Julian Reid

My sister abandoned her newborn baby at a hospital and fled the country. The father was Dante, the absolute sovereign of the city's underworld. My mother frantically ordered me to hide the child to save our skins. But I refused to cower. I took the baby straight to the Mafia Don's fortress and demanded he take responsibility. For the first critical days of the baby's life, I was the only one there. I paced my rundown apartment with a sick infant, spending my last savings, while my sister was living it up in Vancouver with her offshore money. But months later, when Dante officially claimed the boy and placed us under his ultimate protection, my sister and mother suddenly came back. They put on a pathetic weeping act in Dante's office. "I just want my son back. I was just so scared," my sister sobbed, demanding custody of the Mafia heir. My own mother had actually helped her pack, advising her to dump the baby on me so she could escape. Now, seeing Dante's limitless wealth, they wanted to reap the rewards. They treated me like a disposable pawn, expecting me to quietly hand over the child I had saved. How could my own blood be so shamelessly greedy? But they underestimated me, and they underestimated the Don. Looking at the ruthless Mafia boss, I calmly exposed their treason, forcing his final judgment. This time, I was claiming my place.

Candice Luna thought her marriage to Julius Hansen was a lifeline to save her father's struggling company. She didn't know it was a death sentence until Julius coldly slid divorce papers across his mahogany desk. His true love, Amina Rowe, was nestled in his arms with a triumphant, mocking smile. The "merger" Julius promised had been a brutal, hostile takeover designed to bleed the Luna Group dry from the inside. Bankrupted and utterly broken, Candice's father stepped off the roof of their corporate tower. Meanwhile, Candice was publicly humiliated, stripped of her dignity, and mocked by all of Wall Street as a discarded stepping stone. She died in a car accident, her final moments consumed by an agonizing, feral scream. She hated herself for letting her blind devotion destroy the father who had always believed in her. But when Candice opened her eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room, she realized she wasn't dead. She was twenty-two again. Three years before the wedding. Three years before her father's suicide. When Julius's assistant walked in holding a bouquet of blue roses to discuss the preliminary merger, he expected a docile, desperate heiress. Instead, Candice grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and flung it directly into his smug face. "Tell Julius Hansen to never, ever send his dogs to my door again." This time, there would be no engagement. This time, the Hansen family would choke on her family's legacy.

I was the Thornton Pack's brilliant but "wolfless" assistant, a defect they treated like a charity case. After years of letting the Alpha, Caleb, control me to prove my worth, he publicly humiliated and discarded me for a pure-blooded pack princess. Heartbroken and drunk at a bar, I accidentally bit and marked a terrifying stranger who saved me from two creeps. I woke up to find out I had drunkenly claimed Damien Blackwood—a ruthless billionaire and the apex Lycan King of the werewolf world. To prevent a pack war over the claiming mark, Damien trapped me in a two-year contract marriage, treating me like a convenient political tool. Right after we signed the papers, I got a call from the police. My little brother, Jamison, had been arrested for punching Caleb, who was bragging about ruining my dignity. At the precinct, Caleb sneered at my misery, threatening to destroy my brother's future. Seeing the fresh bite mark on my neck, Jamison exploded in handcuffs, screaming that Damien had blackmailed me into his bed to get him out of jail. I begged Damien to step outside so I could explain this horrific misunderstanding, feeling like I had sold my soul to a cold-blooded predator. But Damien ignored my pleas. He pulled me behind him, his suffocating Lycan aura crushing everyone in the room. "Yes, she was with me last night, because she is my wife." Before anyone could process the shock, his eyes darkened with a terrifying, unhinged possessiveness. "And I didn't marry her to solve a problem. I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years." I stared at his broad back, my blood running cold as I realized I had no idea what kind of monster I had just bound my life to.

