Polly

My little brother’s heart monitor was screaming its final warning. I called my husband, Dante Volkov, the ruthless underworld king whose life I’d saved years ago. He had promised to send his elite medical team. “I’m handling an emergency,” he snapped, then hung up. An hour later, my brother was dead. I found out what Dante’s “emergency” was from his mistress’s social media. He had sent his team of world-class surgeons to deliver her cat’s kittens. My brother died for a litter of cats. When Dante finally called, he didn't even apologize. I could hear her voice in the background, asking him to come back to bed. He even forgot my brother was dead, offering to buy him a new toy to replace the one his mistress deliberately crushed. This was the man who had promised to protect me, to make my high school tormentors pay. Now, he was holding that very tormentor, Seraphina, in his arms. Then came the final blow: a call from the clerk's office revealed our seven-year marriage was a sham. The certificate was a forgery. I was never his wife. I was just a possession he was tired of. After he left me to die in a car crash for Seraphina, I made one call. I texted a rival mob heir I hadn't spoken to in years: "I need to disappear. I'm calling it in."

Aliyah Pollard POV: For six years, my husband, Chase, refused to divorce me, gaslighting me while he built a new family with his mistress, Faye. After 99 failed attempts, I was ready for my 100th try. But the man I met in the park wasn't my cold, cheating husband. It was Chase from ten years ago-eighteen, idealistic, and still madly in love with me. He didn't understand why I looked so sad, why I flinched from his touch. He didn't know about the affair, the miscarriage Faye caused, or the child they now had together. He saw the divorce papers and his world shattered. "I would never hurt you, Aliyah," he cried, his young eyes filled with genuine anguish. "I love you." His pain was a stark contrast to the cruelty of the man he would become. The older Chase had sneered, "You're mine, Aliyah. Who would want you?" But this boy, this pure version of my husband, saw my suffering and didn't hesitate. He took the pen, his hand shaking, and signed the papers his future self had refused for years. "If this is what you need," he whispered, "I'll do it."

"I'm sure about this. I want to volunteer." Ava Williams looked the program director in the eye, her voice steady, determined to commit two years in a conflict zone. Inside, her heart was a mess, but she had to do this. Then, a fire truck screamed past, its siren wailing, and suddenly, she was a child again, trapped in a burning home. Her parents were gone, but a young man, Liam, scooped her into his arms, whispering, "It's okay. I've got you. I'll always have you." That promise became the foundation of her world. She grew up, and her gratitude for Liam, her legal guardian, transformed into love. On her eighteenth birthday, she confessed, "I love you. Not like a sister." He froze, his expression cold. "I am your brother. Your guardian. Don't ever say that again." After that night, a wall went up between them. She didn't give up. Every time she came home, she would tell him again, "I still love you, Liam." And every time, without hesitation, he would shut her down. "Ava, stop. It's never going to happen." His rejection was a constant, painful beat in the rhythm of her life. Then he brought Sophia Miller home. "She's my fiancée," he announced. The word hit Ava with the force of a physical impact. She watched them together, saw the open affection he had never given her. That night, she listened to sounds of intimacy from his bedroom, a thousand tiny cuts on her soul. Why was the man who saved her, who promised to always have her, now rejecting her, denying her love, and choosing someone else? How could the gratitude and dependence she carried for him turn into such a bitter and painful burden? An eerie calm settled over her. The hope she had clung to for so long was finally, completely dead. She had to leave.

For five years, deep space was my home, and the silent, humming dark was my constant companion as Captain of the U.S. Space Force vessel Odyssey. But the silence from Earth was a different kind of burden. My mother, Senator Annabel Clark, was a force of nature, her weekly messages a lifeline of D.C. gossip and advice, often spiced with my sister Stella' s chaotic teenage energy. Then, they just stopped. My father's sterile updates mumbled about "chronic illness" and "privacy," but it felt horribly wrong. So, I used my Captain's clearance – a privilege rarely abused – to redirect a surveillance satellite toward our family estate in Washington D.C., looking not for signs of illness, but for signs of life. The feed came through, crisp and clear, showing sprawling lawns lit up, tents erected, an orchestra playing. It was a huge party. My blood ran cold. I zoomed in. There, on the main veranda, stood my father, Matthew Roberts, beaming. Beside him, my breath hitched: Sabrina Johns, his high school flame. And between them, a girl in a lavish white gown. Molly, Sabrina' s daughter. They were holding a debutante ball. This was a flagrant, public declaration. A coup. They were celebrating in my mother's house while she and Stella were silent. A burning thought ignited, consuming every ounce of anticipation the trip home should have held: They were in my mother' s house. I stormed to the comms station, unleashing a command that would send a silver needle back to the heart of the world I'd left behind. My family couldn't wait.

