Hydro Therapy

I stood in the center of the rose garden, convinced the Underboss of the East Coast was finally going to defy his father and put a ring on my finger. Instead, Desmond walked toward me holding another woman's hand. "Dallas," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "This is Chelsea. My fiancée." He told me it was just business, a merger to secure shipping routes. He expected me to stay in the shadows as his mistress, his "pet canary." When I refused to be his dirty little secret, his family sold me like cattle to Kennedy Simmons, the crippled Don of the West Coast, just to get rid of me. But the ultimate betrayal happened the night before I left. On the family yacht, Chelsea pushed me overboard. I screamed for help in the freezing dark water. I watched Desmond dive in. I reached out for him, but he swam right past me. He chose to save his wealthy fiancée, the "asset," and left me to drown. In that moment, the girl who loved him died. I realized his brother Antone, who I thought was my friend, was just a stalker using me to get close to Chelsea. I was nothing but collateral damage to the people I had worshipped. I didn't die that night. I boarded the plane to Seattle with a frozen heart. They thought they were selling me to a monster. They didn't realize they were handing me a King. The next time the Morgans saw me, I wasn't their victim. I was the woman coming to burn their empire to the ground.

My fiancé of seven years, the heir to a mafia dynasty, claimed amnesia three weeks before our wedding, forgetting only me. Then I overheard him laughing on a video call, calling it the perfect "hall pass" to sleep with an influencer before he was tied down. He flaunted his affair, abandoned me with a broken arm after a staged car crash to save her from a scratch, and planned to leave me homeless. He called me his "property," a doll he could play with and put back on the shelf when he was done. He thought I’d be waiting for his "miraculous recovery." Instead, I disappeared, leaving behind his ring and a simple note: "I remember everything. Me too."

The man I gave up a twenty-billion-dollar inheritance for asked me to go to prison for his mistress. In the same breath, he told me to kill our unborn child. While his mother's actions caused me to miscarry our son in a derelict warehouse, he was on television announcing his engagement and *her* pregnancy. The betrayal wasn't just private; it was a public execution. So I picked up my phone and made a call I hadn't made in five years, to the one man he never knew existed. "Father," I choked out, "I need you."

Lanny experienced his first overwhelming desire; in a haze, he ended up in bed with Belen. Over the next three years, though he never confessed his feelings, he became intensely obsessed with her body. Belen believed that with time she could win his heart, but instead received the news of him dating the other girl. "I've been pursuing her for a long time, and she finally agreed to be my girlfriend," Lanny said, looking into her eyes. "Let's not keep in touch anymore." Belen granted his wish and disappeared completely. But Lanny regretted his decision, desperately searching the world for her. He knelt before her in abject humility and pleaded, "Belen, come back to me, please?"

The ninety-ninth time I tried to kill myself, I was sent to the hospital. For seven long years, I had lived in a fog of grief, believing my husband, Ethan, had died in a fiery car crash. But then, in that sterile white room, I saw him. Ethan. Alive, vibrant, and kissing Olivia Hayes, his former sister-in-law, who cradled a prominent baby bump. Their child. In that instant, the truth crashed down on me. There was no crash, no death. He had abandoned me to elope with Olivia, living a happy life while I wasted away: my hair turning gray, my wrist scarred with 300 marks for every missed month, while he cried with joy over her pregnancy. My world went black. When I came to, I was back in time, seven days before our first wedding anniversary. Ethan stood before me, his eyes filled with intoxicating adoration, murmuring sweet words. Yet, the image of him kissing Olivia, the name "Olivia Hayes" flashing on his phone, burned in my mind. He left me to check on her, claiming she was unwell, while I knew the truth. I was blindsided by my trust. I thought of what he put me through, what he planned to do to me. The betrayal felt like a gaping wound. I looked at him, then called my brother, David. "I want to come live with you abroad," I said, my voice cold. "And David, could you please help me arrange something? I need a body. A fake one. I want to give it to Ethan on our wedding anniversary. Seven days from now."

