Maverick

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."

I woke up in my husband's office to a chilling discovery. Stamped across my face in bold, red letters was "USDA PRIME"-a cruel joke from his intern, Karma. But my husband, Josiah, the man whose tech empire I helped build, didn't defend me. He called it a harmless prank and shielded his mistress from my rage. The humiliation was broadcast for the world to see. He then gave her my custom anniversary gown and took her to a charity gala. As if that wasn't enough, she announced she was pregnant with his child. He chose her. He chose their new "family" over our seven years of marriage, over the memory of the child we lost together. The look he gave her, full of a tenderness I hadn't seen in years, shattered the last piece of my heart. So as he walked out the door with her, my lawyers walked in. At the next board meeting, I watched the color drain from his face as I froze every asset to his name. "Sign the divorce papers, Josiah," I said, pushing a pen across the table. "My responsibility now is to clean house."

My boyfriend Jax and I were San Francisco's golden couple, our futures perfectly intertwined. Then his long-lost half-sister, Cinda, arrived, and he began choosing her endless, manufactured crises over me. The night my restaurant caught fire, he abandoned me in the smoke to comfort a whimpering Cinda. "Can't you handle your own drama for once?" he sneered, as my life's work burned. He left me to nearly drown, accused me of faking a concussion after Cinda pushed me down the stairs, and called my pain a pathetic game for attention. I couldn't understand how the man I had loved since high school could become so monstrous. I thought I had lost him to her. But then I overheard his confession. Cinda was just a pawn, a tool he was using to "teach me a lesson" and ensure I'd come crawling back. In that moment, my heartbreak turned to ice. He hadn't just betrayed me; he had proven our entire love story was a lie.

They call me the "invisible wife," the domestic servant with a title. For eighteen years, I played the role of the weak, submissive Luna to my Alpha husband, Anthony. But the scent of overripe peaches and another wolf's musk on his custom suit shattered my illusion. He wasn't just cheating; he was popping illegal Bond-Blockers to numb our sacred connection, hiding his betrayal while I catered to his every whim. Desperate for the truth, I tracked him to the Moonlight Hotel. I expected to find him in bed with his mistress, Katia. I didn't expect to hear my own teenage son, Jacob, laughing with them. "Mom is just a human in a wolf's skin," he sneered through the door. "I'm ashamed she's my mother. Katia is what a real Luna looks like." His words cut deeper than any blade. They mocked my lack of scent. They called me a defect. They didn't know the jagged scar on my chest exists because I poured my entire essence into Jacob's dying lungs the night he was born. I became "weak" solely to keep him alive. And this is how they repay me? By plotting to replace me with the woman spending my inheritance? They want a powerful Luna? They're about to get one. I wiped my tears and looked in the mirror, my hazel eyes flashing a blinding, predatory silver. The White Wolf has been dormant for sixteen years, but tonight, at the Pack Gala, she wakes up to hunt.

For ten years, my world had revolved around Mark. I went to his lavish engagement party to finally cauterize the wound, to watch him promise his life to another woman and force myself to move on. Then the music stopped. The massive crystal chandelier above us wasn't just glittering anymore; it was groaning, its supports severed, plummeting directly towards the center of the room. It was aimed at Mark and his fiancée. In that last, heart-stopping second, Mark's survival instincts kicked in. He shoved her, his future wife, hard. She stumbled sideways, out of the path of destruction. He didn't even look at me. He left me standing alone, rooted to the spot, staring up at my own glittering death. But I wasn't crushed. An arm like iron wrapped around my waist, yanking me back as the world exploded in a crash of metal and glass. My savior was a stranger, a man with eyes like a storm. He looked down at me in the wreckage and said, "That was an attempt on my life. You were just collateral damage." Before I could even process his words, my phone rang. It was my father, his voice choked with despair. Our family's small business, our entire livelihood, had just been financially ruined. My savior, the man who'd just saved my life, looked at my stricken face. "That was also me," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. "I control your family's debt. Marry me, and I will save them."

