Nero Daniels

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.

I was once a well-known feminist activist, but later I became a gold digger and a submissive wife. To earn money for Frank's medical treatment, I married Zachary and became a stepmother to his autistic son, Erik. Former friends criticized me for degrading myself and cut off contact with me. My life became very narrow; I spent my days meticulously caring for Erik and my nights accompanying Zachary through the ups and downs. In the fifth year of our marriage, Erik's biological mother returned. She was a wealthy heiress, a PhD from a prestigious university, stunningly beautiful, and had built a feminist persona on social media, amassing millions of followers. In comparison, I felt dull and uninteresting, and people found me repulsive. So, I decided to file for divorce.

For five years, I was the ghost in the machine, the secret architect of my boyfriend Coleton' s brilliant career. I was "Aura," the anonymous creator of our company's billion-dollar software, and I used my hidden influence to make him the star project lead in a new city 1,500 miles away. I did it all for us, for the future we were supposed to build together. But when I finally transferred to his office to surprise him, I found him wrapped up with his new assistant, Kyra-the same girl I' d seen laughing on the back of his motorcycle in a video just days before. He called her his "climbing partner," a friend, nothing more. Then, she made a mistake that cost our company millions. When I confronted her, Coleton didn't hold her accountable. He defended her. In front of the entire executive floor, he turned on me, blaming me for her failure. "If you can't handle the pressure here," he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt, "maybe you should just go back to headquarters." The man whose entire life I had built was firing me to protect another woman. Just as my world shattered, the elevator doors chimed. Our CTO stepped out, his eyes taking in my tear-streaked face and Coleton's furious one. He looked straight at my boyfriend, his voice dangerously quiet. "You have the audacity to speak to the owner of this company in that tone?"

After seven years of marriage, I discovered my billionaire husband Grayson' s will. He was leaving his entire fortune not to me, but to his young protégée, Kira. My life was a lie; I was just a placeholder, a womb for the heir his mistress couldn't carry. When I demanded a divorce, he laughed. "You're pregnant, Elyse. And you think you're just going to walk away with my child?" He tore up the papers, threatening to use his immense power to take our baby. Then Kira, his mistress, showed up at my door, confirming my worst fear: Grayson wanted my child to raise as his and hers. She even sent me a photo of him asleep in her bed, wearing the pajamas I bought him, with a chilling message. "He hopes our baby has a dimple too. For me." I was chosen because I resembled her. My son was meant to be her child. That night, I vanished. The news later reported a pregnant woman, identified by my wedding ring, had died in a clinic fire. But I was already on a plane, my hand on my belly, escaping to a new life.

David Chen, my fiancé, lay dead on top of me, his blood soaking through my clothes. His last words, a whisper against the chaos, echoed in my head: "If there's a next life, let's not be together again... I want to wait for her." For nine years, I had chased his shadow, followed him on dangerous missions, hoping my devotion would break through his icy heart. It never did. He hated me because his childhood sweetheart, Emily, had died, and I was the one left living. His father even spat, "You drove Emily to despair, and you killed David!" Everyone, even my guardian, General Thompson, regretted our forced engagement, blaming me. I regretted it most of all, feeling like a disaster magnet, destroying so many lives with my selfish, naive love. The irony was a bitter taste: I had survived, and he was gone. So, I prepared to grant his wish and finally disappear. I stood on the Golden Gate Bridge, the wind whipping my hair, the water dark and final below. Closing my eyes, I let myself fall, embracing the end. But the impact never came. Instead, I jolted awake in my own bed, sunlight streaming in. My phone buzzed, and the date on the screen made my heart stop: the day before our engagement party. I was back. This time, I wouldn't make the same mistake. This time, I would set them all free.

I married the most ruthless Don in Chicago, but not for love, money, or power. I married Luca Falcone because he was the only man on earth who carried the same DNA as his dead identical twin, Dante—the love of my life. For three years, I played the role of the submissive, obsessed wife. I endured his coldness. I cooked for his mistress, Sofia. I even stayed silent when Sofia pushed me down a flight of stairs in a jealous rage, nearly killing me. Luca thought I stayed because I was weak. He thought the way I stared at his face was adoration. He never realized I was looking right through him, seeing the ghost of the brother he could never live up to. But the moment the second pink line appeared on the pregnancy test, my mission was complete. I had secured the heir. I had brought a piece of Dante back to the world. The vessel was no longer needed. I signed the divorce papers, packed my bags, and vanished into the night while Luca was busy with his mistress. When he finally tracked me down months later, broken and begging on his knees for me to come home, I didn't feel a thing. I looked down at the man who thought he was a King and delivered the final blow. "I never loved you, Luca. I married you for the sperm."

