Mo Xiaoxiao

The fire that melted my skin should have been the end of my story. I had been the perfect mafia wife. I obeyed my father, I married Dante Genovese, and I even birthed his daughter. But in return, he locked us in a safehouse and lit a match. He watched from behind a steel door as I burned to ash, all because his mistress, Sofia, was jealous and wanted me out of the picture. My own brother had spiked my champagne to ensure I was too weak to fight back. I died screaming, my lungs filling with smoke and the scent of my husband's betrayal. But when I gasped awake, I wasn't in hell. I was in the bridal suite at the Ritz-Carlton. My hands were smooth. My skin was unblemished. The date on the digital clock burned red in the darkness. It was three years ago. It was the night of our engagement. The night it all began. Dante was in the bathroom right now, humming contentedly as he washed off the scent of his mistress before coming to claim his "lawful prize." In my past life, I waited for him. I let him take me, thinking my submission would earn his love. Not this time. I didn't run to the lobby for help. My family had sold me out. Instead, I took the elevator to the Penthouse floor. To the territory of the Outfit. To the door of Matteo Moretti—The Butcher. The only man ruthless enough to make Dante tremble. When the door opened, revealing a man with eyes like ice and a gun in his hand, I didn't flinch. I fell to my knees and looked up at the monster who could save me. "I am Elena Vitiello," I whispered, the drug in my veins setting my blood on fire. "And I have a proposition."

For four years, I played the perfect, naive, low-income wife to my wealthy husband Duke, completely hiding my true identity as a top-secret DARPA scientist. On our anniversary, I discovered he was having an affair with an old-money socialite named Adelia. He used our marital assets to buy her a half-million-dollar Birkin bag, but that wasn't the worst part. While hiding in a parking garage, I recorded him telling his mistress that the daily prenatal vitamins he lovingly gave me were actually high-dose contraceptives. He had secretly sterilized me to ensure I would never produce a "low-class" heir, planning to toss me aside with a tiny settlement in six months. When I confronted him, he violently attacked me, smashed my head against a marble dresser, and locked me in our bedroom. I thought of the four years I spent crying in doctors' offices, blaming my own body for my infertility, while he held my hand and comforted me with perfect, monstrous concern. I didn't wait to be punished. I climbed down the second-story balcony in the dark, leaving behind every diamond and luxury bag he had ever given me. Sitting in the back of a taxi, I wiped the blood from my forehead and opened a secure app on my phone. "Divorce fraud. Initiate sequence." It was time for him to finally meet Dr. Patterson.

I died on a modern battlefield, only to wake up in the body of a "wolfless" noble girl named Kimberley Oliver. Before I could even process my transmigration, a heavy weight crushed my ribs. My greedy aunt had drugged my tea and paid a filthy street thug to ruin my innocence in the dead of night. She wanted to stage a scandalous scene so my betrothed, the Crown Prince, could legally tear up our royal marriage pact. I used my operative instincts to shatter my attackers' bones and turn the trap against them. But when the Prince arrived, he didn't care about the truth. Looking at my frail, powerless body, he refused to believe a cripple could defend herself. "I will personally petition the King tomorrow morning to dissolve our royal betrothal. Clear out this filth." He looked at me with pure disgust and mercilessly annulled our engagement on the spot. In this werewolf kingdom, being born without an inner beast made you lower than dirt. My predecessor had lived her entire life terrified, bullied, and was ultimately murdered in the dark by her own family while everyone watched. But I am not that fragile, weeping orphan anymore. I escaped the estate, broke into a quarantined tavern, and robbed the kingdom's most terrifying, paralyzed Lycan warlord blind—taking his gold, his royal cloak, and a ratty handkerchief that made him scream in agony. Every single debt they owe her, I am collecting in blood.

He abandoned me at the altar. I chose his uncle instead. Kole Stone was ten minutes late to our bonding ceremony. Then his secretary, Brenna Rose, walked down the aisle and announced that he had chosen her. In front of hundreds of werewolves, I became the bride who had been publicly humiliated - and the alliance my pack had spent years building collapsed in an instant. I could have cried. I could have walked away. Instead, I looked at the Alpha King sitting among the Black Moon Pack. Gannon Stone. Kole's uncle. The most powerful Alpha in the room. Something inside me stirred the moment our eyes met, a strange pull I couldn't explain. And when I offered him a way to turn the ruined ceremony into a new alliance, he accepted without hesitation. I thought I was choosing him to save my pack and reclaim my dignity. Then his fingers closed around mine, and his golden eyes darkened. "I am no one's replacement. From this moment on, you belong to me." I thought I was taking control of my life. I had no idea I was stepping straight into the hands of the Alpha King.

