Gong Zi

I was the mute fisherman's daughter who married the King of New York, only to become his prisoner. Dante Vitiello didn't love me; he used my silence as a weapon and let his mistress, Valeria, rule my home. When Valeria poisoned herself to frame me, Dante didn't look for the truth. He drained my blood to save her life, then threw me into a freezing dungeon to rot among the rats. He planned to marry her while I shivered in the dark, telling me I was nothing but gutter trash. With no voice to scream and no way to fight, I chose the only escape left. I swallowed a vial of lethal pufferfish toxin, trading my life for a coma that mimicked death. I wanted to haunt him. I wanted my cold body to be his punishment. But when I woke up a year later, the world had changed. I wasn't in hell. I was in a clinic, and Dante was lying on the floor with a bullet in his temple. He had discovered the truth too late. To wake me up, he had accepted a deadly game of Russian Roulette. He signed our divorce papers with a steady hand, then pulled the trigger to buy my freedom. The monster was dead. And for the first time, the silence belonged to me.

For five years, I sealed my own wolf and pretended to be a "Wolfless" weakling, all to soothe my Alpha husband's fragile ego. But when his mistress committed a crime, Ignatz commanded me to take the fall. Desperate, I revealed the secret I had been keeping: I was pregnant. I thought it would save me. Instead, he sneered at my stomach. He called our child "biological waste" compared to the "high-born" heir his mistress was carrying. He ordered his guards to drag me to the clinic to "fix the mistake." I managed to escape the needle, only to be hunted down and thrown into a silver mine. The toxic metal didn't kill me, but the agony did something worse. It killed my unborn pup. While I lay bleeding in the dark, Ignatz hosted a grand gala. He publicly rejected me, dissolving our bond to marry his mistress, believing I was dead and gone. He didn't know his mistress was actually carrying a Rogue's bastard. He didn't know he had just murdered a Royal Prince. And he certainly didn't know that the grief had shattered the seal on my powers. The "Wolfless" girl died in that mine. The White Wolf rose in her place. Three days later, I crashed his engagement party. But I didn't come alone. I walked in flanked by the Royal Army and the Supreme Alpha, ready to burn his pack to the ground. Ignatz fell to his knees when he saw my glowing eyes, but I only had one thing to say. "Kneel."

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.

I was standing in five thousand dollars of hand-stitched lace when I received the medical report. My fiancé, Dante de Rossi, the future Don of Chicago, had gotten another woman pregnant. He didn't apologize. He didn't beg. He looked me in the eye and called it a "strategic necessity." "Isobel saved my life five years ago," he said coldly. "I owe her this child. You will raise it as your own. It is the price of the Peace Treaty." He forced me to cancel our engagement photos so he could take them with her. He took her on the vacation meant for our honeymoon. At dinner, he ordered me the seafood risotto, completely forgetting my deadly shellfish allergy, while fussing over Isobel’s water temperature. When I tried to leave, he cornered me. "You are a mob wife, Nina. Act like one. She is the hero who saved me." I wanted to laugh. Because five years ago, in that alley, Isobel wasn't even there. I was the one in the mask. I was the one who stitched his femoral artery and saved his life, risking my own medical license. He was destroying our twenty-year relationship to pay a debt to a liar. I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I simply picked up a red marker and walked to the calendar. On the day of our wedding, while Dante stood at the altar waiting for his obedient Queen, I was already boarding a one-way flight to the other side of the world. I left him nothing but four words scrawled across the date: "Let's break up, Dante."

