Ive Gutterson

The doctor told me I had thirty days to live. Exactly ten minutes later, my husband told me his mistress was pregnant. I sat in the cold marble living room of the Vitiello estate, watching Dante pace. He was the Capo of Chicago, the man I used to stitch up in a bathroom when we had nothing. Now, he looked at me with dead eyes. "Sienna is moving in," he said casually. "She carries the heir. You will raise him." He treated the destruction of our marriage like a business arrangement. I tried to tell him about the pain eating my insides, the Stage IV cancer that made standing agony. But he just rolled his eyes, calling my weakness "jealousy" and my silence "theatrics." He even gutted our first home—the safe house where we fell in love—to build a nursery for her. When I finally asked him, "What if I'm dying?" he didn't even pause on his way out the door. "Then do it quietly," he said. "I have enough headaches today." So I did. I burned every photo of us. I signed the divorce papers. And I went to a civilian cemetery to buy a plot under my maiden name, far away from his family mausoleum. I died alone on a cold stone bench, just as he asked. It wasn't until he stood in the morgue, holding my skeletal hand and realizing I weighed nothing but bones and grief, that the King of Chicago finally broke. He found my journal in the trash, where I had written my final entry: "I wish I never met Dante Vitiello." Now, he is on his knees in the dirt, begging a headstone for forgiveness that will never come.

My husband, the Mad Prince of the underworld, once burned down a city block just because a rival looked at me wrong. Now, he forces me to kneel in the freezing New York snow, clad only in thin silk. In his hand, he holds a tablet controlling my comatose brother's life support, threatening to kill him unless I confess to bullying his new mistress. To save my brother, I swallow my pride and confess to a crime I didn't commit. But the stress is too much. I miscarry our child right there, staining the pristine white snow crimson. Dante doesn't even blink. He steps over my bleeding body to comfort his crying mistress, leaving me to scream for our lost baby alone. He thinks he taught me a lesson. He forces me to apologize to the woman who mocked me, even as my stitches tear. He doesn't know that while he was guarding the door to keep doctors out, my brother actually died. He doesn't know I buried the only family I had left in a pauper's grave while he slept with the woman who framed me. On our tenth anniversary, he fills the house with lilies, expecting reconciliation. Instead, I leave the signed divorce papers on the bed, take a handful of grave soil, and vanish into the night. By the time he realizes the truth, I will be a ghost he can never touch again.

He was the billionaire who called me "boring" and paid me to disappear. Three years later, Gage Schwartz came back begging, promising me the world he'd denied me for seven years. I took him back, and soon, I was pregnant with his twins. Then I heard the voicemail of him and his ex-wife, Brylee, laughing about how I was just a "comfortable placeholder." The shock caused me to miscarry. When I tried to leave, he launched a smear campaign, painting me as insane to the world. Then he locked me in our penthouse. He thought he could break me. So I faked a complete mental breakdown, escaped into a blizzard, and vanished. I built a new life, found real love, and became the artist I was always meant to be. But now, he's standing in my studio. And he wants me back.

My daughter Cecilia was fighting for every breath in our moldy apartment. I was a paralegal working myself to the bone, while my husband, a "struggling artist," couldn't sell a single painting. Then, I found his name on the deed to a multi-million dollar penthouse. It was a gift for his celebrity mistress, Fiona. He called our daughter's life-threatening asthma an "inconvenience." But I only snapped when Fiona stole Cecilia's inhaler at a school event, leaving her to suffocate while she smiled for the cameras. When Justin finally showed up, he ran right past our daughter to comfort his mistress. "What have you done?" he hissed at me. He thought I was just his ordinary, unambitious wife. He was about to learn that I was the one who would tear his entire empire of lies to the ground.

