the camera for his "show." "Never," I rasped, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Just as Liam' s bodyguards forced me to my knees, a military-grade helicopter descended from the sky.

The day I was released from prison, my fiancé, Don Ford, was waiting for me, promising our life would finally begin. Seven years ago, he and my parents begged me to take the fall for a crime my adopted sister, Kelsey, committed. She got behind the wheel drunk, hit someone, and fled the scene. They said Kelsey was too fragile for prison. They called my seven-year sentence a small sacrifice. But as soon as we arrived at the family mansion, Don’s phone rang. Kelsey was having another one of her “episodes,” and he left me standing alone in the grand foyer to rush to her side. The butler then informed me I was to stay in the dusty storage room on the third floor. My parents’ orders. They didn't want me upsetting Kelsey when she returned. It was always Kelsey. She was the reason they took my college scholarship fund, and she was the reason I lost seven years of my life. I was their biological daughter, but I was just a tool to be used and discarded. That night, alone in that cramped room, a cheap phone a prison guard gave me buzzed with an email. It was a job offer for a classified position I had applied for eight years ago. It came with a new identity and an immediate relocation package. A way out. I typed my reply with shaking fingers. "I accept."

Emily' s smile was as bright as the new silver pen she held out to me, a pen she said would bring me good luck for finding a new job. But I knew better. Every "lucky" gift from her had cost me dearly. My last job, a stable marketing position, vanished after she gave me a "lucky" desktop plant. Then a designer handbag led to my wallet being stolen. And a set of wine glasses she gave me and Mark on our anniversary led to our worst fight ever, and then he left me, only to start dating Emily two weeks later. They became the city' s golden couple, their success built on my ruin. My parents, who adored Emily, couldn't see it. "Things just seem to go wrong around you, Sarah," my boss had said, echoing my family' s common accusation: I was truly unlucky. But I knew the truth. Emily had confessed it herself: "Because you had all the luck, Sarah. These little gifts… they' re not for you. They' re for me. They take your good fortune and transfer it to me. Your job paid for my gallery representation. Your boyfriend… well, I think I' ll keep him. You' re not unlucky, Sarah. You' re a battery. And you' re just about drained." Now, holding a pen that felt like poison, I realized I wouldn' t be a victim anymore. My old self had died with everything I' d lost, but a new, cold resolve was forming. I was a battery, yes, but now I would choose who got drained. I reached into my purse for my grandmother' s locket, the one thing Emily had never touched, my last hope. The game was about to change.

The day I turned eighteen, I was thrown into a gilded cage, marrying into wealth as my mother' s unwanted baggage. Ethan Kensington, my new stepbrother, treated me like furniture, a secret he summoned only when bored or lonely, buying me off with trinkets. Then came the wedding announcement: Ethan was marrying someone else, and the world was celebrating, blind to the shadow I' d become. Broken and disposable, I faked my death, hoping to evoke a shred of guilt, only to reappear years later, building a quiet life of my own. But he found me, cornered me in a diner, and with a public proposal that reeked of control, I foolishly said yes. I married him again, believing his grand gestures were a sign of true love, until I overheard him describing me as a problem to be "handled." The humiliation burned, and then, a horrifying crash revealed his executive assistant, Chloe, tampering with my car brakes, confirming the chilling truth: he didn't just want control; he wanted me erased. In the hospital, reeling from the accident, the doctor delivered another blow: "You're pregnant." But then Chloe appeared, radiating fake concern, only to deliver her own bombshell: "I'm pregnant, too, Ava. And it's Ethan's." My world shattered, and cold, hard rage settled in, replacing all weakness. They wanted two women, two babies, two lives controlled, but I would not live in that gilded cage. "I need to speak to my doctor," I told the nurse, "Alone." I was ending this. All of it.