Kara Sexton was the illegitimate daughter of the Sexton family, forced into a PR marriage with the disabled Benton heir as a disposable placeholder. But on the night before she was supposed to sign the divorce papers, her stepmother drugged her. She woke up in a stranger's hotel bed, stripped of her dignity and her late mother's precious silver locket. Terrified, she fled back to her toxic family, only to face their relentless cruelty. Her stepsister, Emilia—who had secretly refused the marriage because of the groom's injured leg—conspired to publicly humiliate Kara at their grandmother's birthday banquet. They framed her with a counterfeit designer gown and accused her of selling her body to a sugar daddy to afford her stunning appearance. "Where did you get that kind of money? Dare you deny that some old man gave you these things to show off with tonight?" Her own father and grandmother watched with cold disdain, ready to cast her out like garbage. Kara looked at these blood relatives who had stolen her dowry, pushed her into a loveless marriage, and were now trying to destroy her reputation. They thought she was just a weak, uneducated girl from the countryside who would silently swallow their abuse. They were wrong. Kara calmly summoned the original designer to expose her sister's fake dress, tossed a thirty-million-dollar priceless emerald on the table, and publicly ripped away the family's hypocritical mask. She didn't need their charity, and she was done playing the victim. And as she walked away from the ruined Sexton family, Domenick Benton—the billionaire stranger from that night—finally locked onto his target.

She kissed a stranger to spite her cheating fiancé. Now the stranger has requested her by name. Iris Sullivan is nothing but a bargaining chip to her adoptive parents, who are determined to marry her off to a wealthy heir. At a masquerade ball, she catches her fiancé with another woman and, in a moment of cold rebellion, drags a masked stranger into a reckless kiss. He kisses her back with brutal intensity, sees straight through her bravado, and leaves her humiliated and breathless. The next day, she learns the stranger's possible identity: Camden Kirk, a paralyzed billionaire recluse rumored to destroy anyone who crosses him. The problem? The man on the balcony stood tall and walked. The man in the wheelchair cannot. Iris can't prove the connection, but the scent of winter cedar that clings to Camden is unmistakable-and now he's personally requested her for an interview. Camden Kirk doesn't grant interviews. He's chosen her for something else entirely.

My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend. From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down." That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny. But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded. I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said." Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off." My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers. I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal. Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing. As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury. In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho." How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me? Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault? Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred? I would not be his victim. Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done. I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties. This was not an escape; this was my rebirth. Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.

I was the "crazy girl" my family sent to a survivalist commune in Utah to rot. Four years later, I returned to Manhattan with a titanium USB drive and a heart full of ice, ready to blackmail the one man who could burn my family to the ground. But I underestimated how much they hated me. My fiancé, Preston, was already laundering money through my inheritance and sleeping with my replacement. He didn't even flinch when I showed him the evidence of his crimes. Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders, smashed my phone, and shoved me out of his moving Lincoln into a midnight storm. I hit the wet pavement hard, my knees scraping against the asphalt as I watched him drive away, laughing about how I was a "dirt-poor exile" that nobody wanted. Within minutes, my credit cards were flagged as stolen and my father’s lawyers were drafting a statement calling me mentally unstable. I was left shivering in a puddle of oily sludge, wearing a ruined Chanel suit, with no money, no home, and no one to hear me scream. I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel. I was their flesh and blood, yet they treated me like a broken toy to be discarded in the trash. I was a "distressed asset" in a city that only valued gold. That’s when a black armored SUV pulled to the curb. King Wagner—the ruthless shark of Wall Street and Preston’s own uncle—looked at my muddy face with cold, calculating eyes. He didn't offer me pity; he offered me a leash. "You belong to me now," he whispered, pulling me into the dry warmth of his car. By the next morning, he had announced our engagement to the world, turning me into the very weapon that would slit my family's throat.