For three years, I was nothing but a ghost in my marriage, a pathetic stand-in forced to dress exactly like my billionaire husband's dead fiancée. On our third anniversary, he left me to face armed intruders in our remote estate alone. When I called him begging for help, he mocked me for faking a home invasion for attention and hung up to comfort his mistress. The nightmare only got worse. The next night, my stepmother and half-sister drugged me at a family gala, trying to ruin me by handing me over to a sleazy producer. I escaped into a pitch-black hotel suite, only to be overpowered by a drugged stranger in the dark. Traumatized and covered in bruises, I secretly took an emergency contraceptive pill. When my husband found the crumpled receipt on the floor, he didn't ask if I was hurt or where the violent marks on my neck came from. "You cheap whore. You broke the loyalty contract." He drafted the divorce papers immediately, stripping me of every penny, and ordered me thrown onto the street. He thought without his wealth, I wouldn't survive a day in New York and would come crawling back to him like a dog. I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed the papers, dropped my diamond ring on his glass table, and walked out. What my arrogant ex-husband didn't know was that before I became his obedient shadow, I was "Lan"—the legendary, anonymous fashion designer the entire world was desperately looking for. Now, I was taking back my empire.

Running for my life from my family's suffocating control, I was cornered by my father's security team in an empty private airport terminal. Desperate, I crashed into a tall stranger to use him as a human shield, only to realize I had just assaulted Hoyt David. He was an untouchable Wall Street billionaire and, worse, my best friend's uncle. Instead of handing me over to the guards, he seamlessly lied to my pursuers. "This young woman is my guest," he told them, his voice an absolute wall of authority. He pulled me into a dark, narrow maintenance closet to hide. I was terrified he would turn me in, but he didn't. He was the perfect gentleman, gently calming my panic, respecting my boundaries, and offering his private Bentley to take me to a safe hotel. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. My parents had always treated me like a puppet, but this powerful man made me feel seen and protected. I couldn't understand why a man of his status would go to such lengths for me, but I was too desperate to question my luck. I thought I had finally escaped my family's hell. I had no idea that the "safety" he offered was a trap, and that this untouchable billionaire had been obsessively waiting for seven years for me to walk willingly into his gilded cage.

Five years ago, I was married to New York's most powerful billionaire. Then, a massive cheating scandal broke out overnight. Photos of me entering a hotel room with another man were plastered across every screen in the city. My husband, Godfrey, didn't even give me a chance to explain. He looked at me with pure disgust and threw a divorce agreement right in my face. "Sign it and get out." My own family publicly disowned me to save their reputation. I was branded a cheap cheat, thrown out into the freezing winter with absolutely nothing. What Godfrey didn't know was that I had been heavily drugged and framed by my own cousin, Kendal, just so she could take my place by his side. Even worse, his mother had used the chaotic scandal as a smokescreen to try and steal my dead mother's priceless AI patent. They thought they had completely destroyed me, expecting me to rot in the gutters forever. Now, five years later, I am back. Tonight is Kendal and Godfrey's grand engagement gala at the Waldorf Astoria. Standing in the shadows of the second-floor balcony, I look down at the cheering crowd and press a single button on my heavily encrypted phone. The massive screens in the ballroom go black, preparing to broadcast the raw security footage of Kendal locking me in that room. The revenge game has officially begun.

Kenzie, the former leader of the Aegis Alliance, opened her eyes to find herself reincarnated as a freezing, abandoned infant in a wet cardboard box. She was rescued from the rain by Devin Ayers, a ruthless billionaire, and rushed to a private hospital, but a deadly threat was already waiting for her. The ER doctor, Desiree Dillon, approached her with a syringe. Through a sudden burst of telepathy, Kenzie read the doctor's dark thoughts. Desiree wasn't trying to cure her fever. She deliberately ignored the safe dosage, drawing a lethal amount of Diazepam to permanently silence the crying baby and disguise it as sudden infant death. "This will make it all go away," Desiree smiled gently, the needle glinting as it moved inches from Kenzie's arm. Trapped in a weak, paralyzed three-month-old body, Kenzie couldn't run, fight, or even speak. She could only watch the poison inch closer. How could she survive death only to be assassinated in a hospital bed by a corrupt doctor? She used to command armies. The sheer injustice and terror of dying completely helpless in this tiny body ignited a blinding rage inside her. Refusing to be a victim again, Kenzie pushed her newborn brain to its absolute limit and unleashed a desperate telepathic scream directly into the billionaire's mind. "Poison! She's trying to kill me!" Devin, who had been looking away, suddenly froze, his icy gray eyes locking onto the doctor's wrist.