Our marriage was a five-year war, a slow burn of mutual revenge. I thought he hated me for trapping him, especially after I hid that letter from his college sweetheart, Sarah Jenkins. He retaliated by bringing other women home, making them use my mug, sit in my chair, their perfume a constant torment he inflicted just to see the pain on my face. After years of fighting for even a sliver of his attention, I woke up from a nightmare so vivid, so terrifyingly real, it felt like a premonition: a future where he'd force me to sacrifice everything for Sarah, leaving me ruined and discarded. The terror of that vision compelled me to act; I demanded a divorce, expecting a fight, only for him to agree to my outrageous demand of 50% of his company shares. Just as I believed I was finally free, I walked into a bar and saw him, playing the devoted hero to Sarah, shielding her from two thugs. He accused me of orchestrating the whole thing, his fury blinding him to my innocence, confirming his deep-seated belief that I was nothing but a manipulative monster. Then, just as I was about to walk out on him for good, he ambushed me, dragging me into a private room, his rage-filled kiss a violation, yet confusingly, it stirred something within me I swore was long dead. The nightmare, however, brought me back to reality, and I pushed him away, screaming for him to go to Sarah, desperate to escape the dangerous flicker of hope his touch ignited. When I presented a revised divorce agreement, offering to take less, he simply shredded it, then later, I watched, horrified, as he chauffeured Sarah around in my Porsche. His phone call came late, a vulnerable whisper, claiming a car accident, drawing me to him despite everything, only for me to find him drunk, unhurt, and suddenly, bewilderingly, in tears, confessing his enduring love and tearing up yet another document – this time, a full transfer of his company shares to me. I placed Sarah's letter, the one I had hidden, beside him, ready to finally reveal the truth, only for him to casually dismiss it, claiming he never loved her, and admitted to hiring actresses for five years to make me jealous. Only then did I confess my own deception, and the realization of our shared, foolish misunderstanding brought us crashing together, five years of wasted pride melting away as he pulled me into his arms, finally understanding the depth of our love.

"Liam, we need to talk." My father's flat voice cut through the tense silence of our dining room, setting the stage for a conversation I knew was coming. The university scholarship, a white rectangle of hope, lay on the table-a trap. My mother, Sarah, chimed in, her voice sickly sweet as she reminded me Noah hadn't gotten a scholarship, knowing what they truly wanted. Then came the monstrous demand: "We want you to give the scholarship to him." Hot anger surged, the desire to scream, to accuse them of their blatant, cruel favoritism. But then, the cold memory washed over me. In my last life, I had screamed. I had fought. They expelled me, had me framed for plagiarism with fake evidence under Noah's name. The university slammed its doors. My name was dragged through the mud. I watched Noah, my beloved younger brother, live my stolen life while I spiraled into poverty and despair. I died at thirty, watching his business success on TV, consumed by bitter regret. Why did they do this to me? How could my family betray me so monstrously? But now, I was eighteen again. The letter was on the table. The same demand hung in the air. This time, I would not fight them. Not here, not now. I looked up, a mask of dejection on my face, and whispered, "Okay." They expected a fight, but I had a new plan. I was taking my future back, and this time, they wouldn't even see it coming.

My son, Leo, was burning with fever, his cough rattling in his chest like loose change. We were broke, living in a damp trailer, and the eviction notice was a soggy death sentence taped to the door. Desperate, I considered taking a shady job-fast money for Leo' s doctor. But then, visions flashed before my eyes like a glitch in reality. I saw my deployed husband, Ethan, laughing in a sunny cafe, spending our combat pay on a fancy cake for another woman, Maria. I saw them buying new clothes, moving into a posh apartment on base, all on our dime. Then the visions turned horrifying. I saw myself taking that job, Leo dying alone, and Ethan coldly using his death as an excuse to divorce me and marry Maria, securing her future with my family's benefits. The phone dropped from my hand. This wasn't just my ruin; it was Leo' s death. This twisted future could not happen. How could he betray us like this? How could he plan to steal Leo's very life and use it to advance his new, fraudulent family? I would not let it. My son' s future was not going to be what those visions showed me. I had to go to Germany. I had to face Ethan. I had to reclaim what was rightfully ours.

The comforting warmth of my newborn son, Thomas, at my side filled the room, a perfect solace after days of exhaustive labor. Maria Sanchez, my trusted housekeeper' s daughter, appeared at the doorway, her smile wide and seemingly benevolent, holding out a thermos of her mother' s special chicken broth. But that smile, that very broth, triggered a horrifying flood of memories that weren't dreams at all-they were a past life I had lived, suffered, and died in. In that chilling reality, Maria wasn't a friend; she was a cunning puppeteer who used innocent-looking chicken trinkets to steal my healthy baby, erase my very name, and shackle me to a monstrous husband named Julian Vance. I remembered every agonizing detail: drinking that "revitalizing" broth had been the first step in a meticulously cruel scheme that resulted in Maria swapping her sickly infant for my perfect Thomas just days after his birth. My existence became a living hell, a gilded cage where I wasted away, powerless, betrayed by all I held dear, until my premature, miserable death. The fresh agony of that past life' s betrayal, the icy grip of her deception, ignited a cold, unyielding fire within me that burned away any trace of exhaustion or fear. How could I have been so utterly blind, so heartbreakingly naive, to allow such a predatory serpent into my home, unknowingly consuming the very poison that would destroy me? But now, I was Sarah Miller reborn, alive and aware, standing on the precipice of a second chance in this very moment. As Maria reached out with the steaming bowl, believing she held the trump card, she had no idea that I was already steps ahead, ready to shatter her world just as she had shattered mine.