The silence in our house was heavy, broken only by the sound of my husband' s brother being lowered into the ground. A month later, the silence was replaced by something worse. My brother-in-law' s widow, Falon, was pregnant, and my husband, Cyrus, decided she was moving in with us. "It' s for the baby, Kelsey," he said, his voice flat. He didn't look at me. He was looking at Falon, who stood by the door with her single suitcase, looking pale and fragile. "She needs support. It' s my brother' s child." I watched as Falon slowly, subtly, began to take over my life. She' d wait outside the bathroom with a fresh towel for Cyrus, claiming it was habit. She' d knock on our bedroom door late at night, feigning nightmares, pulling Cyrus away for hours of "comfort." The breaking point came when I heard Cyrus massaging her swollen feet, just as her late husband used to. I dropped the knife I was holding. It clattered against the counter. I wanted to hear Cyrus say no. I wanted him to tell her that was inappropriate, that I was his wife. Instead, I heard his low, soothing voice. "Of course, Falon. Just put them up here." I had given up everything for him, becoming a "pick-me" girl, constantly seeking his approval. Now, watching him cater to her every whim, I realized I didn't even recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror. That night, I called my father. "Dad," I said, my voice shaking. "I want a divorce."

The sterile hospital smell was the last thing I remembered. I was Ava, a successful architect, and I was dying. Through a morphine haze, I heard my husband, Liam, and his identical twin brother, Ethan. "Is she gone yet?" Ethan asked coldly. "Almost," Liam replied, his voice devoid of love. Then Chloe' s voice, sharp and satisfied: "She heard us talking about the miscarriage." My heart seized. My baby. The baby they called a tragic accident. "It was for the best," Liam said. "She was never meant to be the mother of my child. You are, Chloe." A wave of nausea and horror washed over me. "And the hysterectomy?" Ethan asked. "Are you sure it' s done?" Dr. Anderson confirmed it, Liam said. Complications. I' d never carry a child again. My world dissolved. They' d not only betrayed me but orchestrated the death of my child and the end of my womanhood. All for Chloe. Then, nothing. Until I opened my eyes again. I was in my wedding gown, in my wedding bed. Liam walked out of the bathroom, that devastating smile now making my stomach turn. He was an actor, and I had been his most captive audience. I remembered the whispers from my deathbed: the cold, calculated cruelty. This beautiful monster had shared me with his brother. I had died and come back, armed with the terrible truth. The man who had pledged his life to me had been orchestrating my destruction. My baby, my womanhood, my very life-all sacrificed for a twisted game. How could this be real? Why was I back? A new resolve settled in my soul. I wouldn't just survive this wedding night; I would be the architect of their destruction.

The pre-IPO party buzzed with champagne and a decade of my unwavering devotion to Sarah Jenkins and Nexus AI. Tomorrow, everything would change. I saw Sarah across the room, radiant, untouchable, the woman who had promised, "Once the company goes public, Alex, we'll get married." Then I heard her voice, casual, dismissive: "Alex? He's been with me for ten years. I'll definitely take care of him." My world shattered when her tone softened, almost reverent, as she whispered another name: "Ethan Thorne... I want to marry him." Ethan Thorne. Not me. Not the man who' d poured his soul into her dreams, selling his own passion projects to fund her first seed money, holding her while she cried, believing it was "us against the world." The pain was a physical weight. She called me "tarnished," "not pure," because I'd fought by her side in the trenches. I was a "tool to be discarded" now that she was at the top. In a desperate, broken rage, I smashed her laptop, the screen reflecting her chilling calm, her utter disinterest in my anguish. "You're scaring Ethan," she said, her voice sharp, as if my agony was an inconvenience. Then, a grainy video arrived on my phone: Sarah, tied to a chair, a distorted voice threatening, "Your girl for your loyalty, Alex Miller. Come to the old shipyard. Alone." Despite the betrayal, the pain, the disgust she' d shown, my instincts screamed. I had to go. One last time, I would save her.