For three years, I played second fiddle to my boyfriend' s "childhood friend," Eve. When Damion finally whisked me away to Paris to rekindle our dying spark, I thought things might change. Instead, the moment we arrived, he abandoned me in the hotel lobby without my passport because Eve called with a "crisis." I spent my first night in Paris stranded and penniless while he rushed to comfort her. When he finally returned the next morning, he didn't apologize. He flew into a rage because I' d sought safety in an old college friend' s room, accusing me of cheating while he still smelled like her cheap perfume. He actually punched the only man who helped me, screaming that I was the toxic one. The gaslighting was the final straw. I didn't feel anger anymore, just a cold, liberating indifference. While he begged on his knees, quitting his job and promising to cut Eve off forever, I simply walked away. I boarded a plane to London for a promotion I' d once turned down for him, leaving him with nothing but his regrets and the "friend" he chose over me.

My husband made me ride in the freezing cargo hold because his mistress wanted peace and quiet. I died back there, clutching the "vitamins" she gave me, while they laughed in the front seat. It wasn't until my frozen body was found that Atlas realized he had just killed his own wife and unborn child. Ten years ago, I saved Atlas from a car crash that left me with the mind of a child. He hated me for it. He treated me like a burden and let his mistress, Kacie, feed me high-dose abortion pills disguised as health supplements. When the police uncovered the truth, Atlas' s world shattered. He discovered Kacie had never been pregnant-but I was. Consumed by a belated, violent rage, he executed Kacie with his own hands and demanded the death penalty for himself. He thought death would be his redemption. He thought he could find me on the other side and make amends. But when his spirit finally reached out to mine, begging for forgiveness, I didn't feel the love I had yearned for in life. I felt nothing. "Go away, Atlas," I whispered, watching his soul crumble. "I'm finally free."

My boss shoved me into a room to handle a VIP patient who was threatening suicide. She was Evelin Bennett, a famous fashion influencer, hysterical over her fiancé. But when she tearfully showed me a photo of the man she loved, my world shattered. It was my husband of two years, Ben, a kind construction worker I'd found after an accident left him with amnesia. Except in this photo, he was Bernard Logan, a ruthless tycoon standing in front of a skyscraper bearing his name. Just then, the real Bernard Logan walked in, dressed in a suit that cost more than my car. He strode past me as if I didn't exist and wrapped his arms around Evelin. "Baby, I'm here," he murmured, his voice the same deep, soothing tone he used on me after a bad day. "I'll never leave you again. I promise." He had made that exact promise to me a hundred times over. He kissed her forehead, declaring he loved only her-a performance for an audience of one: me. He was showing me that our entire marriage, our life together during his amnesia, was a secret to be buried. As he carried her from the room, his cold eyes met mine one last time. The message was clear: You are a problem to be erased.

For six years, I devoted my life to my wife, tech CEO Isabella Stone. After I saved her from a fire, I became the sole caregiver for her comatose mother, putting my own life on hold so she could build her empire. Then she went on national television and told the world our marriage was just a debt of gratitude. She never loved me. That same night, her mother died. I tried to call her, but her ex-fiancé—the man who abandoned her in that fire—answered the phone. She was with him, pregnant with his child, while her mother died alone in a hospital. At the funeral, she collapsed and lost the baby. Her lover screamed that it was my fault, and she stood by his side, letting him blame me. I divorced her. I thought it was over. But as we left the lawyer's office, her lover tried to run me over. Isabella pushed me out of the way, taking the hit herself. With her last breath, she confessed the truth. "The baby... he was yours, Izzy. He was always yours."

The hospital corridor smelled of disinfectant, quiet except for my wife Sarah's voice through the door. She' d claimed amnesia after a car accident, unable to remember me, her husband of five years. But what I heard next wasn't confusion. "It' s just for seven days. Then I'll say my memory came back. He can't blame a 'sick' person, right?" Mark Davis, a junior developer at our company, responded, "Aren't you worried he'll just cut you off? Financially, I mean." Sarah laughed, a chilling sound. "David? He loves me too much. He'll feel guilty and give me anything I want. This is the only way to get him to step down so you can take over the Alpha Corp project. Once you're in charge, everything will be ours." My world shattered. The woman was a stranger. The next day, Sarah, with a fake bandage, announced Mark as acting CTO, thrusting a temporary leave form at me. Everyone watched, expecting an explosion. They knew I co-founded the company, built its technical foundation from scratch. I signed the papers without a word. "Okay," I said, my voice even, leaving Sarah bewildered. Did they truly believe I was blind to their scheme? She had no idea. The Alpha Corp project, her intended prize for Mark, had a one-hundred-million-dollar penalty for failure. A seven-day time bomb she had just armed herself. This wasn't merely her plan anymore; it was mine too.