The last time I saw my sister, Tiffany, she shoved me in front of a semi-truck. Now, I' m back, reborn, watching her try to drug the ruthless Vegas magnate, Damian Blackwood. This time, I didn't stop her. I even helped, booking the penthouse, just so I could finally watch her crash and burn. But when Damian' s men seized me, not Tiffany, my meticulously crafted revenge plot shattered. He thought I was her, Mistook my unique birthmark for hers, and exacted a terrifying "punishment" that left me pregnant. I was desperate to escape Tiffany's disaster, only to realize I was now trapped in my own. As Tiffany' s delusional claims of marriage and a fake pregnancy spiraled into a lawsuit from Blackwood, I discovered my own terrifying secret. Moments after realizing I was truly pregnant and my life was ruined, Damian' s chief of staff approached me not as an accomplice, but with a question. Then, a revelation: my birthmark was the key to my true identity. I wasn't Chloe, the family failure, but Chloe Van Astor-the long-lost heiress of a rival dynasty, betrothed to Damian from birth. My tormenting "parents" and Tiffany were arrested for kidnapping and fraud, their cruel charade exposed. Damian, the man who nearly destroyed me, emerged as my destined partner. Now, he' s sealed off the Las Vegas Strip, making a public spectacle of his proposal, ready to claim me and our unborn child. My past is over. My real life, as Mrs. Blackwood, begins now.

I was back, standing at my own opulent wedding reception in the Hamptons, surrounded by the clinking of champagne glasses and whispers of the wealthy. Just moments before, I' d been bleeding out on wet asphalt, the last sound I heard my wife Chloe and her lover Carter laughing, discussing my ten-million-dollar life insurance policy. They' d mocked me as "a broke kid from Queens, a scholarship project," after I'd given them my talent, my loyalty, my very life. Now, reborn at this fateful moment, Chloe stood before me, her hand still stinging my cheek from a vicious, public slap, her face a mask of fury. The humiliation continued as my groundbreaking M&A project was publicly handed to Carter, his smug grin twisting my past all over again. Then, Chloe offered me a "health" smoothie, a seemingly kind gesture I now knew was a slow, mind-numbing poison designed to make me believe I was losing my sanity. The sheer depravity of their long-term scheme, making me doubt my own competence and worth, solidified into a frigid rage. How could I have been so blind, so trusting, to the depths of their calculated cruelty and endless betrayal? But this time, my heart wasn't beating with love or fear; it thrummed with a cold, steady drumbeat of resolve. They gave me a coffin in my first life. In this one, I would build them a trap so perfect, they wouldn't see it until the doors locked behind them.

The annual "Vintage Harvest Charity Ball" was meant to be a crowning jewel for the Miller family, a night of proud philanthropy and confirmed alliances. Instead, it became the stage for my public execution. My fiancée, Victoria Lexington, snatched the microphone, her smile frozen, her eyes devoid of warmth. In front of a stunned ballroom of California' s elite, she declared she' d found "authentic love" with a bronzed fitness influencer, Chase Ryder, publicly dumping me and shattering decades of Miller family honor. My blood ran cold as whispers turned to a roaring judgment, humiliation searing into every fiber of my being. Headlines screamed "LEXINGTON HEIRESS DUMPS MILLER SCION AT FAMILY GALA!" and the weight of public spectacle, coupled with the profound sting of personal betrayal, was suffocating. Then, in a truly grotesque twist, Tori's father, desperate to salvage his crumbling business ties, offered me his other daughters-like spare parts for a broken deal, adding insult to profound injury. How could someone so casually burn everything down, yet brazenly provoke us further, twisting reality to paint themselves as the wronged party? Their continued taunts, their unapologetic audacity, only fueled the fire, transforming my heartbreak into a simmering, ice-cold rage. The public seemed to side with their "authentic love" narrative, leaving me alone in the fallout. But my grandfather, Arthur Miller, spoke of "pruning diseased branches" and protecting the vineyard, transforming a public humiliation into a cold, dangerous promise. This wasn't just about a broken engagement. It was a calculated declaration of war against the Millers, and I was about to unleash the quiet, ruthless power of my family' s way. Now, it was my turn to redefine the terms of engagement and cultivate a future on my own terms.