Everyone in Seattle said my five-year marriage to tech mogul Elias Odonnell was a placeholder. I never believed them. He was the man who would delay a billion-dollar meeting for my food cravings and donate his own rare blood to save my father' s life. The day I discovered I was pregnant, I overheard him on a call with his childhood sweetheart, Juli. "Marrying Gemma was just the only way to get close enough to her father to cure you." My world shattered. He brought Juli into our home, pretending she was my doctor. They tormented me, locking me in a panic room to trigger my deepest fears. Then, during a forced mountain hike, a sudden shove sent me falling from a cliff. I lost our baby. In the hospital, I overheard the real reason he saved my life. It wasn't for me, but to keep my father emotionally stable so his "liver tissue quality" wouldn't be compromised before the harvest. He called our dead child "a complication I've now been spared from dealing with." With nothing left to lose, I found an unlikely ally in my father's surgeon, a man who owed my dad his career. He came to my room and whispered, "We'll stage a fake surgery. While everyone is distracted, I'll get you and your father out of here."

As a ghost, I watched my parents arrive at my crime scene. My mother, a renowned surgeon, and my father, the District Attorney, were there to consult on the brutal murder of an unidentified young woman. That young woman was me. But they didn't know. To them, I was just Jane Doe, a messy case and an inconvenient headline. My mother examined my broken body with chilling detachment, her analysis of the torture wounds purely clinical. My father arrived, complaining about the political fallout and the bad press. Standing just feet from my corpse, they discussed their "missing" daughter-me. "She's just being dramatic," my father scoffed. "Probably shacked up with some loser to get back at us." They were more worried about my adopted brother, the golden boy Javon, and his upcoming championship game. I was the family's problem in life, and it seemed I was an even bigger problem in death. The irony was a physical weight. They were talking about me, their lost daughter, while my body lay decomposing at their feet. They were blind, wrapped up in their perfect lives and their love for the son who orchestrated my end. But they would find out. The killer made one mistake. He forced me to swallow a tiny pet microchip, a clue registered in my name. A piece of evidence that would not only give me back my identity but would expose the monster they called a son and burn their perfect world to the ground.

For three years, I paid millions to have Caleb Mitchell as my boyfriend. I funded his sister's experimental cancer treatment, and in return, the brilliant, proud student played the part of my loving companion. He resented being bought, but I was foolish enough to fall in love with him. That foolishness ended two months ago, after a fall from a horse left me with a concussion. I woke up with the horrifying knowledge that my entire life was a lie—I was just the villainess in a novel, a footnote in a story about him. In this story, Caleb was the hero, destined to reunite with his true love, Frances. I was the obstacle he had to overcome. My pre-written fate was to go mad with jealousy, try to destroy them, and end up ruined and dead. I thought it was a hallucination until the plot began to unfold. The final proof was the vintage watch I spent months restoring for his birthday. A week later, he gave it to Frances, telling her it was just some old trinket he'd found. According to the script, seeing that watch on her wrist was supposed to make me fly into a hysterical rage, sealing my tragic fate. But I refuse to follow their story. If the villainess is destined for a tragic end, then this villainess will simply disappear from the book altogether. I slid a black credit card across the polished desk. "I want to be declared dead," I told the man who specialized in new beginnings. "Lost at sea. No body."

After six long years, I walked out of prison on my 30th birthday, ready to reclaim my life. Instead, my ex-husband, Ryan, arrived with his high school sweetheart, Gabby, who coldly informed me Ryan's sleek new Tesla had "Gabby's seat." My own son, Caleb, now ten, peered from the back, his eyes mirroring his father's icy gaze, asking why I was even trying to get into "Aunt Gabby's seat." Then came the demand: apologize to Gabby publicly for what I "did," or Caleb would forever believe I was a "crazy liar" who attacked Gabby, his "real mom." Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, a deliberate hit-and-run orchestrated by Gabby left me broken and vulnerable in a hospital bed, part of a sinister plan to fake amnesia and commit me to a mental institution permanently. How could the man I built an empire with, and my own child, be so utterly poisoned against me? But they underestimated me. Prison taught me how to survive, how to wait, and how to call in a forgotten favor from a dying mob boss. I'm Jocelyn, and the comeback they never saw coming just started.

