Lan Zhen

I spent fifteen years building my husband's mafia empire, coding the complex algorithms that washed his blood money clean. But on my thirty-fifth birthday, instead of a gift, I received a photo of his hand resting on another woman's thigh. When I confronted him, Dustin didn't apologize. He brought his pregnant mistress, Jami, into our penthouse and told me to accept the hush money. "You have nothing except what I give you," he sneered, treating me like a slow servant rather than the mastermind behind his success. The argument turned violent. He shoved me hard, sending me crashing into a solid oak nightstand. As I lay on the floor, bleeding and dizzy from a split forehead, I watched the man I loved step over my body to comfort the woman wearing my mother's stolen heirloom ring. He didn't check my pulse. He didn't call for help. He looked at me with pure disgust and turned his back. In that moment, the wife died, and the witness was born. He thought I was powerless because I had no assets in my name. He thought I would fade away quietly. He forgot one crucial detail: I wasn't just the furniture in his castle. I was the architect. Every server, every encrypted drive, every hidden account—I owned the code. I wiped the blood from my face and walked out the door, but I didn't go to a lawyer. I went to a hardware store and bought a ten-pound sledgehammer. I wasn't going to just leave him. I was going to delete him.

I spent three years trying to be the perfect Crown Princess, enduring my husband Bradley's coldness while pouring my family's fortune into his royal projects. I truly believed our marriage was built on duty and that our adopted son, Jimmie, was the bond that held us together. Everything changed on a stormy night when I caught Bradley in his study, calmly watching my family's trust fund documents-the entire Orozco legacy-burn to ash in the fireplace. He didn't even look guilty as he explained that I was never his partner, only a convenient bank account for the Crown. When I lunged to save the papers, Bradley shoved me to the floor with bored indifference. Then, the ultimate betrayal walked through the door: Jimmie. My son didn't run to comfort me; he took Bradley's hand and looked at me with pure venom. Bradley sneered, revealing that Jimmie wasn't adopted at all-he was his biological son with my best friend, Icy. "We just needed you to fund his future," Bradley said. I was dragged out by guards and thrown into a sedan speeding toward the cliffs. At Dead Man's Curve, the driver jumped out of the moving car, leaving me to plummet into the freezing ocean. As the water filled my lungs and my life faded, I didn't feel fear. I felt a distilled, murderous hate. I woke up gasping for air in my old bedroom, three years before the crash. It was the day of my fake infertility diagnosis, the beginning of their plan to break me. "The Fiona who listened to you is dead," I whispered, looking at my reflection. I didn't cry this time. Instead, I dressed in black and headed into the night to find the only man Bradley feared-the lethal, "boiling-blooded" Regent, Demian Ballard. I was going to save his life, and in return, he was going to help me burn the palace down.

I was trapped in a velvet booth at Le Bernardin, Arthur Sterling’s hand crawling up my knee as he whispered that my father would be in handcuffs by morning if I didn't spend the night with him. Desperate to escape, I lunged at the only man more dangerous than Arthur—Gunnar Kirk, the "Butcher of Wall Street"—and kissed him in front of every camera in the room, thinking I was choosing the lesser of two evils. I was wrong; Gunnar didn't just play along, he took possession, forcing me into a cold-blooded contract to be his fake fiancée to save his corporate image from an SEC investigation. While my greedy stepmother and sister were busy fighting over the diamonds he sent, I was living in terror, trying to hide the one thing that truly mattered: my infant son, hidden away with a nanny in a cramped Queens apartment. When my baby suffered a febrile seizure and I rushed to the ER, I looked up to see Gunnar standing in the doorway, his glacial eyes boring into me as he realized the "ruined" socialite was hiding a child from her past. I tried to sabotage the wedding, setting up my fame-hungry stepsister as a decoy bride so I could flee to Switzerland with my son, but Gunnar caught me on the fire escape before I could take a single step toward freedom. He threw me over his shoulder like a sack of flour and told me that if I didn't walk down that aisle, he would personally ensure my father rotted in prison. We stood at the altar and exchanged vows in a ceremony built on blackmail and lies, but as we walked out as husband and wife, Gunnar didn't look at me with affection; he turned to his assistant and ordered a total deep dive into the medical records I had spent a year trying to erase. "Find out exactly what happened during those nine months in Switzerland, and tell me who that baby really belongs to."