Evia Conway was the perfect billionaire's wife, a docile ornament bound by a ruthless prenuptial agreement that would leave her with nothing if she ever filed for divorce. That was until she found her husband's unlocked iPad and saw the photos of him wrapped around a 22-year-old blonde. The girl was Penelope, a scholarship recipient funded by Evia's own charity foundation. While Evia endured his family's public mockery for being barren, Frederic was secretly transferring two million dollars to buy his mistress a penthouse. He even laughed with his friends at an exclusive club, mocking Evia's devotion. "She is just a useless placeholder. Once Penelope gives birth to my heir, I will throw her out." Penelope even called Evia to flaunt her ultrasound, demanding she quietly disappear or face a public smear campaign. They all thought Evia was just a weak, clueless woman who could be easily discarded. But what Frederic didn't know was that Evia had kept a secret for three years: a medical report proving he was completely sterile. The baby he was destroying his marriage for was a total fraud. Evia didn't shed a single tear. She calmly put on her diamond necklace, smiled her perfect society smile, and opened her hidden encrypted laptop. She had exactly thirty days to surgically dismantle his empire and let him lose everything.

I brought the original drafts of the Lloyd Center to my stepsister’s high-society pool party, hoping the gift would finally earn my family's respect. I stood on the edge of the limestone patio, clutching the leather portfolio as fifty pairs of judgmental eyes watched my every move. But the moment I handed the sketches to Corina, she retracted her hand, letting the portfolio sink into the chlorine before throwing herself into the pool with a theatrical scream. My fiancé, Julian, didn't hesitate; he shoved me aside with enough force to twist my ankle and dove in to rescue her. He surfaced with Corina in his arms, looking at me with a mask of pure disgust while the crowd whispered that I was an unstable, illegitimate intruder. My stepmother Eugenia didn't even ask for an explanation before she stepped forward and slapped me across the face, ordering me to get out before she called the police. "Sister, if you're still mad about the inheritance, just say it. Why did you push me?" "Enough! God, Aria. Your jealousy is actually sickening." I stood on shaking legs, looking at the man who had promised to know my heart for two years, only to realize he was just another wolf in the pack. The humiliation burned hotter than the sting on my face, and I realized that in their eyes, I would always be the trash they needed to take out. I yanked the diamond ring off my finger, slammed it onto a table, and walked away from my old life forever. To claim my trust fund and survive, I walked into a dive bar and offered a marriage contract to a broke, mysterious artist named Harland. I thought I was just buying a temporary shield, but I didn't realize that my "poor" new husband was actually a billionaire predator who was already planning to burn my family's empire to the ground.

On the eve of my wedding, a viral TikTok revealed my fiancé had married another woman a week ago. When I confronted him, Jacob called it a "pity marriage." He dismissed our seven years together, offered me cash to shut up, and when I refused, he slapped me across the face. "You're the other woman now," he snarled, threatening to ruin me if I spoke out. The worst part? I was pregnant with his child. To break free from this monster, I made a heartbreaking choice and secretly terminated the pregnancy. When you have nothing left to lose, you become unstoppable. Tonight, at the live-streamed Tech Innovators Gala where he plans to accept our award with his new wife, I'm taking the stage. I'm not just taking back my company-I'm burning his entire world to the ground.

My husband, Grayson Daugherty, threw me out of his car in the pouring rain to rush to another woman's side. That was the night I learned our marriage was a lie, a carefully constructed cage to protect his real love. But the deception ran deeper than I could have imagined. When I tried to leave, my own family betrayed me, beating me until I bled just to keep their precious business alliance intact. My life's work, my photography, was stolen by his mistress, Kennedy, and he locked me in a dark basement, using my deepest childhood trauma as a weapon to force my silence. I was just a pawn, a shield, a sacrifice on the altar of their epic love. Stripped of my family, my art, and my heart, I finally understood. If they wanted a storm, I would become a hurricane. I burned our penthouse to the ground and walked away, ready to destroy the man who broke me. But I never expected him to follow me to the ends of the earth, ready to die just to prove his love was real.