Five years ago, I had it all – a loving family, a bright future as an architect, and a secret husband, Ryan Stone, who promised me the world. Our wedding day was supposed to be perfect, but it became my living nightmare when his assistant, Sarah, walked down the aisle instead, announcing she had married Ryan yesterday. Sarah publicly branded me a mistress, even as I stood there, eight months pregnant, and then she turned on my parents, respected marriage counselors, callously calling my mother a hypocrite and me a slut. Ryan, my supposed husband, stood in the shadows, watching, his face a mask of cold indifference, as my entire world shattered. The truth later exposed Ryan' s cruel revenge: his family believed my lawyer mother had driven Sarah' s mother to suicide, and he meticulously planned to destroy my family as a twisted retaliation. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: my mother died from a heart attack, reading hateful online comments that called her a whore; my father, finding her, fell and became a quadriplegic. Ryan wasn' t done; he ensured my master' s degree and university diploma were revoked, labeling me a manipulative homewrecker and leaving me with nothing but my premature son, Ethan. Now, five years later, Ryan Stone is back, claiming he wants to fix what he broke, but for me, some things can only be survived, not fixed. To keep my father alive and Ethan' s heart condition managed, I' ve become Mr. Davis' s "sugar daddy" accessory, enduring humiliation for their survival. Tonight, at the club, Ryan saw me, and just when I thought I could escape his gaze, an old acquaintance, Mark Henderson, cornered me, mocking my fall from grace. Ryan intervened, asking, "Is this the life you chose, Chloe?", then watched as Mr. Davis, asserting his ownership, forced me to drink an entire glass of whiskey as a public display of submission. Then, at the hospital, when Ethan' s condition worsened and my funds ran out, Ryan offered hope, money for Ethan' s life-saving treatment, but at a price: I had to leave Davis and marry him. He confessed his twisted revenge, but my heart remained cold, especially after his actions led directly to my father' s death, triggering Ethan' s heart transplant. After Ethan' s successful surgery, the monster Ryan had become, now also my protector, prepared a second wedding, a new beginning for us, but it was on this day that Ethan' s body catastrophically rejected the new heart. He died in my arms, and my world ended, not with a bang, but a chilling silence, leaving me with a hatred so profound, it promised a new, solitary freedom.

"I have two requests." My voice was steadier than I expected, the phone heavy in my hand. Liam' s impatient sigh cut through the line. "Chloe, what the hell is this? We' re not anything anymore." I told him I was dying, a brain tumor. "I' ve chosen to end things on my own terms. Medically assisted." His response chilled me. "You' re lying. You' re doing this to ruin things for me. You always had a flair for the dramatic." The name Liam, once whispered in my sleep, now tasted like ash. My parents were gone, leaving me truly alone. Then, there they were: Liam and Bethany, my ex-fiancé and my former best friend, at our old restaurant. His smile vanished when he saw me, replaced by pure disgust. Bethany clung to him, her diamond sparkling. "We finally set the date!" she gushed. "October twenty-fifth!" My birthday. The day I was scheduled to die. I discovered the bitter truth in a dark cinema: Liam and Bethany' s affair began months before our breakup, a brutal betrayal hidden beneath his carefully crafted lies. He had not just left me; he had cheated, then let me blame myself. I confronted him, wounded by his callous admission: "It was easier that way. Less messy." He saw me as a drama queen, not a dying woman. He brought me to a hospital, still oblivious, convinced my collapse was hysterics. His final humiliation: demanding I pick songs for their wedding, his attempt to buy my silence for a thousand dollars. He hung up before I could refuse. He had left me no choice. I had to witness the depths of their betrayal, the audacity of Bethany' s wedding gift-a game console inspired by my intellectual property, inscribed with their wedding date, October 25th. It was a final, cruel twist of the knife, designed to erase me. But I had one final play. I would ensure Liam, the man who destroyed my life, would be there for its end. And I would deliver my final message, not in words, but in ashes, on his wedding day.

For three years, I painted by day and worked dead-end jobs by night, all to fund my brilliant musician husband, David, battling a rare illness. My latest sacrifice was night shifts at the Sterling Art Gallery-dangerous, but it paid for his experimental treatments. Then, a laugh drifted from a private room, strong and vibrant, just like David's, but not the weak one I knew. "You should have seen her face, Em," he chuckled, "She actually believes I need that new 'serum' from Switzerland. Another fifty grand, just like that." My world shattered as Emily, his childhood friend, replied, "Three years of this, and she still thinks you're a poor, dying musician." He gloated about this "brilliant plan" to exploit me, calling marrying me his "biggest mistake," all while planning to use our unborn child as his "ticket out." Before I could process the monstrous truth, the gallery was raided; my mother, bringing me soup, was brutally thrown, her head striking a pedestal. David and Emily, seeing everything from their sleek black car, simply drove away, leaving me and my dying mother. He arrived at the hospital later, weaving a masterful performance of a worried husband. As he reached for my hand, the nurse delivered the fatal blow: my mother was gone. Then Emily waltzed in, lilies in hand, cooing fake sympathy before flaunting a photo of her and David, with a caption solidifying their "true love." A rich male friend tossed hundreds onto my blanket, "For your trouble. Should be enough to cover a funeral for whatever working-class family you came from." My grief calcified into icy rage. "Assault, robbery, and accessory to murder," I stated calmly, "And you know, it's amazing what a security camera in a high-end gallery can pick up. Even the sound. I'm sure the police will be very interested in the recording of my husband and his mistress discussing three years of felony fraud just before the 'robbery' happened." Silence fell. He had underestimated me. I lost everything-my mother, my husband, my baby that would never be. But in losing everything, I had nothing left to fear. "You want me to sell my grandmother's apartment? Fine. But not for us. For me. You will transfer five hundred thousand dollars into my personal bank account. Today." I hung up, laying a trap.