The screen on Ethan's phone glowed, showing a missed video call from his sister, Sarah. He swiped to check the voicemail, but it wasn't a message; the call had connected, and his phone had recorded what happened next. The shaky video revealed his sister' s office, but a woman he didn't recognize, Jessica Riley, sat in Sarah's chair, laughing with his brother-in-law, Mark Thompson, as they mocked Sarah's supposed foolishness. Then the camera moved, revealing Sarah herself, curled on the floor, her hair matted, clothes in rags, a metal chain around her neck, and an empty dog bowl beside her. Jessica cooed, "Time for dinner, sweetie," kicking the bowl, while Mark dropped bread, saying, "Eat up, doggy." Ethan watched in horror as his brilliant sister scrambled for food like a starved animal. A cold rage seized him, cracking his phone screen, and with a dangerously calm voice, he called his assistant: "Get the jet. We're going home. Now." Landing in the US, Ethan found his childhood home overgrown and dreary. Kicking the door open, he discovered Sarah chained to a radiator, skeletal and terrified, whimpering at his approach. This was his sister, treated like an animal in her own home. Mark, Brenda, and Jessica appeared, feigning concern, claiming Sarah was "unstable" and producing forged medical diagnoses, trying to dismiss the horrific scene with a piece of paper. Ethan' s control finally snapped. He knew Sarah' s strength, her intelligence; this cruelty was inflicted upon her. He watched as Mark, arrogant and unrepentant, tried to silence Sarah's weak confession of forced signatures. When Mark raised a hand to strike her, Ethan intervened, his grip like steel, "Don't you ever touch her again." Mark spouted lies, accusing Sarah of ruining the company, blaming her for the bruises and injuries that covered her body. The scene escalated as Ethan, blood boiling, called his assistant, David, who arrived with a team of men. He ordered Mark, Brenda, and Jessica secured, stating, "You are a parasite, Mark. And you own nothing," before hitting him. Mark, still defiant, claimed control of Hayes Innovations and the board. Ethan calmly directed David to search the house for evidence, then gently unclipped Sarah, scooping her into his arms. She was light as a child, trembling, whispering, "He'll hurt you. He'll hurt us both." Ethan vowed, "He has no idea what I'm capable of." He saw the raw marks on her neck, fueled by fresh fury. Sarah huddled in his jacket, whispering how Mark had gaslighted her with fake videos. Ethan knew the videos were lies. Kneeling, he gently told her, "We're going to your office." When she panicked, terrified of Jessica, he reassured her, "It's time for everyone to see the real CEO of Hayes Innovations." With a flicker of her old self, an almost imperceptible nod, she agreed. He left the villains secured, telling David to find every piece of evidence they had used against her. Holding Sarah's hand, he led her out, ready to fight.

The last thing I felt was the pillow smothering my face, the cheap floral scent filling my lungs as my struggles grew weaker. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Ms. Davis' s chilling hiss: "You crazy girl, how dare you disrupt the young lady' s party! I' ll kill you!" She wasn' t lying. My life, so bright just hours before, was ending in a dark, dusty storage room. It all began on my graduation day, Sarah Miller, the valedictorian, standing on stage. But when I arrived at my family home for the lavish celebration, the doors were shut, my key wouldn' t turn. Inside, through the window, I saw Emily Davis, my guardian' s daughter, wearing my dress, accepting congratulations from my friends, being called by my name. A cold wave of nausea washed over me. I pounded on the door, screaming, "Let me in! I' m Sarah Miller! That' s an imposter!" No one believed me. They saw a frantic, disheveled girl and a poised, elegant young woman inside. Ms. Davis slapped me, shrieking, "How dare you disrupt the young lady' s party! I' ll kill you!" They dragged me away, threw me into a windowless storage room, and locked me in. Hours later, Ms. Davis returned with a pillow. "You just couldn' t leave it alone, could you?" she whispered. "You make too much noise." Then, she pushed it down. My consciousness dissolved into suffocating blackness. Then, I gasped, shooting upright. Sunlight streamed through a familiar window. I was in my bed, in my room at the Davis house. My heart pounded. The floral scent was gone. No pain, no darkness. My phone rang, a shrill, insistent sound. The screen lit up with a date. It was the day my college admission results were announced. I wasn' t dead. I was back.