I received a divorce text message. The sender was my husband, whom I had never met despite being married for a year through an arrangement. He said he had been in love with a girl for ten years and wanted to divorce me to pursue her. I agreed and casually asked for twenty million dollars as a settlement. Later, I met a man who blushed because of a single glance from me. He seemed to fall for me at first sight and asked for my contact information. I told him I had a husband and was in the process of getting divorced. He clenched his teeth in anger, swearing to make my jerk husband pay. When I appeared before him in divorce court, his face turned pale instantly.

The plan was simple: surprise my husband, Mark, in our new city after two months apart. Our daughter Lily was buzzing with excitement on the plane, her little legs kicking the seat in front. I imagined his face, the shock turning into a wide grin. But when I opened the door to his temporary apartment with the spare key he' d sent, my world shattered. His "temporary" place looked lived-in, cozy, with two coffee mugs in the sink and a woman' s sweater draped over a chair. Next to a framed photo of Mark and Lily was another-of Mark grinning with a younger woman I didn' t recognize, their arms around each other at a beach sunset. The scent of a perfume that wasn' t mine filled the air. Mark emerged from the bedroom, a towel around his waist, his hair wet. His bright smile was for Lily, before it froze when he saw me. Panic flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by an overly cheerful "Ava! Lily! What… what are you guys doing here? This is amazing!" He scooped Lily into his arms, avoiding my gaze. He was a good actor, but I wasn't his audience. I had just seen the whole script. I stood frozen, the handle of my luggage digging into my palm. He was a liar. He had called me last night, telling me how much he missed us, how he was working late to build our future. But his texts to "Chloe" revealed a whole other life. Pictures of them cooking in his kitchen, of them on hikes he told me he was too busy to take. He' d spent Lily' s birthday weekend with her at a luxury spa resort, while I thought he was working. He hadn't moved for his job. He moved for her. Then Chloe appeared at the door, letting herself in with a silent beep. Her fingerprint was programmed into his lock. "Hi, Chloe!" Lily chirped, waving. My daughter knew her. Mark' s face turned pasty. "Why?" Chloe asked, shrugging him off, her eyes locked on mine. "I think we should all have dinner together. Get to know each other." The audacity of this woman, inviting me and my child to dinner in my husband' s apartment. It was a power play, a declaration of war. I didn't understand. The man I married was kind, devoted, and honest. The man whose phone I held was a monster, living a double life. How could he do this to us? To Lily? My own mother and his parents sided with him, gaslighting me, telling me I was overreacting, threatening to take Lily. They underestimated me. They thought I was broken. They were wrong.

The terminal diagnosis felt like an ending, a quiet period to a long, exhausting sentence. I, Ava, the world' s only true prodigy in data analytics, was dying. My mind-a machine that could map the future with flawless precision-couldn't find a single path that didn't end in a hospital bed. The irony was suffocating. My body was failing because my mind had been running at an impossible overload for centuries. Not just this lifetime, but seven of them, a secret etched physically on my chest. Then the doorbell rang. It was Liam, my ex-fiancé, radiating success as always. But he wasn't alone. Clinging to his arm, my stepsister, Chloe, was unmistakably pregnant. "We came to tell you in person," Liam said, his voice devoid of warmth. "Chloe and I are getting married. Next month." Chloe added with fake sweetness, "We wanted you to be the first to know, sis." He then dropped the bombshell: "I' m buying out your shares. It' s time we made a clean break." He was cutting me out, erasing me from the company I had built. I watched him. He saw my frail form, noted my fading life, and coldly assessed it as his final liberation. He believed my death would untether him, unleashing his supposed genius to unimaginable heights. Little did he know, he was a parasitic fool convinced he was the host. For six hundred years, I had been the silent engine behind his every success, bleeding myself dry in the process. Each lifetime, my illness and early death fueled his ascent, bound by a master-servant contract. He thought my dying was his victory. He was wrong. My death was not a sentence. It was a deadline. And for the first time in centuries, I felt not despair, but a cold, sharp surge of energy. He thought he was closing the book on me. He had just given me permission to write the final, devastating chapter. This time, I was ready to reclaim what was mine.