My billionaire husband spent three years and a fortune to find a donor heart to save my life. He was my hero, my entire world after a woman named Karma Smith framed my father and destroyed my family. Then, I discovered he'd been protecting her all along. She was his mistress, pregnant with his child. Overnight, I became the villain in his eyes. He ignored my calls for help as her thugs beat me and dragged me behind their car. He forced me to kneel in the snow all night as punishment for the miscarriage she faked and blamed on me. The final act of his cruelty was a sea burial for the "baby" I had "murdered." On his yacht, he held her in his arms, his eyes burning with a hatred that seared my soul. When she "accidentally" dropped the urn into the ocean, he turned his rage on me. "Then you'll jump in and find it!" he roared. I looked at the monster who wore my husband's face, the man I had loved more than life itself. And without hesitation, I threw myself into the icy water.

For seven years, I lived in Liam Sterling' s shadow, meticulously crafting his academic success. Tonight, at our graduation party, he stood on stage, arm around his new girlfriend, Skye Miller, and publicly humiliated me. He announced they were going to Northwood Community College, then suggested I come along, sneering, "You know you can' t manage without me telling you what to do. It' s for the best." Murmurs and snickers filled the room. "His lapdog." "He owns her." Humiliation burned my cheeks, but this time, something snapped. The suffocating feeling that had always compelled my obedience vanished. All the years of silent suffering exploded into rage. When Liam, unaccustomed to resistance, tried to order me around again, I looked him straight in the eye. "No," I said, my voice clear and loud for the first time. His face reddened, but I wasn' t done. "I' m not going to community college with you, Liam. I' m not going anywhere with you." His control shattered, Liam escalated. He and Skye led a mob to my house, turning my sanctuary into a frat party. They poured wine on my graduation dress, laughed at my humiliation, and when I saw my grandmother' s locket-a precious heirloom-around Skye' s neck, a piece of my soul was torn. Liam had stolen it from my room and given it to her. "It' s just a piece of cheap metal, Ava," he scoffed. "It was my grandmother' s! It' s all I have left of her!" I cried, but he just said, "Get over it." Then, Skye whispered to Liam about my college applications, suggesting he destroy my future. My heart pounded as he headed for my room, a cruel smile on his face. No! My future. My laptop. He publicly deleted my Ivy League applications, replacing them with Northwood Vocational School, and submitted it. Then, he smashed my laptop. They dragged me to the basement, locking me in, knowing my deepest fear. My world ended there, swallowed by darkness and their laughter. But somewhere, a father was about to get a call, and Liam Sterling was about to learn a very painful lesson.

My life was a constant struggle, cleaning up after Ethan, a musician with "the devil's blood" and a cruel wife, all while trying to save for my son Caleb's therapy. But when Ethan bought his mistress a diamond bracelet with Caleb's therapy savings, then locked my terrified boy in a closet just for her amusement, I knew I was living in hell. The real nightmare began when he dragged Caleb to the edge of a bottomless quarry, threatening to push him, making me believe he was about to murder our child. Saved at the last moment by the Sheriff, Nathaniel, a man rumored to be the sworn enemy of Ethan's family, I thought I'd found sanctuary. But my ex-husband's control, rooted in a terrifying blood pact, threatened to destroy us all, pulling every loved one into his spiral of sadism. Even Nathaniel, my supposed savior, had his own dark secrets, revealed by a chilling recording on what was meant to be my wedding day. His calm dismissal of my pain and his true motives shattered my last ounce of hope. How could the man who rescued my son from the brink of death be using me as a pawn in his own twisted family game, willing to sacrifice my comfort and trust for his ambition? Why did he send my child away right before our ceremony, claiming it was for "safety"? I ripped off the wedding dress. I wasn't just leaving that wedding; I was leaving behind every lie, every manipulation, and redefining what it meant to fight for my son and myself, no matter the cost, no matter the man.