On my 30th birthday, I stood in a grand gala, believing I was celebrating twelve years with Ethan, the man I loved, and his big project win. But my "celebration" was a pathetic banner and a wilting cupcake, while the main stage projected a smiling tribute to Ethan and his "brilliant protégé" – his intern, Madison. Ethan, oblivious, pointed to the cupcake, "Madison arranged that. Sweet, right?" His intern's "adorkable" hug felt like a trap, her eyes gleaming with malice. The betrayals escalated: abandoned on a dark train platform for Madison's "panic attack," our anniversary skipped for her "lost keys," and the ultimate insult – being asked to give her my concert ticket. The final blow came when Ethan, in a fit of rage, weaponized my deepest shame, snarling, "You' re just like your father, always putting your hands on things that don't belong to you." In that crushing moment, my twelve years of love for him disintegrated into ash, leaving behind only chilling emptiness and the realization he was a stranger. Ethan, full of arrogant certainty, winked, "Give her a week. She' ll come crawling back." He had no idea I'd just accepted a promotion to Program Director of my non-profit' s international branch – in London. I quietly packed two suitcases, deleting him from my life as I hailed a taxi to Logan International. When he frantically called, yelling, "What is wrong with you?", I simply said, "It's over," then blocked him and turned off my phone, finally free. But my past wasn't quite done with me, and soon, Ethan and Madison would confront a terrifying truth that would change all our lives forever.

Sarah was a calm, capable project manager, often jokingly called a "MIL Whisperer" by her friends. She prided herself on being a "domestic diplomat," adept at navigating the trickiest family dynamics. This was her fourth marriage, and she felt well-prepared for any mother-in-law challenges. What Sarah didn't fully realize was the scale of the battlefield she had just entered. Her new husband, Michael, came with a notorious mother, Brenda. This woman had systematically destroyed his previous two marriages, framing one ex-wife for her business's collapse and the other for a manufactured addiction, all to assert absolute control over Michael. Brenda began her campaign of terror immediately. At a "welcome to the family" BBQ, she served Sarah a malicious "artisanal slider" packed with an insane amount of habanero peppers and salt, a public trap. Later, Sarah discovered Brenda had planted a hidden nanny cam in her master bedroom, mirroring the psychological warfare used against former daughters-in-law. Most women would feel overwhelmed, targeted, and utterly helpless by such calculated malice. But Sarah wasn't most women. She had faced worse, and she knew Brenda's every move was a performance, a deliberate attempt to shame and break her. This wasn't just a personal attack; it was a project. Brenda wanted to play dirty with cameras and public humiliation? Fine. Sarah decided to show Brenda exactly how deeply that game could be played, ready to strategically use Brenda's own tactics to dismantle her carefully constructed empire of control.

My wife, Sarah, had conveniently "disappeared" three years ago, leaving me, Ethan Cole, the music mogul, free to thrive with my new star, Tiffany Vance—who just happened to be my high school tormentor and current lover. Life was perfect, until Tiffany needed a "raw" memoir and suggested Sarah write it. I returned to Sarah’s godforsaken hometown, expecting to drag my "dramatic" ex-wife back, only to be told by her brother, David, and an old woman, Maria, that Sarah had been dead for three years. I laughed in their faces, accusing them of lying, shoving David, and nearly strangling Maria. I refused to believe it until I ordered my men to dig up her grave. Seeing Sarah’s bones in that cheap coffin felt like a punch to the gut. Then, the world truly tilted when I learned Maria, the woman I’d just assaulted, was my own long-lost mother, whom I believed dead. Tiffany tried to soothe me with a fabricated story of saving me from drowning, holding up a tarnished locket as proof. But the inscription on that locket, a tiny "S.J." and a unique dent, screamed a different truth. It was Sarah’s. She was my savior, not Tiffany. Tiffany had stolen her heroism, just as she'd stolen my life, and used me as a weapon against Sarah and my family. The realization was a cold, terrifying clarity, revealing the monstrous fool I'd been. My world, built on lies and cruelty, shattered. The man who had unknowingly destroyed my life would now be the instrument of ultimate vengeance, vowing to uncover every one of Tiffany’s twisted schemes, every lie, and make everyone involved pay.