The rain lashed against my office windows, a sudden storm mirroring the chaos that erupted when Dr. Chen' s call came, breathlessly telling me, "It's David." My husband, David, was in an accident, and when I arrived at the hospital, the world shattered-he was holding another woman's hand, looking at me with cold, polite confusion. "Can I help you?" he asked, as she, his executive assistant, Chloe, tightened her grip on his hand, a triumphant flicker in her eyes. He then scoffed when I told him I was his wife of ten years, declaring, "Chloe is my girlfriend," dismissing me as "crazy" when I listed our shared memories, our dog, our wedding. He even compared being married to me to being "a piece of sensible, well-designed, but ultimately unexciting furniture," a crushing blow that twisted every cherished moment of our life into a lie. Then, the final, undeniable proof came: a video of David and Chloe, intimate in our bed, sent by Chloe herself, a trophy of her victory, after he refused to help my ailing mother. The last ounce of love I had for David died, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve. I called Mark, David's estranged best friend and an investigative journalist, who had looked at me with aching worry in the wake of David's betrayal. I was Sarah Miller, celebrated architect, and David Thompson had just made the biggest mistake of his manipulative life. I was done being the victim. It was time to play his game.

My world was perfect. Top of my class, early acceptance to Yale, just days away from the SATs. Then, my stepsister Tiffany handed me a protein shake. I trusted her, drank it, and then – darkness. I woke up in a cheap motel, framed for cheating, test booklets scattered, my phone incriminating. Campus security, news cameras flashing. "Cheater!" the headlines screamed. Yale rescinded my admission, my furious father disowned me, and my popular boyfriend Chad, feigning support, was part of it all. Pregnant, isolated, my dreams shattered, I withered, looking ten years older than I was. Five years later, I overheard Chad boasting, chillingly: "Tiffany and I planned it perfectly. She needed Sarah gone – Valedictorian, Yale, the Miller inheritance. And Sarah? Served her purpose. Time to upgrade to Tiffany." The betrayal, so cold and absolute, utterly shattered me. I ran blindly into the street, and then – screeching tires. Nothing. A gasp. I sat bolt upright in my own bed, sunlight streaming through my window. My heart hammered, the nightmare vivid. I looked at my phone. Three days before the SATs. It was happening again. No. It was my second chance. This time, they wouldn't know what hit them.

Ten years. That's how long I, Ava Miller, meticulously built my dream life. I left behind my past as the "notorious mean girl" Ashley King. Now, I had Chloe, the kindest best friend, and Ethan Reed, my devoted husband. We were expecting our first child, a symbol of our perfect future. Then, I found Ethan's journal. Dusty and hidden, it revealed a truth colder than ice. My husband, Ethan, wasn't just 'reborn' – he remembered a past life. A past where I, Ashley, was his enemy. He married me not for love, but to "monitor the threat." To keep an eye on me, the monster he believed lurked within. Ten years of tender kisses, shared laughter, and deep conversations were a calculated performance. He loved Chloe, always Chloe. Every "gentle" touch, every "concerned" glance, was a lie. My world shattered when, at the summer fair, he shoved my pregnant body aside to shield Chloe. He accused me, "Did you do this?" Then, a car swerved, and without a second thought, he threw himself at Chloe, his body slamming into mine. I woke up in a sterile hospital room. Our baby was gone. My heart was torn between searing grief and burning rage. How could he have been so blind, so obsessed with a phantom? So cruel. I looked at the man who destroyed everything. "I want a divorce, Ethan." This fake life ends now. I will reclaim my story.