I lived a life of enviable luxury in my pristine Colorado mountain cabin, nestled deep in the Rockies. Then, I died, frozen solid just outside my own front door. My last sight was Ethan, my boyfriend, feasting on my food inside, watching me claw at the glass until my fingers bled. His family, the Scotts, laughed as I froze, adjusting curtains to block me out, celebrating my demise. They left me to perish in the brutal blizzard, utterly and completely abandoned. That death was absolute, excruciating, and unforgettable. But then, I jolted awake, submerged in 1200-thread-count sheets, the Rockies bathed in sunlight outside my window. It was ten days before the storm, before my betrayal. A wave of nausea hit me, the phantom hunger and cold still clinging to my bones, but then a cold, hard fury replaced it. This time, my cabin, my wealth, and my meticulous planning wouldn' t be my downfall; they would be my ultimate weapon.

My senior year was supposed to be the start of everything. My award-winning screenplay, "Echo Park", had captivated a young producer named David, and my dream film school, USC, was within reach. But then, everything shattered. My SAT scores inexplicably plummeted, a disaster that strangely coincided with my best friend, Olivia's, perfect score. A year later, Olivia's mysteriously acclaimed screenplay, almost identical to mine, landed her the very deal David had offered me. Every ambition, every relationship, everything I cherished, she systematically stole, leaving me in a devastating spiral of depression that ended in an accidental overdose. As darkness consumed me, a terrifying truth slammed into my consciousness: Olivia, clutching a shimmering "Script Switcher," used it to rewrite my fate, three times over. How could my closest friend harbor such monstrous envy, possessing a magical device that allowed her to meticulously dismantle my entire life? Now, I'm back. Reborn on the exact day my downfall began, but this time with a chilling certainty and a ruthless plan. Olivia may still have her notorious Switcher, but I have the memories of a life lost and a cold resolve to make her steal nothing but my most spectacular failures.

I was eight months pregnant, suffocating inside a gilded cage for ten long years. My marriage to Ethan Vanderbilt was nothing but a cold, calculated transaction. His family paid for my little brother Leo's experimental, life-saving medicine, and in return, I endured Ethan's endless parade of mistresses and his cruel, dismissive taunts. My only flicker of hope, a fragile, dangerous thing in that house, was the life growing inside me. Then, a blinding flash of red on the road. A blaring horn too late. Tiffany Hayes, Ethan' s latest social media darling, caused the crash. I fumbled for my phone, fingers slick with something warm, gasping his name: "Ethan, accident! The baby..." His voice was cold, impatient, as Tiffany's giggle echoed in the background: "Don't be such an attention-seeker." He hung up. In the sterile hospital room, amidst the quiet hum of machines, the doctor' s words were a death knell: "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Vanderbilt. The baby… he didn't make it. Stillborn." My world shattered into a million pieces. Then, my phone rang again, pulling me deeper into the abyss. It was Dr. Ramirez. Due to Ethan's malicious disruption of payments, Leo' s condition had deteriorated rapidly. "He passed away an hour ago, Sarah." My brother. My son. Both gone. Numbness, a heavy blanket, descended. But then, a video message buzzed on my phone: Ethan and Tiffany, hours after the accident, laughing, kissing. "Sarah? She's probably just milking it for sympathy," Ethan slurred from the screen. The casual cruelty of it, the utter, monstrous indifference, curdled my grief into bitter resolve. How could any man be so devoid of a soul? How could a lifetime of sacrifice end in such devastating, calculated malice? That night, something inside me broke free. My baby would be buried in the Vanderbilt plot as was his right. But Leo? His ashes would come home with me. I wasn't just escaping a marriage. I was reclaiming my very soul, leaving the ashes of a destroyed life behind.