My brother, Ethan, was my whole world, the only light in a home cloaked in shadows, a world where my stepsister, Chloe, reigned supreme, pulling the strings of my father and the man I loved, Dr. Liam Miller. The call came on a Tuesday, pulling me from my mother' s art gallery, and dragging me into a family meeting that would shatter what little peace I had left. Chloe, with a chilling smile, revealed her plan: to marry me off to Noah Blackwood, a reclusive billionaire rumored to be monstrously disfigured, all to settle her own failed engagement and save my father' s crumbling finances. My world crumbled further when I realized Liam, my childhood friend, the man I had painted a thousand times in my dreams, sided with them, his eyes cold and judgmental, dismissing my pleas as "selfish." Then, with a terrifying suddenness, Ethan collapsed, his small body going limp in my arms; a horrifying consequence of an overdose of his heart medication that Chloe had orchestrated, and Liam, ever so blind, had enabled. My rage wasn't just cold anymore; it was a consuming fire, burning away years of fear and submission, leaving me with one clear thought: if I was to be a pawn, I would play this game to win, not just for Ethan' s life, but for my own freedom. I would marry Noah Blackwood, but not as their sacrifice; I would use his power to burn their world to the ground and finally claim justice.

The last thing I remembered was the bitter taste of the tea my daughter, Stella, had made for me. I died slowly, my body betraying me while my mind screamed, alone in a secluded D.C. apartment. Stella, the brilliant Yale graduate, the political commentator I had molded into a star, watched. Just a day before, her viral video had already shredded my reputation, painting me as a monster. The poison she gave me simply finished the job. Dying by the hand of your own child, the one you sacrificed everything for, is a special kind of hell. There was no confusion, only a chilling clarity as my life drained away, her cold, detached eyes the last thing I saw. How could the daughter I pushed to greatness pay me back with death and public humiliation? Was this truly the end of everything? Then, with a gasp, I woke up. The familiar smell of old wood and fried onions filled my lungs. My hands, strong and calloused, not the useless claws of my deathbed. And there she was: a seventeen-year-old Stella, rebellious and sharp, clutching that art school acceptance letter. I knew this moment. This was where the fatal battle of my first life began, the path leading directly to my murder. This time, everything would be different.

My marriage to Seraphina had rules: five years of waiting for full moons and "energetic alignment." During a raging wildfire, I found my wife, Seraphina, intimately huddled with another man, Julian, and a young boy, Leo, looking like a blissful family. She didn't care I'd discovered her betrayal; she just told me I was 'upsetting the harmony' and kicked me out of my own home. She even refused my divorce, claiming it would 'disrupt her karmic path' and then abandoned me bleeding in a cafe after I was injured saving her, to coddle a child who wasn't even hers. Was my love and sacrifice truly so worthless, so easily discarded for a life built on her curated lies and calculated manipulations? But then I saw the pictures and videos of her secret life, the raw, unhinged laughter broke free-the man who loved Seraphina was dead, and a new, free me was finally born.

Ten years with Ethan, my high school sweetheart, culminated in the diamond ring I' d always dreamed of. My engagement party buzzed with excitement, a celebration of our perfect love story. But the dream shattered when Ethan violently shoved me at the party, his voice ice-cold. Then, a scene I' ll never erase: Ethan, on our marital bed, with Chloe-my old friend, now my bitter enemy. And the chilling truth: his proposal wasn't for me at all. The ring I wore bore Chloe' s initials. Our apartment, my future, everything, was meticulously designed for her, a cruel charade. He ripped down our photos, denied my pain, and then, he slapped me, demanding I apologize to the very person destroying my world. My own parents, my mentors, had even distanced themselves, thanks to Chloe's past manipulations-all known to Ethan. I was a pawn, a placeholder in their twisted game of revenge and manipulation. How could the man who promised to love and protect me conspire with the woman who stole my art scholarship, the woman he knew was my deepest wound, to orchestrate such a public humiliation? But no more. On the very day he planned to discard me at the altar, I decided to reclaim my story. I canceled the wedding, booked a flight overseas, and exposed their entire deceitful plot to his horrified family. This wasn't an ending; it was my defiant beginning.