The sterile beep of the heart monitor was the last sound Olivia heard as her 20-year-old son, Michael, stood by her hospital bed, relaying her husband Daniel' s chilling message: it was time to let her go. Then, with a barely perceptible tremor, Michael' s hand reached for the life support plug, while Daniel and his mistress, Sophia, were already celebrating her impending demise. She watched, a disembodied consciousness, as Daniel entered her hospital room, not with grief, but with a flicker of relief, before he called Sophia, his voice warm and affectionate, planning to "celebrate" Olivia' s death. The betrayal was an icy vise around what remained of her spectral heart; her husband and son had conspired to murder her, turning her entire life into a hollow lie, and an intense, primal rage left her silently screaming for another chance, for justice. Suddenly, Olivia' s eyes snapped open to the sunlight of her own apartment, 25 years younger, her mother' s cheerful voice on the phone reminding her of Daniel and their wedding, now just one month away.

Pregnant again, my belly fluttering with tiny hope, I poured every spare penny into Mark’s dream – a cozy bookstore. This wasn't just a business; it was our stable future, a safe haven for our child. My world shattered at a charity auction, tucked away behind velvet curtains. "She's so naive," Jessica Albright's sharp laugh cut through the air, revealing Mark's twisted "poverty test." The "Ashton millions" meant his struggling entrepreneur act was a meticulously crafted lie, and I was merely a pawn in his cruel charade. My fervent sacrifice, my grueling extra shifts, my deepest hopes – all a calculated game. He watched me give him my last dollar, then casually lied about a new expensive jacket. He demanded I cook for Jessica, even when morning sickness wracked my body, completely disregarding my pain. She deliberately stained my cherished, hand-knitted baby sweater, calling it "cheap" with a contemptuous smirk. He prioritized his "friend" over my well-being, barely glancing up when I ran to vomit. The final, suffocating proof came when I saw him switch from a sleek luxury car to his old "beater" just before picking me up. Every single part of my life with him was a lie. I was a clown, a devoted fool in his elaborate, poisonous deception. How could I have been so blind? My precious baby, my body, ensnared in this vile web of deceit. My heart felt like a stone, the warmth I once held for him replaced by chilling emptiness, a gnawing sense of betrayal. This child couldn't be born into such toxicity. Lying in a hospital bed after collapsing from the sheer stress, I overheard him confessing to Jessica that he only felt "a bit bad" about what he’d done. That pathetic admission was enough. The last thread holding my shattered world together snapped with icy finality. I looked at his feigned concern, my eyes empty, and spoke: "I want a divorce, Mark."

Sarah Jenkins, a baker with cinnamon-scented hands, was deeply in love with Ethan Montgomery, the heir to an opulent empire. He filled her world with promises, passion, and the unwavering belief they would build their own life, far from his family's suffocating expectations. But the Montgomery family had an unbreakable rule: their heir must marry for power and wealth, not love. Suddenly, Ethan was forced into an engagement with the sophisticated Victoria Davenport, leaving Sarah with only one plea: "Wait for me." That word became a relentless torment as Victoria, Ethan's vengeful fiancée, systematically sought to destroy Sarah. She staged cruel public humiliations, shattered Sarah’s most cherished heirloom, and skillfully framed her with false accusations. Ethan, trapped in an escalating web of family pressure and Victoria's schemes, repeatedly chose complacency, allowing his family to mock and even imprison Sarah. He stood by, a silent, complicit witness, even pushing Sarah himself when Victoria feigned a dramatic "accident." How could the man who promised to move mountains betray her so completely, reducing her to a hidden secret, constantly asked to just "wait"? Each forced "wait" chipped away at Sarah's soul, leaving her heartbroken and utterly alone in their gilded cage. But Sarah wasn't waiting anymore; shattered yet resolute, she quietly vanished, reclaiming her life and building a new one far from his toxic world. Years later, a broken Ethan, his family in ruins and Victoria’s deceptions exposed, finally came searching, begging for forgiveness and a second chance. He even nearly died saving her during a devastating flood. Yet, Sarah, now a strong woman forged by pain, firmly looked him in the eye. She refused his desperate plea, choosing an authentic, peaceful future over the never-ending charade of his world. She left Ethan to drown in the consequences of his own choices, forever haunted by the love he destroyed.