I escaped after three years, coughing up blood, only to be diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Returning home, I found my house the same, but a sheriff' s car was parked outside, and a folded document, my death certificate, was handed to my husband, Ethan. Inside, the smell of my stew filled the air, but my daughter Molly called Ethan' s sister-in-law, Debra, "Mom." Ethan, seeing me, erupted in cold fury, throwing a letter at me, claiming it was from me, saying I' d run off with a trucker, and demanded to know why I' d crawled back. He shoved me into the cold mudroom, treating me like trash, while Debra, with fake pity, watched. Later, as Ethan silently applied burn cream to the blisters Debra accidentally caused, he asked if the life I chose was worth it. Despite having the chance to reveal I'd been held captive by Debra's cousins for three years, I looked at his hardened face and the shadow of Debra, and lied, saying leaving him was the best decision I ever made. My daughter Molly, coached by Debra, then falsely accused me of pushing her, shattering Ethan's last shred of faith and earning me an immediate "get out of my house." But at the clinic, the doctor who diagnosed my cancer cut my pant leg, revealing not only a new broken bone, but old scars, malnutrition, and a fresh burn, telling Ethan, "These are signs of long-term abuse and neglect, Mr. Scott, not a life of ease." This moment of doubt in Ethan's eyes, fueled by the doctor' s words, ignited a flicker of hope that the truth might finally emerge.

The biting Appalachian cold bit at Ethan as he siphoned gas from an old man's truck, a desperate act to get medicine for his feverish girlfriend, Jocelyn. He risked everything, driven by love and a sense of duty, even enduring public humiliation and losing a priceless family heirloom when caught. But as he stumbled back to the volunteer house, shattered by the day's events, he heard laughter from inside. "Did he really fall for it?" Jocelyn's voice, sickly sweet and mocking, echoed, followed by Caleb's gleeful confirmation about their "game." His sickness, his humiliation, his love – it was all a cruel bet, a series of pranks to win Caleb back. The world collapsed. The girl he' d risked everything for had orchestrated his downfall, twisting his concern into a weapon against him. His heart, once filled with genuine care, curdled into a cold, hard knot of disbelief and betrayal. How could someone he loved so deeply be capable of such calculated cruelty? What kind of monster plays with another's trust and life just for a twisted game of revenge? He wouldn't just leave. He wouldn't just suffer. With a quiet, steely resolve that replaced every ounce of his former pain, a new plan formed in his mind. He would turn their cruel game on its head.

My engagement party was just one night away. A celebration of big money, big families, and my upcoming marriage to Izzy Hayes. But first, a "surprise" at a remote pump house, arranged by Izzy and my supposed brother, Liam. When I arrived, there was no Izzy, no Liam, just shadows. Then came the blows. Blinding, searing pain, and the sickening crunch of my Achilles tendons. I woke up in a hospital, weak and blind, my legs burning with infection. Through a medicated haze, I heard my own mother, Eleanor, casually discussing amputating my legs. "Do what you must," she said, her voice devoid of warmth. "He won't be needing to carry on the Vance name anyway." She and Liam were plotting, gloating about securing the Vance empire, about how I, her own son, would no longer be a problem. The cold certainty hit me: this barbaric attack, my disfigurement, it was their doing. My home wasn't a homecoming; it was a death trap. Rage, pure and cold, flooded me. Then I learned my kind father, Marcus, who secretly saved Eleanor's life with his kidney, was now being tortured at Victor Sterling' s "wellness retreat." Drugged and slowly dying from organ rejection, all part of their larger conspiracy. They stripped me of everything, but they underestimated my will to fight. Feigning unconsciousness, I fumbled for my hidden burner phone. This was just the beginning.