For a year, chef Amelia Hayes lived a secret life, hidden from the world as the wife of Charleston old money heir, Ethan Vance. Her dreams were on hold, her identity masked, all for the "right time" Ethan promised would come. But their clandestine world shattered when Ethan' s manipulative stepmother, Cassie Thorne, discovered their marriage. Cassie issued a cruel ultimatum: Amelia had twelve months to make Ethan publicly claim her, or she would sign divorce papers and disappear forever. What followed was a relentless campaign of psychological and physical torment. Ethan, shockingly, enabled Cassie, prioritizing her every whim over Amelia' s well-being. Amelia was publicly humiliated, framed, fired from work she loved, and brutally beaten. The ultimate betrayal came when Ethan, shielding Cassie from a perceived threat, accidentally shattered Amelia's wrist, yet remained utterly blind to her pain, his concern solely for Cassie. Lying there, broken and abandoned, Amelia grappled with the stinging injustice. How could the man she loved so deeply, the one she sacrificed everything for, be so callous, so utterly blind to her suffering? How could she escape this nightmare of betrayal and despair? In that moment of profound agony, her hope, her love, died. A new resolve ignited: she would not just survive, she would break free. This was no longer a fight for Ethan, but a fierce battle for her own self-liberation. She chose to reclaim her life, no matter the cost.

My wife, Sarah, and I had a perfect life plan: no kids, just us, travel, and careers. To seal the deal, I underwent a vasectomy. I came home that day, a bag of frozen peas on my groin, feeling a strange mix of relief and finality, ready to celebrate. But Sarah didn't want to celebrate. She sat beside me, her grip tight, and said, "There's something I need to tell you. I've changed my mind about kids. I want one now. With Ethan." The name of her college flame hit me like a punch. My blood ran cold. She looked at her perfectly manicured nails, explaining calmly, "Since you can't have children now, it actually works out perfectly." She expected me to help raise this child, to be part of their "modern family." The audacity, the sheer, calculated cruelty of it, stole my breath. She had waited, let me go through with an irreversible procedure, then dropped this monstrous bomb. How could someone be so utterly devoid of empathy for the wreckage she’d caused? My mother, Maria, had always said Sarah was a sweet girl, but this was a bottomless abyss of betrayal. I stared at the woman I loved, the woman who had just slit my future open from navel to throat. "I want a divorce, Sarah," I said, the words heavy and final. My love, once a blazing fire, was now a smoldering ruin. In its place, something hard and unforgiving was beginning to grow. This wasn't just a breakup; this was an act of war, and I was going to make sure she paid for every calculated lie.

"They say the dead don't come back. But I did. And I brought hell with me." Aria Moretti was supposed to die seven years ago when her entire mafia family was slaughtered in a brutal massacre. Instead, she escaped pregnant, alone, and marked for death. She fled to Lagos, gave birth in hiding, and spent seven years transforming from a sheltered princess into something far more dangerous. Now she's back in New York. Not for forgiveness. For blood. But her return puts her on a tight spot with Dante Russo the man she once loved and was forced to betray. He's no longer the loyal soldier from her father's organization. He's built himself into a billionaire empire while secretly ruling the city's underworld. Powerful. Ruthless. Unforgettable. And he's never forgiven her for disappearing. When Dante discovers Aria is alive, he should kill her for the betrayal he thinks she committed. Instead, he makes her an offer she can't refuse: Marry me. Six months. No questions asked. He needs a wife to legitimize his business expansion. She needs his protection to hunt her family's killer. It's purely transactional. A marriage of convenience. Nothing more. As they're forced into close contact, old attraction reignites into something explosive. Assassination attempts bring them together. Shared danger builds unexpected trust. And co-parenting the son Dante is just getting to know creates moments of tenderness neither expected. But as Aria gets closer to discovering who ordered the massacre, the lies holding their marriage together begin to crumble. A traitor is in Dante's organization. A jealous ex-lover plots to destroy their alliance. And Vincent Carozza Aria's godfather and the man she suspects killed her family is closing in for the final strike.