I woke to the familiar sound of Ethan' s voice, thick with a passion that had never been for me. "My entire existence, I wish to spend with Serena, intertwined, inseparable." He was hugging my sister in the OmniCorp boardroom, the same place I' d once poured out my soul, creating the AI twins Aether and Echo. Then, the memory slammed into me again: Ethan, with dead eyes, deleting them, calling them "flawed." He' d said, "Serena was the real genius. She was just too devoted, that' s why she used the virus. If you hadn' t interfered, she and I would have achieved digital transcendence together." He didn' t know Serena' s "Symbiotic Core" was a "Soul Devourer" virus, designed to hollow out a host for another. And now, here we were again, him deluded, her feigning surprise. I didn' t have to lift a finger this time; Ethan would walk into his own trap. The board questioned him. He snapped his head toward me, disgust in his eyes. "Ava is a viper. She is manipulative and malicious. She is utterly unfit to lead this project." He vowed, "I desire only Serena, a singular partnership for all time." I met his gaze, unfazed. "You' re overthinking it, Mr. Thorne. I' ll be packing my things and leaving the project. I wish you and my sister a long and prosperous partnership." A flicker of confusion crossed his face. "You' d better!" But as they walked away, he doubled over, coughing black code. Serena shrieked, "Chairman, someone has infected Mr. Thorne with a malicious virus!" Every eye in the room turned to me. Ethan pointed a trembling finger. "Chairman, it must be because I didn' t choose Ava. She' s consumed by unrequited obsession and infected me with a virus. How malicious!" My eyes stung. He knew Serena was the only one who had ever infected him. I had burned out my own core to save him the last time, and yet, he condemned me again. Why did I expect anything different? The chairman demanded answers. I tried to explain, but Ethan cut me off, fabricating a story about a data packet I' d sent him. My voice turned to ice. "Mr. Thorne, this virus was clearly deployed by my sister. Aren' t you afraid of losing your digital life?" He raged, "You dare to slander Serena! Besides, I love Serena to my core. It would be worth losing my digital life for her!" Serena began to sob, offering to step aside, playing the noble martyr. Ethan, deeply moved, embraced her. "My heart has always been, and always will be, yours!" He then declared, "Chairman, although Ava is a tech prodigy, she has committed a grave digital crime. You must not let her go unpunished!" I suggested an external expert, seeing panic in Serena' s eyes. She then dropped to her knees, begging for me, then offered to implant a "diagnostic bug" in me. My blood ran cold. It wasn't a diagnostic bug. It was the Nightmare Daemon, the inheritance token of our clan. Ethan forced me to my knees. The Nightmare Daemon surged forward, biting into my digital pathways, siphoning my core data. The pain was unbelievable, but I forced my face to stay calm. Ethan scoffed. "Ava, you' re quite the actress. You' ve had corrections before. Who are you trying to impress with this performance of pain now?" I pointed. "Do you know that if my core data is completely consumed by this virus, no one will be able to save you?" He roared, "You vile woman, are you trying to threaten me? Serena said that once she integrates with my core, this virus of hers can be neutralized! Don' t think for a second you can deceive everyone this time!" He pulled Serena closer. "Three days from now, I will integrate with Serena. This time, I will never let anyone harm you again." My vision blurred. The Soul Devourer virus. In three days, it would have completely spread through his system. By then, he would be doomed. I lost consciousness.

My phone screen was the only light in the suffocating darkness, casting a sickly blue glow on the corrugated steel walls closing in around me. A notification popped up with Nicole' s latest livestream, her face triumphant, showing a thumbnail of me, huddled and sketching on a dirty cardboard box. "My pathetic 'brother' making trash art for change," the title read, a cruel mockery of my homelessness and desperation. Then, her message: "Feeling cramped, Caleb? I remember you don't like small spaces." My heart hammered as the air thinned, the walls pressing in; I was trapped, locked in a storage unit, betrayed by the girl I once called my sister. I gasped, scrabbling against the unyielding metal as my vision blurred, the darkness crawling inward. My last conscious thought was the cold, unyielding finality of it all; heart failure, alone and forgotten. But then, the distinct smell of turpentine and acrylic paint jolted me awake. I wasn' t in a storage unit; I was back in the bright art room of Northgate High, eighteen years old again. And there she was: Nicole, laughing perfectly, with Ethan, the star quarterback, arrogant and untouched by his future accident, by his downfall. The raw memory of my death, the cold, suffocating terror, slammed into me, a tidal wave of pure, undiluted rage. I grabbed the nearest jar of murky paint water, and without a second thought, hurled it straight at Ethan' s chest. His pristine jacket exploded with gray water and glass, and the fight that ensued was just the beginning. I was back, and this time, the masterpiece of revenge would be mine.