I clutched the USB drive, halfway to Havenwood's town hall, rehearsing the speech that would expose GlobalCorp's ruthless fracking operation and save our community. Suddenly, the ground bucked violently, an unnatural tremor that tore through the town, confirming my worst fears. Before the dust could even settle, Mrs. Henderson's shriek pierced the din, echoing across the shattered town square: "It's her! Sarah Miller! She did this!" My adoptive father, the Mayor, looked at me with dawning horror, not for my safety, but for his failing reputation, while my brother Ethan's expression solidified into something cold and unrecognizable. Even Mark, my Mark, the boy who'd promised me forever, was already by Veronica Hayes's side, his arm protectively around her, refusing to meet my desperate gaze. They twisted my desperate attempt to force an investigation into GlobalCorp's inherently flawed safety equipment into an act of "eco-terrorism," blaming me for the town's destruction and even framing me for a beloved librarian's tragic death. The angry mob surged, so my own family shoved me towards the outskirts, leaving me no choice but to flee Havenwood, branded its monster, its ungrateful scapegoat. How could they so easily believe I, who had tirelessly tried to protect them, was capable of such malevolent destruction, completely ignoring the crucial proof I held in my hand? For months, I existed in the shadows, a ghost haunted by the bitter taste of betrayal and the crushing agony of a truth no one would hear, my life utterly destroyed. But a reclusive, Pulitzer-winning journalist, Alistair Finch, found me and called a fateful town hall meeting, promising to finally reveal Havenwood's full, devastating truth. Tonight, I, Sarah Miller, the one they cast out and branded a traitor, will finally return, not as a broken fugitive, but ready to expose the real villain and reclaim my story as the defiant heir to the formidable Vance Justice Foundation.

My engagement party, the culmination of five years poured into Ethan Cartwright and our future, was supposed to be my fairy tale. But hiding on the terrace, his voice, cold and dismissive, echoed through the night: "Sarah? She's perfect. Adorably naive, utterly devoted. She won't rock the boat. Won't challenge me. And she certainly won't interfere with Isabelle." The words hit like stones, shattering my world and sending me tumbling into darkness. I woke up with amnesia, the doctor explaining recent memories were gone – Ethan's name meant nothing. But this man, a stranger, kept pushing me, forcing me into public appearances purely for his convenience. At his gala, his actual lover, Isabelle, deliberately pushed me down a grand staircase. I learned later that fall cost me a baby I never knew I carried – *his* baby. Yet, he showed zero concern. Instead, Ethan demanded I issue a public apology for "attacking" Isabelle, threatening to annul our engagement on grounds of mental instability and destroy my family's business if I refused. A man I couldn't even remember was trying to ruin my life, dismissing my pain and accusing me of deceit. The amnesia, meant as a curse, became my liberation. Looking into his empty eyes, I finally spoke, my voice steady: "This is the last thing I will ever do for you. Consider our ties severed." I walked away, leaving behind a life I could no longer remember, eager for a new beginning in Chicago with someone whose warmth offered a fragile promise – Noah Evans.