Seventeen years after going missing, Brooklyn was finally brought back to her ultra-wealthy biological family. But instead of a tearful reunion, her parents and sisters treated her like infectious garbage, mocking her cheap clothes and calling her a country bumpkin. They dumped her into a remedial class to hide her away, cut off her allowance, and threatened to lock down her trust fund to force her into absolute submission. One night, Brooklyn stood in the shadows of the estate and overheard a conversation that shattered everything. She hadn't wandered off as a child. Her parents had deliberately thrown her away because a fake fortune teller claimed her birth chart was a jinx to the family's wealth. They felt zero remorse, only plotting to banish her again the moment she turned eighteen. Her biological father thought he was putting a leash on a helpless, uneducated girl by cutting off her pocket change. He had no idea that Brooklyn was the anonymous VIP who casually dropped sixty million dollars on an emerald at the city's most exclusive auction. He didn't know she was the elusive medical genius that the world's most powerful billionaires were currently tearing the city apart to find. The last microscopic shred of hope for a family withered into cold ash in her chest. "Lock down my trust fund?" She pulled out her encrypted phone and activated her shadow networks, severing herself entirely from their pathetic surveillance. Since they believed she was a jinx, she was going to show them exactly what a real curse looked like.

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 hid my identity as the heiress of a top-tier wealthy family just to build a normal, quiet life with my fiancé, Jefferey. We had just picked out our dream villa, but a sudden bank notification shattered my illusion. The entire $7.8 million from our joint trust fund had been wired to a woman named Jessie Barr. When I hacked into his synced tablet, the truth hit me like a truck. Jessie wasn't just a stranger; she was his secret lover. They even had a four-year-old son who shared Jefferey's exact eyes. "The money is in your account. Our future is secure now. I'll leave her soon." Reading his messages to her, I realized my three years of devotion were nothing but a long con. I was just the final "project" he needed to fund his real family. He used my resources, my connections, and my money to build a life in the shadows with his true love, treating me like a naive piggy bank he could discard at any moment. I had given up my absolute power for a man who fed me nothing but lies. But Jefferey forgot one crucial detail. I wasn't just some helpless woman he could ruin. I calmly closed my laptop and dialed a number I hadn't called in three years. "Mom, I was wrong. I'm ready to accept the Romero family's marriage alliance." It was time to gut his company and take everything he owned.

I didn't mean to call my boss. I definitely didn't mean to leave a seven-minute voicemail of dirty secrets about him. Working for Ruslan Oryolov is the job from hell. The man is impossible-demanding, arrogant, and way too gorgeous for his own good. After eighteen months of fetching his coffee and swallowing my pride, all I wanted was one night of stress relief. But the billionaire CEO of Bane Corporation isn't just a boss from hell. He's the head of the Oryolov Bratva-and now that he's heard every secret I never meant to share, he's decided to claim me. His contract. His rules. His protection for my three orphaned nieces and nephews-the only reason I'm signing my life away to a man I should fear. He owns my signature. He owns my safety. Now he wants my soul.

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 am the wife of Dante Moretti, a powerful Mafia Underboss. But in secret, I am "Spettro," the phantom architect who built his entire encrypted bootlegging empire. On my birthday, I came home to find him gifting our five-year-old daughter the exact plush toy he had violently slapped out of my hands months ago. Only this time, he was giving it to his mistress, Adriana, to present as her own. "Auntie Adriana is a million times better than Mommy." My daughter's innocent words pierced my heart, while Dante coldly dismissed my presence, treating me like an unwelcome stranger interrupting their perfect family. He mocked my mothering, allowed his mistress to sever my desperate phone calls with my child, and weaponized his power to break our daughter's spirit just to spite me. He sneered that my only purpose was to stay quiet, absolutely certain I would crawl back the second my allowance ran dry. He thought I was just a weak, submissive wife who had lost everything. He didn't realize that the empire he arrogantly ruled was entirely built on my stolen brilliance. I left my diamond ring on the table, violently slashed our ancient blood oath in half, and walked out of his gilded cage forever. Sitting in a cold warehouse, I placed my hands on my telegraph machine and initiated the Ghost Protocol to permanently paralyze his entire criminal network. The era of playing the dutiful wife was over. I am Donna Falcone, and the vendetta has just begun.

On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes. She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia." Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours. He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity. But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture." I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her. And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm. Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite. He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet. He is wrong. I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door. And I changed the groom. As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears. The Reaper.

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

I 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.