Zoe's friend needed her help. Zoe had to help her scare away the blind date she was on. To that end, she wore an insane amount of makeup underneath a wig to disguise herself. However, her plans are derailed when the blind date turns out to be the legendary heart-throb of the campus, Wade. Intrigued by this woman, Wade starts scheming schemes of his own. Zoe had thought that she could succeed easily but through various love traps, she is finally lured into Wade's arms.

Celia, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, suffered poverty because of her family’s bankruptcy. Hogan, the powerful CEO, looked down upon everyone in the world. An accident started the gear of their fate. She was trapped with this bossy devil. His limitless adoration finally won her heart. She thought she would have lifetime happiness, but there was a storm brewing. He was the one she loved, but also the one who hurt her the most. Tempted by devil's whispers, she had to pay for the price.

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.

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

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 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."

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.*

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

I was the invisible failure of the Goff family, hiding my medical genius behind a report card full of Fs and a slumped posture. One rainy night, I found a man bleeding out in a dark alley behind the school gymnasium, a knife protruding from his gut. To keep the police from digging into my secrets, I dragged the dying stranger to my bedroom and stitched him up using a hidden surgical kit. I thought I was being careful, but my cousin Cleora caught a glimpse of the blood and immediately alerted my fiancé's wealthy family. By morning, my world collapsed as my future in-laws stormed the manor, throwing an annulment agreement at my feet. They called me a "loose woman" and "million-dollar trash," while my own housekeeper gleefully testified against me. At school, the word "SLUT" was spray-painted across my locker in jagged red letters, and the boy I was supposed to marry looked at me with nothing but cold revulsion. I didn't understand why they were so eager to destroy me before even asking for the truth. I was the one who had spent years protecting this family's reputation, yet they were throwing me to the wolves over a single misunderstanding. I felt a surge of cold fury as I realized my loyalty had been met with nothing but betrayal. Everything changed when the "dying" stranger finally walked down the stairs, shirtless and bandaged, revealing himself as Braylon Lancaster, the most powerful man in the city. He didn't just defend me; he froze my fiancé's entire family fortune with a single phone call. As my in-laws fled in terror, a courier arrived with a five-carat pink diamond from the head of the city's most dangerous crime syndicate. The note read: "The debt is acknowledged." Suddenly, I wasn't just a failure anymore-I was the most sought-after woman in the underworld.

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."

My father sold me to the Vitiello Crime Family to settle a three-million-dollar gambling debt. For three years, I was Dante Vitiello’s property. I warmed his bed, tended his wounds, and let him own every part of me. I thought I was earning my freedom. I thought I mattered. Then his "true queen," the Mafia Princess Sofia, returned to the city. Dante pushed me off his lap the moment she walked into the room. He ordered me to leave because, in the presence of his equal, I was nothing more than "the help." The humiliation didn't stop there. He evicted me from the penthouse to renovate it for her. At a gala, he outbid me for my grandmother’s heirloom bracelet—my family's last scrap of dignity—just to gift it to Sofia in front of the entire city. But the final blow came when he came to my bed drunk one last time. He kissed me with a desperate hunger, whispering that he was only "practicing" his technique on me so he would be perfect for her. I realized then that I wasn't a person to him. I was a training dummy. A debt with a pulse. He told me to wait for him while he took her to Paris. He thought I would stay in the kennel like a good pet. He was wrong. While he was gone, I accepted a surgical fellowship in Switzerland. I snapped my SIM card in half, left his millions on the floor, and boarded a one-way flight. By the time the Wolf comes home to find his cage empty, I will be gone.

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.