For two years, I played the role of the "Midwestern mistake," the mousey wife Julian Ford-Sterling IV kept hidden like a shameful secret. I hid my true self behind thick glasses and ashen foundation, acting as the perfect, cowed charity case while he lived a life of marble and indifference. The day our marriage contract ended, the headlines were already screaming about his affair with Hollywood’s sweetheart, Lana Vane. Julian didn't even grant me a final conversation; he simply sent his legal team to hand me divorce papers that gave me nothing—no alimony, no shares, just a non-disclosure agreement and a one-way ticket out of his life. I signed the papers and walked away, but a drugged encounter in a dark club that same night led me back into his arms. We collided in the shadows, two strangers stripped of their titles, but I fled before dawn, accidentally leaving behind my vintage silver locket. By the time I reached my secret design studio the next morning, I discovered Julian had executed a hostile takeover of my entire life’s work. To my horror, Lana Vane was already there, clutching my stolen locket and shamelessly claiming she was the woman Julian had spent the night with. Julian stood before me in his charcoal suit, looking at me with total lack of recognition. To him, I was just a "gold-digging" architect he had bought along with the furniture. I watched them together, the man who had discarded me and the woman who had stolen my identity, realizing that Julian was obsessed with the genius of "Rose" while despising the woman who stood right in front of him. He had no idea that the wife he’d just divorced was the very person he was now desperate to control. I straightened my spine, my violet-blue eyes cold and lethal behind my new designer frames. "Mr. Ford-Sterling, you wanted the best designer in the city? You’ve got her. But you should know—I don't just build empires. I know exactly how to tear them down."

My daughter Lily hadn't seen her father in five years, so her joyful cry of "Daddy!" echoed through the sterile mansion as she ran to him. But his eyes were not for her. Jessica Hayes, his "one true love," stood beside him, her feigned trip and cry sending him into a panic. He scooped her up, his face contorted with concern, then shot a venomous look at our innocent five-year-old. "Lock her in the master bedroom closet. Three days. No food." My blood ran cold. "Ryan, no! Please, you can't!" "She has asthma, Ryan. She'll suffocate!" He scoffed, accusing me of lies and manipulative ploys. The guards, impervious to my pleas, ripped Lily from my arms. "Mommy! Mommy, I'm sorry!" she shrieked, carried away. That night, her terrified cries faded to desperate whimpers. "Please, Mommy... can't... breathe..." I pounded on the door until my fists were raw, screaming for them to let her out. The whimpers stopped. The closet door opened. Lily lay there, blue, not moving, not breathing. Unconscious from lack of oxygen. The ambulance siren wailed as I sank to the waiting room floor. My phone buzzed. It was Instagram. Jessica Hayes, pouting in a hospital bed with a tiny scratch. Her caption: "Mr. Peterson is so generous! I only scraped my knee and he gave me two luxury apartments as compensation. I guess I'll forgive you now~" Geotagged from a luxury hospital across town. Where our daughter wasn't. He gifted her apartments for a scraped knee, while our child suffocated. A cold numbness spread through me. "Grandma," I whispered, bowing my head to Mrs. Peterson. "Love cannot be forced. Please... let him be with Jessica. I just want to take Lily and leave." My fresh wounds throbbed, tears mixing with blood. I showed her the post, the address of our marital home given away. Mrs. Peterson's face blazed with fury. "That scoundrel! That worthless boy!" "Call that bastard and tell him to get his ass to this hospital immediately!" But it was too late. If Grandma's scolding worked, Lily would never have been locked in that closet.