I was heading into senior year, my ROTC scholarship practically a guarantee, my future stretching out bright and limitless. Then, my childhood friend and first love, Mike, fueled by jealousy and his new girlfriend Jessica' s petty spite, drugged my drink. It was right before my crucial ROTC physical, and I failed, watching my dreams and entire future evaporate. My life spiraled into dead-end jobs, a miserable existence far from what I' d planned. Years later, at a party, Jessica, still simmering with a twisted hatred, set her friends on me. I remembered the rough hands, the tearing, the cold, hard floor against my cheek as their cruel laughter filled the air. They stripped away everything, then they killed me. The searing pain, the utter betrayal, the image of their faces twisting with delight as I lay dying - it was an agonizing, incomprehensible end. Why? How could they commit such an unspeakable act, then simply walk away? But then, I woke up, gasping, in my own bed, three years in the past, my body miraculously whole and untouched. Reborn. A terrifying realization struck me with the force of a physical blow: what if they were back too? At the first school assembly, Mike' s arrogant smirk and Jessica' s cold, knowing eyes confirmed my worst fears. They remembered. But this time, I wouldn't just survive; I would ensure they paid for every last bit of what they did. The game was on, and this time, I was ready to win.

My world shattered when the call came: my beloved father was gone. But even as grief consumed me, my husband, Mark, dealt a cruel blow. He skipped the funeral, prioritizing his "friend" Tiffany-a woman whose endless dramas always seemed to come first. Returning home from Maine, heartbroken and exhausted, he casually asked me to cook chicken soup for Tiffany because she was "not feeling well." That was the moment I realized I wasn't just a wife or a grieving daughter; I was merely his live-in chef for another woman. Then, Tiffany began to appear everywhere. She took over my desk at my old job, openly supported by Mark, who claimed I wasn't "using it much anyway." She even clung to him at my own farewell party, while Mark made endless excuses for her sensitive needs. The casual contempt in Mark's eyes, his constant choice of her over my profound pain, was the final, cold confirmation: I was utterly discarded, an inconvenience in my own life. How could he be so blind? So utterly consumed by someone else's petty crises while my entire world fell apart? Why did he never see the depth of my despair, or the silent resolve hardening within me? But their casual cruelty became my catalyst. That night, instead of mourning what was lost, I meticulously planned my escape. I printed divorce papers, discreetly tucking them beneath some mundane volunteer forms. The very next day, I had Mark sign them, unknowingly sealing his own fate as he rushed off to Tiffany's latest "emergency." I left without a word, driving towards Maine, towards my father's dream, and a new life he could no longer ruin.

I was brought to this world by a system to conquer Jaxton in a book. If I can't make Jaxton fall in love with me, the system will erase me. My body slowly rots and decays, eventually turning into a pool of blood with no bones left. In the last few days of my life, I told him that I was dying and begged him to love me. He coldly replied, "Then go ahead and die." Later, when I was really dying, he cried and begged me to stay alive.

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

I was the "Caged Canary" of the underworld, a biological asset designed to merge two crime families. My fiancé, Bryant Barnes, didn't love me. He loved the power I brought, and he loved his mistress, Kalia. The night Kalia broke into my penthouse and stomped on my hand, crushing the bones and my fashion career, Bryant didn't help me. He told the police she was my guest and warned me not to embarrass him with a cast. That was just the beginning. When Kalia lied about feeling unsafe, Bryant dangled me off a balcony. When she faked a kidnapping, he locked me in an industrial freezer for six hours until I turned blue. And when I fell into the marina, he swam right past me to save her, leaving me to drown in the freezing water. He destroyed my body and my dignity for a woman who was stealing my designs and faking a pregnancy. He thought I was just a broken obligation he could discard. But he made a fatal mistake. He didn't make sure I was dead. I dragged myself out of the water and made a call to his greatest rival. On the night of our grand merger, I walked onto the stage wearing royal blue instead of white. I rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scars he gave me, looked him dead in the eye, and grabbed the microphone. "I hereby terminate my engagement to Bryant Barnes. And I am proud to announce my betrothal to the true King of this city."