The sterile scent of rubbing alcohol was too familiar. For five years, I'd been pregnant with Ethan Vanderbilt’s child, only to lose them, each time beneath the gaze of his wife. This time, Olivia, his wife, stood over me, a cruel smile pasted on her face, a gleaming needle in her hand. Ethan watched from the doorway, just like always. After the screams and excruciating pain, I lost not only my baby but also my ability to ever have children again following a forced hysterectomy. The news broke my father, who leaped to his death because he couldn't bear my torment. At his funeral, Olivia forced me to my knees, then kicked me relentlessly until my surgical wounds burst, leaving me bleeding uncontrollably. She even took photos of my battered body, laughing as she suggested I sell myself to pay for his burial. Then, she deliberately scattered his ashes into the mud. How could Ethan, the man I once loved, stand by and watch me endure such depravity? Why was I trapped in this living hell, systematically tortured, robbed of my children, my body, and now my father, all based on some horrifying, unknown lie? As Olivia rained blows upon my head in the pouring rain, her hateful laughter echoing, I fumbled for my phone. There was one person who knew the true story behind Olivia’s venom, the real reason for her twisted revenge. With my last breath, I pressed record.

The story started on their first encounter. Something inside her urged Vanessa to offer him herself so that he could have a child. A beautiful story began but was cut short when she left right after a little girl was born. Four years later, he again found her in front of his eyes. But she was horrified when the little girl thought the diapers she had brought were a gift "I couldn't tell her that her mother abandoned her!" He explained. He would rather lie to his daughter than let her be disappointed in her mother. After all, he had always been sure that she would return one day!

For four years, I secretly poured my family's trust fund into the Schwartz MC, acting as the President's Old Lady and the club's private ATM. But when Daryl returned from his cross-state run, he didn't come back alone. He brought home a blonde mistress and a four-year-old boy with his exact same gray eyes. "She gave me an heir. From today on, she is the official Old Lady of this chapter." He expected me to step down to a shared club girl, demanding I stay in the grease pit to tune their bikes and pay their bills. When I cut off their vendor accounts and demanded my millions back, his family showed their true, parasitic colors. Daryl and his mother locked me inside my own heavily reinforced workshop. Through the ventilation shaft, I heard them plotting their sickening next move. They couldn't kill me because they needed my wealth and my engine patents to survive on the highway. Instead, they planned to slip tranquilizers into my water, force Daryl on me, and get me pregnant so I would be legally tied to him forever. "A woman with a baby never walks away," his mother sneered. They thought locking me in the dark would break my spirit and turn me into their obedient slave. But they had no idea they had locked me inside a fully stocked chemical armory. I grabbed the high-grade racing oxidizers and industrial solvents from my workbench. They wanted a private party tonight, so I was going to make sure they never forgot the fire.

She went to lose her virginity to her boyfriend... But woke up in his father's bed. Now, Isabella is trapped between two dangerous men- one who thinks he owns her... and one who refuses to let her go. Secrets. Desire. Betrayal. And a Mafia King who never shares what's his.

For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancé's criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Gallo’s unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne. But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: “Married this morning. She’s safe now.” My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials ‘D.I.’ didn’t stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabella—his childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love. He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabella’s fiancé, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancée is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."