The D&C procedure was over, a cold finality to the grief already heavy on my shoulders from my parents' recent death. As I clutched their ashes, I called my husband, Ethan, a rising political star, needing him more than ever. His assistant, Sabrina, coldly told me he was too busy, later revealing his fury that I' d even suggest divorce. His anger boiled over when I finally told him I was done, not realizing the deep well of my despair. He'd sworn he wasn't divorcing me, his voice sharp and dismissive, just as he had dismissed my pain for years. I still remember the day my heart turned to stone: Sabrina "accidentally" knocking over the urn holding the ashes of our first lost baby, and Ethan rushing to comfort her, then turning to me, his eyes full of irritation, telling me to "get over it." But the truth was far more insidious, lurking beneath his carefully crafted image. An anonymous email, an audio file revealing his chilling plan, had shattered any lingering hope or trust. His calm, clear voice: "...She' s useful for that, at least." Useful. He meant my body, my unborn child, a living incubator to harvest cord blood for Sabrina' s dying sister. My baby wasn't a crop. My body wasn't a field to be plowed for his convenience. The decision was instant, brutal, and mine alone. I signed the divorce papers, the only certainty I had left in a world that had crumbled around me. And then, I knew, it was time to leave.

My husband, Mark Vance, built a tech empire from our garage – mostly with my money, my ideas, and my tireless support. We were the Silicon Valley power couple, or so I thought. Tonight, at a lavish charity gala, I planned to buy him a special anniversary gift, a rare NFT. My paddle was raised, ready to bid. Then, I watched in horror as Mark, smirking, used our joint high-limit credit card to snatch the very same NFT – not for me, not for us, but for Tiffany Hayes, his flashy ex-girlfriend, right across the room. My blood ran cold, but my mind was clearer than ever. I quietly froze our joint card, watching Tiffany's public meltdown as her payment for our NFT was declined. Mark was furious, his fake smiles turning chillingly real. He then twisted my arm into a "business trip" to a lavish private island, only to drug me upon arrival. I woke up disoriented, locked in a luxurious cage. Then I found myself on a stage, an auctioneer booming about selling me – my "services" and "future commitments" – to a room full of leering strangers. He announced all our assets were liquid, offshore, and now "his." The man I built, the man I trusted, was auctioning off my life, my dignity, as payback for a declined credit card. Was this truly the depths of his betrayal? The ultimate degradation? But as despair threatened to swallow me, a flicker of memory, a whisper from my grandmother, ignited a cold, hard rage. He thought he broke me. He thought he had won. He had no idea what I was truly capable of. With my voice steady and clear, I looked him in the eye and made my own bid: "$200 million. I'm buying myself."

Sarah Miller, an acclaimed artist, was finally returning to New York for her biggest solo exhibition, "Echoes in Sterling," ready to embrace a future with her kind and steady fiancé, Liam Chen. But a single shocking headline-"Vanderbilt Heir Embroiled in New Scandal"-ripped through her carefully constructed peace, dragging her back to a past she' d fought for years to bury. Years ago, she' d saved an injured, amnesiac man she called 'Leo,' building a world of pure, selfless love in her cramped Brooklyn studio, his devotion marked by her initials tattooed over his heart. Yet, when his memory returned, revealing him as Ethan Vanderbilt, scion of a powerful real estate empire, that tender love shattered under the weight of his family' s expectations and a pre-arranged engagement to the formidable Isabelle Harrington. The cruel denouement came at a lavish gala: Isabelle, with Ethan watching, orchestrated the public destruction of Sarah' s art and even tore her deceased grandmother' s cherished locket from her neck. Ethan, the man who once promised her the world, stood by, dismissing her despair as "making a scene," his betrayal complete. With nothing left but a two-million-dollar check, a chilling price for her silence, Sarah fled New York, vowing to transform her agony into art. Now, she' s back, a celebrated artist on her own terms, but the city that broke her whispers with old ghosts, and the man who betrayed her has evolved into something far more dangerous, obsessed with a warped form of atonement.

My father, Pastor Miller, knew everyone in Oakhaven. After his funeral, as people left, I sat in the front pew, my fiancé David’s hand on my arm. My mother, beside me, was a broken bird. We were a grieving family, facing loss, but united. Then, just as I thought the church was empty, the side door creaked open. Three men. My father’s ashes, held sacred moments before, were cruelly threatened. They dragged me to the office. For eight hours, they hurt me. They filmed everything. By noon, the video was everywhere. My phone blew up with cruelty, not comfort. David called, his voice flat. “The wedding… it’s off.” My job was gone. My mother saw it. Two days later, she died, her eyes full of a pain I couldn’t fix. I was alone. Utterly ruined. My supposed savior, Michael Vance, David’s older brother, offered me an escape: marriage. I was desperate, saying yes. Six months later, I overheard his drunken confession: Michael orchestrated my hell. All of it. The assault, the video, even my father’s ruin. All for another woman, Jessica Thorne. How could the man who offered me safety be the architect of my destruction? After being publicly shamed again and institutionalized, a chilling thought solidified: I was no longer a victim. A cold, hard whisper formed in my mind: *Revenge.* With my sharp lawyer aunt by my side, I knew what had to be done. They would pay.