My investigative journalism career was at its zenith, poised to expose a sprawling human trafficking network that reached into the city' s highest offices. I had irrefutable proof, years of hard work culminating in this moment, ready to break a story that would shake the city to its core. But then, only days from publishing, my former intern, Jessica Evans, unveiled my investigation with eerie precision, claiming my unique angles and even confidential source details as her own "intuition." Overnight, I was branded incompetent and slow, my decade-long reputation imploded, while she soared as the city' s new journalistic darling. The fallout was brutal: my editor, once my strongest advocate, viewed me with suspicion, and the whispers of a "washed-up" journalist followed me everywhere. The pattern continued; lead after lead I was developing, cases I was quietly researching-like the chilling "Poetic Justice Killer"-Jessica miraculously scooped with impossible, intimate detail I hadn't even fully formed. Then came the deepest cut: Professor Marcus Thorne, my respected Columbia mentor, praised Jessica's "raw talent" while publicly dismissing me as "envious," twisting the knife of my isolation and despair. How could Jessica know my raw, unfettered thoughts, my most private investigative theories, ideas I hadn' t even fully committed to paper? The sheer scale of this inexplicable theft, coupled with my mentor's shocking public betrayal, left me utterly confounded, adrift in a sea of public accusations and professional ruin. But their words, their disbelief, ignited a fierce fire within me; this wasn't mere envy or decline, it was a profound, calculated betrayal, and I would expose how she truly saw into my mind, starting with my "retirement" from the public eye.

I was dying of aggressive leukemia, my last chance for life, a revolutionary CAR T-cell therapy, within reach. My own family - my husband, David, and my parents - colluded to steal that life-saving treatment, diverting it to my cousin Jessie, who feigned vague illnesses for attention. Condemned to palliative care, I watched them celebrate Jessie's "recovery" while dismissing my worsening symptoms as "drama" or "negativity." I was forced to sign over everything I' d built-my beloved bakery, my bookstore, my investments-to the very woman who was orchestrating my demise. Adding insult to injury, David asked for a divorce, planning to move Jessie into our home and enthralling my son with her false charm. They called my quiet compliance "sensible," completely blind to the fact that I, sick and betrayed, was merely settling my affairs as a dying woman. How could they be so utterly oblivious, so consumed by a manipulative charade, while their daughter lay dying before their eyes? But their blind betrayal ignited a cold resolve: my surrender was merely the prelude to a posthumous retribution, carefully orchestrated in my final moments through a secret will and damning evidence, now entrusted to a shark lawyer to unleash upon them all.

For five years, my husband Jackson controlled my life with extreme rules, all under the guise of his "severe mysophobia." Every accidental touch meant hours on my knees, scrubbing marble with burning disinfectant, hands raw and bleeding. I lived isolated, convinced I was a source of "contamination," perpetually seeking his nonexistent approval. Then, a faint perfume on his collar, and a hidden conversation shattered my gilded delusion. His "mysophobia" was a cruel lie, a charade to keep me in line while he entertained his mistress. Worse, he was preparing to auction me, his wife, as an exclusive "Ephemeral Experience" at a high-society gala. He even stripped me naked and locked me in our glass sunroom, a live preview for his laughing cronies next door. The raw, public humiliation swallowed me whole; I was nothing but a commodity to heighten their depravity. How could someone feign such a condition, then orchestrate such a monstrous betrayal, reducing me to an object without a shred of dignity? My despair was absolute, the hope I clung to turning to ash in my mouth. But buried deep within my grandfather’s prenup lay a secret clause, a last resort for "egregious betrayal." My trembling fingers reached for the phone, a fragile seed of defiance taking root.

“Marry me!” she said, her breathing became softer and the pensive gaze melted into a smile as soft as the morning light. “Try to convince me then…” he whispered into her ears. He had always been the center of attraction, effortlessly drawing people towards him like bees to honey. It wasn’t just his striking good looks or his status as the young master of the Yun Company that exclusively attributed to his charm. It was his reserved, almost taciturn heart that everyone found attractive. However, she had an ace up her sleeve that assured her that she would win this game.