My sister, Lily, was dying. Leukemia, rare and aggressive. Only an experimental bone marrow transplant could save her, costing seventy-five thousand dollars. Insurance called it "experimental," so they wouldn't cover it. I worked double shifts at the grimy diner, counting every dollar of my meager tips. It was never enough for Lily. Then Jess, my flashy old high school friend, showed up. She had an "unconventional" job, she said, with "huge pay." A vigil for a dying man, Adam Blackwood, a wealthy recluse in rural Louisiana. They needed a "pure-hearted young woman," a virgin, to perform "comforting rites" for his soul's passage. And a "discreet examination" afterwards, to confirm my "commitment." One hundred thousand dollars. More than enough for Lily. Despite a creeping unease, Lily’s pale face flashed in my mind. I took the thirty thousand upfront, let Jess drive me to the massive, gothic plantation. Mr. Blackwood was cold, Mrs. Blackwood tearfully obsessed with my "purity." They immediately took my phone, locking me alone in a dimly lit room with "Adam." He lay still, impossibly sedated, his breathing shallow, his pupils constricted pinpoints. He wasn't dying naturally. He was being drugged. The chilling truth slammed into me: this wasn't a ritual. The "pure-hearted" vigil? A calculated farce. "Adam" wasn't dying of illness; he was being systematically poisoned. And he wasn't Adam Blackwood at all. He was Ben Carter, an FBI agent, deep undercover in an antiquities smuggling ring. I was the perfect scapegoat, framed to take the fall for his impending "death." Jess, my friend, had sold me out, a willing accomplice in their deadly deception. Trapped, utterly betrayed, and staring down a dangerous criminal conspiracy, Lily's money no longer mattered. Now, it was about survival. I had to save Ben, expose the Blackwoods, and fight my way out of a nightmare.

She was an arrogant and spoiled lady, born with a silver spoon in her mouth. However, there was a secret behind her identity. He was a rising star in the business world. In just five years, the whole city was under his control. In order to achieve her goal, she provoked him and set him up. But when she tried to seduce him, she was frightened by his coldness. The moment she was about to run away, she was pulled into his arms. He landed an aggressive kiss on her lips.

When Tabitha was just about to graduate from high school, her father sold her to Boris, one of the most powerful businessmen in the world. He agreed to marry her just so his family would be pleased, but his coldness drove her away. Eventually, he realized he had fallen for her innocence and sweetness and tried to win her heart. However, she was not convinced of his love. But Boris was undeterred. He was determined to make her fall in love with him - whatever the cost.

My husband, the Outfit’s most feared Consigliere, stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. He had just convinced a jury that Sofia Moretti was innocent. But we both knew the truth: Sofia had poisoned my mother over a spilled martini on her Valentino dress. Instead of comforting me, Dante looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "If you make a scene," he whispered, gripping my arm until it bruised, "I will bury you in a psychiatric ward so deep even God won't find you." To protect the Family alliance, he sacrificed his wife. When I tried to fight back, he drugged me at a gala. He let a private investigator take photos of me, naked and unconscious, just to have leverage to keep me silent. He paraded Sofia around our penthouse, letting her wear my dead mother’s shawl while I was banished to the staff quarters. He thought he had broken me. He thought I was just a nurse’s daughter he could manage. But he made a fatal error. He didn't read the "committal forms" I handed him to sign. They were divorce papers, transferring his assets to me. And the night of the yacht party, while he toasted to his victory with my mother's killer, I left my wedding ring on the deck. I didn't jump to die. I jumped to be reborn. And when I resurfaced, I made sure Dante Russo burned for every sin.

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

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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

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.

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.*

My grandfather sold me to a man named Maverick to settle his gambling debts. I stood on the private platform at Union Station, a human payment waiting to be collected. But he never came. An hour later, his assistant called to say the deal was off. I was told to disappear by morning or face the consequences. My family blamed me for their ruin and threw me out onto the street. Homeless and disowned, I had no choice but to take a low-level job at Prosperity Group, the biggest investment firm in Chicago. I needed to survive. I never understood why he rejected me. I had followed every rule, worn the red dress he demanded, and waited like a lamb for slaughter. Why would he agree to save my family only to destroy us at the last second? On my first day, I was called into the CEO's office. The man behind the desk was Damien Maddox, the city's most ruthless billionaire. He looked at me with a chilling familiarity. He was the man who had bought me. And he was the man who had thrown me away.

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

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

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