For years, I sat in the front pew of our small-town church, completely devoted to Pastor Caleb Thorne. He was everything-handsome, charismatic, his words making God feel close. I lived for his smile, for any small chance to be near him. Then, one Sunday, Caleb dropped a bomb: he was engaged to Mariah, my cold, calculating stepsister. My world shattered. In a moment of sheer desperation, I foolishly vandalized his car. But what followed was far worse: Caleb orchestrated a twisted 'miracle,' declaring it a sign from God that I was his true partner. I was trapped in a nightmare marriage. Nine months pregnant, I overheard Caleb' s chilling whisper to Mariah, her accomplice: 'Make sure it doesn't survive.' My own husband and stepsister, plotting to murder my child. They sneered at me, planning my next humiliation: I' d be forced to work off my 'sins' in a dirty bar, every penny I earned going to them. My baby died. My heart was ripped open. How could the man I loved, the man who claimed God led him to me, be such a monster? How could he and my stepsister be so utterly heartless? But in that despair, a flicker of defiance sparked. With a kind nurse' s help, I faked my own death, escaping their clutches. Years later, as Anna, I' m building a new life and awaiting a new beginning. Caleb thinks I' m gone. He thinks he won. He' s about to find out how wrong he is.

Five years ago, I married Marcus Thorne, a powerful tech CEO. I cherished a fragile hope for our future, despite losing our first child and my father' s sacrificing his health to save Marcus' s life. That hope shattered at his company' s biggest gala. A young intern, Chloe, visibly pregnant, seized the microphone and triumphantly announced, "Marcus and I are expecting a child." The humiliation was absolute, but Marcus swore it was a drunken mistake. Yet three years later, I discovered he' d built a secret family with Chloe – not one child, but three, with another on the way. He dared to tell me, "I need heirs, Elara. You can' t provide them," as if I wasn't carrying our miracle baby. The very next day, Chloe, at his urging, hit me with her car at the airport. Marcus watched me bleed, then ripped my medical consent forms, sneering, "She doesn' t deserve to be saved." I lost our baby. Hours later, my father, whose life Marcus had once owed him, died while Marcus threatened his ventilator. How could my husband betray me so utterly, then inflict such unimaginable cruelty? My world, already scarred, was utterly destroyed. The raw grief, the agonizing injustice, threatened to consume me. But as I stood on a hospital rooftop, ready to end it all, a voice pulled me back. Liam. He once told me he owed me his life. Now, it was time for him to save mine, and for me to reclaim every piece Marcus had stolen.

Life in the Hayes mansion was a glittering facade, but my ninth pregnancy held a secret, a glimmer of hope powered by an unseen System. I' d lost eight babies, each a piece of my soul, clinging to the promise that this ninth, this final hope, would finally grant my escape from this gilded cage. Then, a whispered conversation in the dead of night shattered every illusion: my loving husband, Ethan, calmly admitting to engineering eight miscarriages, viewing them as 'necessary accidents' to secure 'our' child's rightful inheritance with his pregnant mistress, Chloe. The gold-plated walls of my marriage crumbled around me, each 'accident' a deliberate act of murder, his every tender gesture a calculated lie designed to destroy me, culminating in his brazen offer to adopt his mistress's child, the very heir he'd killed mine for. Was I truly so broken, so naive, that he expected me to quietly raise the very child conceived on the graves of my lost babies, accepting this ultimate betrayal as a 'new beginning'? A cold, burning rage replaced the grief in my heart, fueling the realization that my System-granted escape was no longer just for the baby, but a fight for my very soul against this calculating monster. He thought his carefully orchestrated scheme had entrapped me forever, but as the System's countdown ticked, I began to meticulously craft my own escape, not just from his gilded prison, but from his very existence, ensuring his world would burn just as mine had.