I was just a struggling artist in Brooklyn, and he was the amnesiac I found beaten in an alley – just "Alex." We fell deeply in love, building a life on whispered dreams and cheap coffee, a bond that felt truly unbreakable. But then his memory returned, and my gentle Alex vanished, replaced by Alexander Sterling III, a cold, ruthless heir. He discarded me like trash, his mother paid me off to disappear, and his cruel world, with his chillingly silent consent, shattered my artist's hand. I watched the man I loved stand by as they destroyed me, wondering how a heart could turn so utterly indifferent. Broken but not defeated, I used the 'hush money' to rebuild myself in Paris, emerging five years later as a renowned sculptor, alongside a man who truly cherished me. My renewed happiness, however, ignited a terrifying obsession in Alex, unleashing a horrifying wave of vengeance on everyone he perceived to have wronged me-or so he twistedly claimed. He thought this brutal "justice" would finally win me back, but all it revealed was the true, monstrous stranger the man I loved had become.

In the year Bryan loved me the most, I hooked up with a wealthy man and dumped him. He swore he would make me regret it. When we met again, he had become a powerful business tycoon. Everyone knew he had an ex-girlfriend he despised. He said, "She should just die; a woman like her doesn't deserve to live in this world!" He didn't know that I had a terminal illness. I didn't have long to live.

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

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

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

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

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

When I was eight, Dante Moretti pulled me from the fire that killed my family. For ten years, the powerful crime boss was my protector and my god. Then, he announced his engagement to another woman to unite two criminal empires. He brought her home and named her the future mistress of the Moretti family. In front of everyone, his fiancée forced a cheap metal collar around my neck, calling me their pet. Dante knew I was allergic. He just watched, his eyes cold, and ordered me to take it. That night, I listened through the walls as he took her to his bed. I finally understood the promise he’d made me as a child was a lie. I wasn't his family. I was his property. After a decade of devotion, my love for him finally turned to ash. So on his birthday, the day he celebrated his new future, I walked out of his gilded cage for good. A private jet was waiting to take me to my real father—his greatest enemy.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

Elora Griffiths was on her way to drop her daughter off at school when her husband's enemies opened fire in the street. The bodyguard her husband had personally assigned to protect them abandoned the car the instant the shots rang out. Mother and daughter were hit multiple times, teetering on the brink of death. Elora frantically called her husband, Rodger Griffiths, but he didn't answer. Her brother, Hugh Dale, arrived just in time and saved them both. "How could this happen? Didn't Rodger assign someone to protect you?" Hugh asked. Elora sobbed uncontrollably, "The bodyguard ran away!" On the way to the hospital, Elora kept trying Rodger's number, desperate. One call after another... Finally, on the ninety-ninth attempt, the line connected. On the other end was the female bodyguard, trembling, her voice barely holding back tears. "Rodger, it's really not my fault! There were so many assassins. I would've died if I tried to stop them! I was so scared..." Elora held her breath, waiting for her husband's wrath to thunder down. But Rodger just sighed. "Forget it. The important thing is you're safe," he said. Meanwhile, Elora's daughter took her last breath in her arms. The pain was suffocating. She held her daughter close as her body went cold and stiff, teeth gritted in fury, "Hugh, I'm divorcing him! I'll cut off every single arms shipment to the Griffiths family from the largest arms company in Crownport!"

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

For nine years, I was the perfect mafia wife. I laundered Marcus Thorne’s money through my design firm, smiled at his dinners, and ignored the lipstick stains on his collars. I believed in the Omertà of our marriage. I thought my loyalty was my armor. I was wrong. On the night of our anniversary gala, a car lost control and barreled straight toward us in the parking lot. Marcus didn't look at me. Not once. He lunged for his mistress, Izzy, tackling her to safety behind a concrete pillar. I was left standing in the open. The impact threw me like a ragdoll. I lay bleeding on the cold asphalt, my body broken, watching through the haze as my husband frantically checked his mistress for scratches. "My ankle," she whimpered. Without a backward glance, he picked her up and carried her to his limousine, leaving me to bleed out on the pavement. He didn't leave me because he panicked. He left me because I was just a shield he used to protect what he actually loved. As darkness crept in, a shadow fell over me. It wasn't Marcus. It was Julian Croft, his sworn rival. I looked at the empty spot where my husband should have been and made a choice. "Get me to the hospital," I rasped, staring into the eyes of the enemy. "And then help me burn his empire to the ground."