My cousin Hailey paid a dock worker to assault me just to ruin my engagement. To survive the military-grade aphrodisiac she poisoned me with, I stumbled into a walk-in freezer and threw myself onto the only source of cold I could find-a man paralyzed by unnatural hypothermia. It was a desperate, primal exchange of my heat for his ice just to keep my heart from stopping. But when Hailey threw open the heavy iron door, leading my fiancé and the entire Bolton family to witness my "shame," her triumphant grin instantly vanished. She hadn't caught me with a low-life thug. She had caught me straddling Demetrius Maddox, the ruthless Iron King of Chicago. The air in the room dropped to absolute zero. My grandmother screamed in horror, and my father turned the color of ash. Hailey, blinded by jealousy, tried to double down. She pointed a manicured finger at the deadliest man in the city and called him a "nameless muscle" I picked up to defile the family name. She didn't realize she had just signed her own death warrant. I didn't cower. I realized this was the only chance to survive the family that wanted me dead. I walked up to the Devil himself, my body still humming with the poison, and looked him in the eye. "Kill me, and the cold inside you wins," I whispered, knowing he was dying from the inverse of my own poison. "I am the only doctor who knows how to cure you." Demetrius tightened his hand around my throat, his dark eyes assessing my worth. "Prove it," he growled. I turned back to my trembling cousin and signaled the enforcer to hand me the whip.

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 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.

Camille Laurent was stolen at birth. Swapped by a greedy nanny, abandoned without a second thought, and erased from her rightful place in one of the most powerful families in the country. While the real heiress struggled to survive, the nanny's daughter, Talia, was raised in luxury as the beloved jewel of the Laurent family, pampered by Camille's parents, adored by her three brothers, and even promised to the prestigious Matteo Devereux through a childhood engagement arranged by their grandparents. Then the truth came out. Six months ago, Camille was finally brought back to the Laurent family. To protect the family reputation and prove their devotion to their bloodline, the Laurent patriarch transferred 35% of his personal shares into Camille's name overnight, instantly making her one of the wealthiest heiresses in the country. It brought anxiety to all the Laurent family. But what they don't know.is that Camille never needed them. Behind her elegant smile lies a woman filled with secrets powerful enough to shake the whole family. She's a miraculous healer capable of curing the incurable poisons. Yet despite everything, her family still chooses Talia. Every accusation against Talia is forgiven. Every scheme against Camille is brushed aside. Even Matteo, the man who was supposed to be Camille's fiancé-cannot let go of the woman he always believed belonged by his side. But while the Laurent family underestimates Camille, another man begins to see exactly who she is. Dante Moretti. The ruthless heir of an old-money dynasty. A billionaire CEO worshipped by the public.and the merciless king of a criminal empire hidden beneath the city's glittering surface. When Dante is poisoned by a rival syndicate with a deadly toxin no doctor can cure, he offers a fortune for anyone who can save him. Only Camille can. Their deal is simple: she becomes his personal physician, and he gives her anything she wants.

Liana DeLuca grew up in silence, obeying every rule under her uncle's strict church roof. So when he forces her into marriage with a known mafia playboy, her world flips upside down. Matteo Romano is sin in human form and she wants no part of him. But Matteo isn't used to hearing "no." He's tasted every kind of pleasure life offers... except a woman like Liana. She's untouched, unbothered, and completely unimpressed by his power. He wants her. She wants him to beg. In a world full of secrets, violence, and desire, Liana finds herself pulled deeper into the underworld and deeper into Matteo's arms. But can love survive where lies were the foundation? Or will Matteo's past burn down the only good thing he's ever wanted?

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

Three days before the wedding. I was hiding in the dressing room, watching my fiancé caress the swollen belly of another woman. Luca, the man who had saved my life five years ago, was smiling at his mistress, Sofia. But the real knife to the heart wasn't the affair—it was the dress. The custom wedding gown he had "lovingly" ordered for me featured intricate silver embroidery along the hem. It didn't spell Elena. It read Sofia. He was planning to make me walk down the aisle wearing his mistress's name. Later that night, I found a video of him mocking me to his crew, calling me a "dead fish" and admitting he only wanted my family's Capo status. He planned to keep his "true love" on the side while I played the role of the oblivious, ornamental wife. He thought I was just a sheltered princess. He forgot that my bloodline was built on vengeance. I didn't cry. I didn't confront him. Instead, I scrubbed his scent off my skin and dialed a number everyone in Chicago feared. "The pact with the Cavallaro family," I asked my father, my voice cold as stone. "Is it still valid?" "Dante is the Underboss now," my father warned. "He is a butcher. He breaks men for sport." "Good," I replied. "I am done playing with boys." I secretly booked the Gold Ballroom across the hall from my original venue. Luca thought he was walking into a marriage on Saturday. He didn't know I was bringing a monster to the altar instead.