Ethan Miller poured his heart and soul into supporting his wife, Izzy, a struggling artist, and their little daughter, Lily. Then, a dazzling charity gala ripped his world apart when he discovered Izzy wasn’t a struggling artist but Isabella Vance, a ruthless heiress, who mocked his naivete and called him a mere "interlude." The woman he loved turned monstrous, plotting to use their innocent daughter, Lily, as a bone marrow donor for her old flame Julian’s son, forcing Ethan to donate his own rare blood under threat of homelessness. Even after Julian's son pushed Lily, fracturing her skull, Izzy twisted the knife, forcing Ethan to apologize, then secretly ordered kidnappers to “cancel his ticket”—meaning kill him and Lily—when they failed to extort her, resulting in Lily’s arm being brutally broken. How could the woman he adored, the mother of his child, be so utterly devoid of empathy, so cruel and calculated, turning their entire marriage into a twisted performance? Shattered and with Lily gravely injured, Ethan made the only choice left: he severed ties with the monster, filing for divorce and escaping with his daughter to the quiet refuge of his parents' home, determined to build a life free from Izzy’s dark machinations.

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'm a moaning mess as Antonio slams into me from behind. His hips hit me hard, and each deep thrust sends shockwaves through my body. My breasts bounce with every movement, my eyes roll back, and I moan his name without control. The pleasure he gives me is overwhelming-I can't hold it in. I feel my walls tighten around his thick length. The pressure builds fast, and then- I explode around him, my orgasm tearing through me. He groans loud and deep as he releases inside me, his hot seed spilling into me in thick pulses. Just when I think he's done, his grip shifts. He turns me over and lays me flat on the bed. His dark eyes stare into mine for a moment, filled with raw hunger. I glance down- He's still hard. Before I can react, he grabs my wrists, pins me down, and pushes himself inside me again. He fills me completely. My hips rise on instinct, meeting his rhythm. Our bodies move together, locked in a wild, uncontrollable dance. "You're fucking sweet," he groans, his voice rough and breathless. "I can't get enough of you... not after that night, Sol," he growls, slamming into me harder. The force of his words and his thrusts make my body shake. "Come for me," he commands, his voice low and full of heat. And just like that, my body trembles. Waves of pleasure crash over me. I cry out, shaking with the force of my orgasm. "Mine," he growls again, louder this time. His voice is feral, wild, like a beast claiming what belongs to him. The sound sends a shiver down my spine. *** Solene was betrayed, humiliated, and erased by Rowan Brook, the man she once called husband, Solene is left with nothing but her name and a burning hunger for revenge. She turns to the one man powerful enough to destroy the Brooks family from within: Rowan's estranged and dangerous uncle, Antonio Rodriguez. He's ruthless. A playboy who never sleeps with the same woman twice. But when Solene walks into his world, he doesn't just break the rules, he creates new ones just for her. What begins as a calculated game quickly spirals into obsession, power plays, and secrets too deadly to stay buried. Because Solene isn't just anyone's ex... she's the woman they should've never underestimated. Can she survive the price of revenge? Or will her heart become the next casualty? And when the truth comes out, will Antonio still choose her... or destroy her?

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 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.

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

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.

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.

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

I stood alone at the center of my art gallery opening, clutching a glass of warm champagne, while the guests whispered behind their hands. My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, wasn't there. A breaking news alert on my phone explained why. It was a high-definition photo of Dante shielding his mistress, Isabella, from the rain. He was touching her with a protective possessiveness he had never once shown me. Then came his text: "Isabella needed me. Go home." That was the moment the cage door unlocked. I didn't go home to cry. I went to his office the next morning with a stack of papers disguised as "gallery insurance forms." While Isabella sat on his desk, mocking me for being a boring housewife, Dante was too annoyed to read the fine print. He just wanted me gone so he could get back to her. He signed the divorce decree. He signed the asset dissolution. Most importantly, without looking, he signed the irrevocable relinquishment of parental rights. I walked out with my freedom, but fate had a cruel sense of humor. That night, I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I was carrying the Sovrano heir he had always demanded. And he had just legally signed away his right to ever know his child. I fled to the Swiss Alps, vanishing into the snow to raise my baby away from his world of blood and bullets. I thought I was safe, until six months later. Dante hadn't just sent men to look for me. He had burned his own shipping empire to the ground, destroying his status as King, just to prove he would trade it all for the wife he threw away.

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."