"My world is a mess; you want nothing to do with this" "You don't have the right to decide that for me." Her chest was heaving, harsh breaths scraping the walls of her nose. "I am your wife, and I am choosing to be in your mess." He grabbed the back of her head and pulled her closer. "This is your last chance. Once you step in, I can never let go." "I'm not planning on it." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jade Saint, who was switched at birth, is coerced into an arranged marriage after returning to the Sterling home. That is, until Roman Volkov – the richest and most dangerous man in the city – claims her as his bride. Desperate to save her dying adoptive mother, she willingly enters into a contract marriage with the devil himself. But marriage to Roman is not what she thinks it is – not the enemies lurking in the shadows. Not the dangerous world he refuses to explain, and certainly not the way his cold touch begins to feel like a promise instead of a warning. Because the more she tries to understand him, the more she realises he didn't choose her by accident. And the truth behind it all may destroy her.

I was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."

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

When is the worst time to tell someone he's going to be a father? Probably the day of the wedding... When he is getting married to someone else. Well, that is exactly what I did. But my hands were tied. Literally. Matvey Groza is a dangerous man. And nine months ago, he strolled into my shop looking for a custom suit. But when I accidentally walked in on him in the changing room, *I* was the one that ended up needing a new set of clothes. It was a one-time mistake. After that... good riddance. But the pregnancy test I took a month later had other plans. I kept it a secret from everyone. Or so I thought. But when Matvey's enemies learned that I was pregnant with his child, they kidnapped me and held me hostage. Until I broke free and ran as fast as I could. And I had no one else to turn to but the devil himself. What better time for me to enter the church... ... than as the pastor says, "Speak now or forever hold your peace"?

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.

Becoming a bride to settle a debt was never part of my dreams. Yet, my stepbrother's betrayal and a trap party turned my life upside down, shattering my illusions of a joyful marriage. Now, I'm faced with the harsh reality of being married to a ruthless Mafia boss, Alessio Marino. Can I trust his promises, or will my situation be worse than the abuse I endured from my stepbrother? With love stripped from my wedding vows, all I can do is cling to hope for God's mercy and summon the strength to navigate this perilous new life.

"You're leaving," Lorenzo said softly. Ivy straightened her spine and raised her chin. "I am. I'm getting out of this place even if it means climbing over the front gates. I can't stay here anymore. I'm leaving!" "You can't," Lorenzo said flatly. "Not now." "Watch me," Ivy hissed, brushing past him. Lorenzo stepped in her way and grabbed her by the arms-not roughly, but firmly. "I mean it, Ivy. You can't leave," he said tightly. She struggled against his grip, her bag falling to the floor with a thud. "Let me go, Lorenzo! I don't belong here. This place is insane. Your family is insane!" "You belong to me," he said sharply, eyes burning into hers. "And it's my job to protect what's mine." "I don't want to be yours," Ivy cried. "I want to be free! I want to live!" Something shifted in Lorenzo's face. He looked at her then, not as an obligation, not as a pawn, but as a person. A frightened, strong, beautiful woman who had been caught in a storm she never asked for. And something in him cracked. Lorenzo reached down and cupped her face with both hands. Ivy flinched at first but didn't pull away. His thumbs wiped away the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I never wanted to hurt you," he said quietly. Her lower lip trembled. "Then let me go..." "I can't," he whispered. And then, without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her. *************** Ivy Wesley believed that marrying a wealthy stranger would be her golden escape from a life of struggle. Lorenzo Martinelli was supposed to be her way out: her fresh start, her answer to every prayer whispered in the dark. But the moment the mansion doors shut behind her, Ivy understood the truth. She hadn't stepped into a fairy tale. She had walked straight into the lion's den. The whispers about the Martinelli family's ties to the Mafia aren't just rumors; they're real, and now Ivy is bound to them by a ring on her finger and secrets she can never unlearn. There is no undoing this choice. No clean exit. Not after what she's seen. Not after what she knows. Surrounded by dangerous alliances, ruthless power plays, and truths sharp enough to draw blood, Ivy finds herself caught in a world where trust is a luxury and loyalty can be lethal. Yet in the middle of the chaos, something even more unexpected takes root: a love she never planned for, never prepared for, and may not survive. Now Ivy faces an impossible choice: run while she still can, or stand her ground beside the man who could destroy her as easily as he protects her. In a world where betrayal lurks behind every polished smile and devotion can cost a life, can their love endure... or will it be the very thing that brings everything crashing down?

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.

On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna. He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant. "It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son." He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years. He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman. They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago. I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.* Dante was the sterile one. I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret. Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible. I signed the divorce papers without a tear. Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening. I didn't come to object. I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was.

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."