The world ended on a Tuesday afternoon. One moment, I was building blocks with my five-year-old son, Leo; the next, our home bucked and collapsed around us, trapping us in a coffin of splintered wood and concrete. Pinned in the darkness, I whispered reassurances to Leo, my body shielding his, even as I felt the immense weight above us. But then Leo whimpered, his voice thin: "My leg hurts." My heart seized. His left leg was caught, crushed under a concrete beam, and I was utterly helpless. Every scream for help was swallowed by the tons of debris. Just as despair threatened to consume me, I heard it: familiar voices. Sarah was there, my wife, a top ER physician, coordinating the rescue. Hope surged, a dizzying, wild thing. "SARAH!" I bellowed with every last ounce of breath. "SARAH, IT'S DAVID! LEO IS WITH ME!" Through a tiny crack, I saw her, ten feet away. But then another voice, closer to her, cried out: "Sarah… over here…" It was Mark Johnson, her "soulmate" from college, the reason our marriage had been a hollow shell. I watched, disbelieving, as she rushed to him, ignoring my desperate pleas, prioritizing his broken arm over our son' s crushed leg. She commanded rescue workers to save him, then scooped his uninjured son into her arms, walking right past us without a second glance. The child, Ethan, even lied to her face, confirming we weren't there, and she believed him. The betrayal was a cold, hard blow, leaving me with a terrifying realization: she had heard me, chosen him, and now, my son might pay the ultimate price for her choice. My son was going into shock, and I knew, with chilling certainty, that this act of abandonment would shatter our lives forever.

The launch party for my wife' s tech startup was a whirlwind, but then the smoke started. A rigged collapsed, a fire erupted. I saw Jennifer, my wife of twelve years, instinctively shield her prized intern, Ethan, and drag him to safety, abandoning me as the world went dark. I woke up a month later in the ICU, my lungs ravaged. The first thing I saw was a message from Jennifer. My heart fluttered with foolish hope. "Ethan is recovering at home," it read, "he's craving that clam chowder you make. Drop some off for him." Not a single "How are you?" or "I'm glad you're alive." Just a demand. A chore. For him. Something inside me, twelve years of devotion, finally snapped. I canceled our expensive IVF appointment and booked a one-way trip to Iceland. Jennifer called, not concerned for my health, but enraged about the money and the IVF. She called me jobless, worthless, and praised Ethan as "brilliant" and "forward-thinking." Then I found the single rose she sent me, a stark contrast to the 999 roses Ethan flaunted on Instagram. Hours later, I returned home from the hospital to changed locks and a used condom in our bedroom trash. The man she wanted, the one who would beg, was gone. My love had turned to ash. I calmly called a divorce lawyer. This wasn't just about betrayal; it was about finally choosing myself.

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.

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

I 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.

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.

MAFIA RUTHLESS: BOOK ONE ************* ************ *********** The devil's captive became his heart's keeper. *************** *********** *********** Revenge! The only thing the strong ,powerful and ruthless mafia don Alessandro Moretti has harboured for years. When he discovers the identity of his mother's killer,he doesn't go after the man alone. He wants everything belonging to Giovanni Conti burnt to the ground,including his most valuable possession-his daughter. Auctioned off by her uncle to the highest bidder,Isabelle Conti's fate is sealed. Not until masked gunmen crash her wedding,and she wakes up in the don's den. She becomes his captive. His obsession...His willing prey. His weapon of vengeance. Isabelle Conti turns out to be different from the others,this time around she doesn't want his affection...she needs his downfall. And when she finally has him where she wants him and she's torn between her feelings and surrendering to the ruthless don. One question threatens to destroy everything, Have you ever loved me?

"Don't die on me, Tom, I can't lose you for the second time. It will ruin me." Vivienne said desperately, holding his sweaty face in her hands. Tom hid his pain and smiled up at her. "There are too many filthy fantasies of you and I in my head that I'm yet to carry out. I won't forgive myself if I die, Vee." She couldn't look away... ~ For Eight years, Vivienne lost her light after the death of her teenage lover, Tristan Bennett. Forced to engage his cruel stepbrother based on based on family's agreement, she made the decision to flee on their wedding day. Now, hidden in a city where no one knows her name, she sort for a new job only for her to discover that her new billionaire boss was her lover who died eight years ago. He doesn't remember her. He bears another name. And he has another woman now? Not any ordinary woman-A dangerous mafia lord's daughter who happens to be obsessed with him. But Tristan, now known as Tom in his new mafia world wants to bail out, and he needs a contract marriage with a new woman to leave his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne agreed to the marriage contract with every intention to help him get back his past memories. But what happens when all circumstances surrounding them threatens to sabotage her efforts? Tom's cruel stepbrother who wanted Vivienne than breath itself-His Mafia boss, and his obsessive girlfriend. Vivienne must risk danger and death to be with her lover again. But some problems are far too complicated with many secrets to solve, and Vivienne is about to find out.

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

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

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.