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 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 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."

On our fifth anniversary, my husband slid a black velvet box across the table. Inside wasn't a diamond ring, but a fountain pen. "Sign the separation papers, Aurora," Ethan said. "Ilene is spiraling again. She needs to see we are over." I was the wife of the Mafia Underboss, yet I was being discarded for the Family Ward. Before I could answer, Ilene stormed into the restaurant. She shrieked that I was still wearing his ring and threw a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly at my chest. As my skin blistered and peeled, Ethan didn't rush to me. He hugged her. "It's okay," he soothed the woman who had just assaulted me. "I've got you." The betrayal didn't stop there. When Ilene pushed me down the stairs days later, Ethan erased the security footage to protect her from the police. When I was kidnapped by his enemies, I called his emergency line—the one meant for life-or-death situations. He declined the call. He was too busy holding Ilene's hand to save his wife. That was the moment the chain broke. As the kidnapper's van sped onto the highway, I didn't wait for a rescue that would never come. I opened the door and jumped into the dark. Everyone thought Aurora Bruce died on that pavement. Two years later, Ethan stood outside a gallery in Paris, looking at the woman he had destroyed, finally realizing he had protected the wrong one.

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.

One casual visit to her father's study; an unplanned collision with the malevolent Russian Bratva mafia boss plunged her life into a downward spiral. Forced to marry him for an alliance that bordered on keeping her family's business stronger, she had no choice but to accept her fate after an unsuccessful attempt at absconding right before the wedding. But with each new discovery about him, she realized that the masked husband she despised so much had several layers that tugged at her heartstrings, giving her no choice but to fall deeply for him. However, what happens when the dreary and dark secrets from his past resurfaces and threatens to disrupt not just their blooming relationship and his position as Capo, but their existence as well?

I was a Vitiello, sold to the Morettis to secure an alliance. For five years, I quietly loved Dante, counting down the minutes until our wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral. But it ended with a single text three minutes before the ceremony. "Stay at the apartment. Sofia is awake. Don't make a scene." His ex-girlfriend, the love of his life, had woken from a coma with no memory. Just like that, I was erased. For thirty days, I waited in the shadows while Dante played hero to a woman who didn't remember him. He told me he was protecting her fragile mind. But then I found the truth. I stood outside the doctor's office and heard Dante refuse a treatment that would restore Sofia's memory. "If she remembers, she might leave again," Dante told the doctor. "Elena will wait. She's a good soldier. Let me have my fantasy." He wasn't protecting her. He was keeping her broken to feed his ego, banking on my submission. He thought I was furniture he could put in storage. He was wrong. I didn't go back to the apartment. Instead, I dialed a number every made man in New York feared. "Matteo," I said to Dante's lethal older brother, the King of the underworld. "I am done waiting. I want to be a Moretti bride. But not Dante's."

For seven years, I served as the eyes for Dante Vitiello, the blind Capo of New York. I pulled him back from the edge of madness, tending to his wounds and warming his bed when everyone else had given up on him. But the moment his vision returned, the years of devotion turned to ash. In a single phone call, he decided to marry Sofia Moretti for territory, dismissing me as just "the maid's daughter" and a "comfort" he intended to keep as a mistress. He forced me to watch him court her. At a gala, when a chaotic accident caused a tower of champagne glasses to shatter, Dante threw his body over Sofia to protect her. He left me standing there, bleeding from the glass shards, while he carried her away like she was porcelain. He didn't even look back at the woman who had saved his life. I realized then that I had worshipped a broken god. I had given him my dignity, only for him to treat me like a disposable bandage now that he was whole. He arrogantly believed I would stay in the penthouse, grateful for his scraps. So, while he was out celebrating his engagement, I met with his mother. I signed the severance agreement for fifty million dollars. I packed my bags, wiped my phone, and boarded a one-way flight to Australia. By the time Dante came home to an empty bed, realized his mistake, and began tearing the city apart to find me, I was already a ghost.