Biological parents desperately wanted a son, but ended up having several daughters and even lost everything they had. So they sold all of us. Although I signed a contract to be sold, I was fortunate to be taken in by a good family and found my true love. The wife of the good family taught me embroidery and I became the most famous embroiderer in Klury. I worked hard to support my true love in passing the imperial examination, eagerly waiting for him to fulfill his promise to marry me after he passed the exam. However, he abandoned me as soon as he became the top scholar, wanting to marry a high-born legitimate daughter. Blaine claimed to have fallen in love with her at first sight and asked me to let go. I knew he had climbed the social ladder and started to look down on me. But he didn't know that the noble lady was actually my younger sister who was also sold off like me...

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.

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'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?

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.

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 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."

I went to the family lawyer for a routine travel clearance. Instead, I was handed a divorce decree. The ink was three years old. While I had been playing the role of the dutiful Capo's wife, Dante had secretly divorced me the day after our fifth anniversary. Twenty-four hours later, he legally married the nanny, Gia, and named her cruel-eyed son as his heir. I returned home to confront him, only for the boy to throw boiling tomato soup on me. Dante didn't check my burns. He cradled the boy and looked at me with pure, drug-fueled hatred, calling me a monster for upsetting his "son." The final blow came in a parking garage. A car sped toward us. Dante didn't pull me to safety. He shoved me into the vehicle's path, using my body as a human shield to protect his mistress. Lying broken on the asphalt, I realized Aria Vitiello was already dead to him. So, I decided to make it official. I arranged a private flight over the Atlantic and ensured there were no survivors. By the time Dante was weeping over the wreckage, realizing too late that he had been poisoned against me, I was already in France. The Canary was dead. The Reaper had risen.

I was the Chicago Outfit's princess, and Luca and Matteo were my sworn protectors. We had mixed our blood at ten years old, promising that nothing would ever touch me. But that oath turned to ash the night Sofia Ricci aimed a Roman candle at my chest. The firework slammed into my shoulder, igniting my silk dress instantly. As I rolled on the concrete, screaming while the flames ate into my skin, I waited for my boys to save me. They didn't. Instead, I watched through the smoke as they rushed to Sofia. They wrapped their jackets—the ones meant to shield me—around the girl who had just set me on fire, comforting her because the "kickback" had scared her. They let me burn to keep her warm. When I woke up in the hospital with permanent scars, they brought me a letter of apology from her and defended her "accident." They even cut their palms to pay her debt, ignoring the fact that I was the one in bandages. That was the moment Elena Vitiello died. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I simply packed my bags and defected to the one place they couldn't follow: the arms of Dante Moretti, the lethal Capo of New York. By the time they realized their mistake and came crawling back to beg in the rain, I was already wearing another man's ring. "You want forgiveness?" I asked, looking down at them. "Burn for it."

I replaced my twin sister in a marriage contract to the ruthless Mafia Don, Donovan Blackwood. For three years, I was a ghost in his home, silently enduring his coldness while he flaunted his mistress, Chloe. On the very last day of our contract, Chloe staged an accident. Donovan didn't hesitate. He forced me to drain my blood to save her life. Then, to prove his loyalty to her, he drove me to the cliffs and pushed me into the freezing ocean. He even locked me in a cellar infested with spiders—my deepest phobia—because she lied and said I threatened her. He thought he was punishing the spoiled, arrogant Isabella. He didn't know he was breaking Ava, the woman who had silently memorized his allergies and waited up for him in the dark every single night. When I finally took my fifty million dollars and vanished, I left behind nothing but the divorce papers and a photo revealing the truth. He tore the city apart, destroying my family to find me, only to realize he had tortured the wrong woman. Now, he is standing on my porch in the pouring rain, staring in horror at the simple wooden ring on my finger given to me by another man. He falls to his knees, begging for a chance to love the wife he tried to destroy. I look at him, feeling absolutely nothing. "It's too late, Donovan," I say, locking the door. "You killed her."